She could absolutely, positively never discuss that with her great-aunt. So she’d stammered, “We want to be married before our baby is born.”
“That is when I will come visit,” Odette had replied grandly. “In the autumn, when I can meet my great-great-nephew. Zut, that is a lot of greats,” she muttered under her breath.
“But why wait? Why not come now? Alex can send his jet...”
“Oh, can he?” Odette had replied with asperity. “But he cannot cook my omelets or run my restaurant. I cannot leave Mont-Saint-Michel at the height of tourist season. We have yet to get a single bad review and I intend to keep it that way. Euros and good reviews, do you think they grow on trees?”
“Please, Tatie,” Rosalie had whispered. “I need you.”
Her great-aunt had paused. She said in a different voice, “You are sure about this marriage?”
“Of course,” Rosalie said, putting every bit of certainty she could into her voice.
“Then bon courage, ma petite. And I will see you in September.”
Courage and luck. Rosalie would need both today.
For the last three weeks, she and Alex had done everything legally required to wed. They’d procured documents, going to the American Consulate and the lower court, and waited for the banns. They’d signed a prenuptial agreement. At any moment, Rosalie had half expected that something would happen to stop the wedding, or that Alex might change his mind. But nothing had happened, and he hadn’t.
Whenever she was with Alex, she was happy, her brain and body and heart all drugged with desire. Like last week, when he’d taken her to watch a glassblower on Murano. She’d watched the artist roll his fingers over the pole that he placed into the fire, twisting the glass into shapes at the end. She should have been paying attention to the creativity, to
the artistry. Instead, she’d been distracted by Alex’s powerful body sitting close to her own, and the glassblower’s sensual dance of molten glass made her imagine what it would be like to have Alex’s hands moving similarly over her body—over her breasts, her hips, her thighs...
She shivered, remembering.
It was only when she was alone, and it was quiet, like now, that she felt the uncertainty in her heart whenever she remembered Alex’s stark words.
Our marriage won’t be a fairy tale. Not like the poets say.
And no matter how many times Rosalie repeated to herself that she wasn’t a child and didn’t believe in fairy tales anymore, she would remember her parents. They’d had such a loving marriage. Her father, early in the morning before he left on his tractor, had always started a pot of coffee for her mother, so it would be waiting when she woke. Her mother had responded by making his favorite dessert. And every evening, after dinner, her parents had danced to the old record player as they washed dishes together. Her dad would twirl Maman around the small kitchen, crooning old love songs by Bing Crosby and Nat “King” Cole. “La Vie en Rose” had been their particular favorite. Her father would sing it in English. Her mother would sing it in French. They would dance across the worn linoleum, with her mother’s head pressed tenderly against his chest. Sometimes, they would see Rosalie watching, and they’d hold out their arms, pulling her into their tight circle of love.
Her heart hurt to remember.
I will never sing you love songs, Alex had told her. Looking at herself in the mirror, Rosalie suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Was she making the worst mistake of her life?
There was a soft knock at the bedroom door.
“Cara?” She heard Alex’s low voice as the door cracked open. “Are you ready?”
Was she?
Her heart was pounding.
She was doing the right thing, she told herself. She and Alex would be good partners and provide a loving home for their baby. She couldn’t be selfish enough to hold out for romantic love, putting their baby’s future at risk, especially when she no longer believed it would even happen. She took a deep breath.
“Yes. Come in.” Leaving the mirror, she turned to face him. Pools of morning light from the high windows of the bedroom frosted her long bridal veil with gold.
Alex pushed open the door, then gasped when he saw her in the wedding dress. “Rosalie.”
She looked at her future husband in the doorway. He was devastatingly handsome, his muscular body sheathed in a civilized tuxedo that masked the savagery of his powerful physique. But his face was awed as he slowly looked over her wedding dress, his gaze for once utterly devoid of mockery or cynicism.
Clearing his throat, Alex came forward, holding out a flat black velvet box. He opened it. “For you.”
Rosalie’s lips parted as he held up a beautiful diamond tiara that sparkled and shimmered in the morning light.
“This has been in my family for generations.” Setting down the black velvet box, he placed the tiara lightly on her head, crowning her tumbling dark hair and translucent white veil. Stepping back, he looked at her, his dark eyes warm. “Now it is yours.”