There, right in front of my eyes, she burst into tears. She covered her face with both hands and blubbered. “I don’t know if I can go through with this. Do you really think Charlie’s the right guy for me? I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this. You’re his sister, for Christ sake. I don’t know what to do. I can’t stop thinking I’m making a terrible mistake.”

I stared at her with my mouth open. “Are you serious?”

She nodded so fast the tears flew of her cheeks. “I mean, I love Charlie and all. He’s the most perfect guy I can imagine, but marriage is supposed to be forever, right? What if I make a mistake? Or what if Charlie makes a mistake? What if I’m certain and he’s not? What if it all turns pear-shaped? What if the wedding is a disaster and I’m humiliated in front of everyone?”

I swallowed hard. I had to pull this situation together if it was the last thing I did. “Hey, hey, hey. Take it easy, girlfriend. Let’s just take a few deep breaths and think this thing through before we jump to any hasty conclusions.”

Her eyes snapped to my face, and I understood everything. The bridesmaids, the maid of honor, even the groom and the groomsmen all had their busy lives pulling them away from her. She was left alone with all her doubts and fears and worst-case scenarios. All she needed was a little reassurance, a little support.

I swiveled around in the car seat and took hold of her shoulders. “Now listen to me, Mandy. I want you to think real hard about this. Are you certain Charlie’s the man for you? Forget all that other stuff about the wedding turning into a disaster and you being humiliated in front of everyone. Just put aside the possibility that he might decide you’re not the right woman for him. Just think about you. Are you sure, in your own mind, that he’s the right guy?”

“Well, yeah, but what about...?”

I cut her off. “Don’t even start with ‘but what about.' You’re sure. That’s all you need to worry about. You let Charlie take care of Charlie, and the rest of the wedding will be just fine.”

She sniffed. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure. Now come on. We’ve got a fitting to get to.”

She dragged her wrist over her face. “Vic?”

“What, babe?”

“Do you really think there’s one right person in the world for everyone?”

I stared out the front windshield at nothing. My answer to that changed so many time over the last few months, I wasn’t sure what to say. Did I really think Brady Townsend was the right man for me?

I only had to think about one thing to answer that question: Vegas. Our time in Vegas proved it. He was the right guy for me. I’d bet everything I had on it.

17

Brady

I put the phone down and took another look at the construction plans on the new development project my agent sent over. The project was coming along nicely, even if it did require constant supervision night and day.

Through it all, my mind kept drifting back to Victoria and the baby. I got it all mapped out in my head, just as sure as I had the development under control. I planned to renovate my house, so it wasn’t such a guy pad. I even went down to the local jewelry store and picked out the most perfect diamond for the ring.

Planning to pop the question to Victoria was the easy part. Anytime the construction project started to get on my nerves, all I had to do was lean back in my chair and imagine proposing to her. I would hand her a bunch of long-stemmed roses and ask her to make me the happiest man in the world—like she hadn’t already. That scene calmed me right down every time.

Planning how to break the news to Charlie and the rest of the family—well, that was a different kettle of fish. To begin with, I couldn’t say anything until well after the wedding. I didn’t want to steal Charlie’s thunder by shifted the attention to Victoria and me when everyone should be celebrating him and Mandy.

Then there was the little detail of Victoria being pregnant. Once the news broke, the family would count on their fingers and figure out we did around the time of the engagement party. They would calculate we were screwing around when we should have been supporting the bride and groom.

Not to mention the other bomb that I messed around with Victoria back in college and even as far back as high school. Charlie would explode. Explode didn’t begin to cover it. He would disown me. He would probably knock me out. He would do everything to make sure I never came near his sister again. Was this thing really worth losing my oldest friend?

Heaven knows I spent enough time over the last weeks thinking about it. I decided to propose to Victoria after Charlie and Mandy came back from their honeymoon. All the commotion of the wedding would die down, and I could have a nice heart-to-heart with Charlie. Maybe I could satisfy him with knocking me out. Maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t come after me with a double-barreled shotgun.

Enough about that. Now I’d go back to thinking about the actual proposal. Don’t think about the negatives. Focus on the positives. That was the best strategy.

So that’s why I left the ring at home when I went out to the rehearsal and the dinner afterward. I wasn’t planning on proposing to her then. Mistake number one. I showed up to the rehearsal, but I

didn’t see Victoria anywhere. She and Mandy and Helena and all the bridesmaids were sequestered in a separate part of the hall—sequestered for real this time, unlike the bachelor and bachelorette parties where we were all just pretend sequestered.

Charlie and the guys had to go be guys in a different part of the hall. Charlie got flustered putting on his suit. Sam had to tie his bow tie for him ‘because he never wore one before. I took out my own personal tailored tux and put it on while the others tried on their rentals. When I got back into the room, Charlie’s eyes bugged out when he saw me. “Man! You look like you just robbed a bank. You look like Al Capone or something.”

I had to laugh. “That’s what a tailored suit will do for you. You could spend a million dollars on the right suit, and it would still look like chopped liver if you didn’t get it tailored.”

He stared at me like he’d never seen me before in his life. “You really know how to knock them dead, don’t you? I guess that’s one of the perks of living the billionaire lifestyle.”

Tags: Nicole Elliot Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net