Chapter 311: Chapter 313: The Wedding Preparation
Alexander said quietly, almost to himself: "A cellist."
Everyone looked at him.
He looked up. "For that description. A cello sounds like it’s just....existing in a space." He looked slightly uncomfortable at the attention. "My first wife played. I know the instrument."
A small silence.
Then Damien said: "A cellist."
Celeste wrote it down.
Aria looked at Alexander.
He was looking at his tea.
She thought about a man who had missed twenty four years and was showing up to wedding planning meetings to suggest cellists and notice that his daughter liked simple flowers in a glass.
She thought about catching up.
"Alexander," she said.
He looked up.
"Thank you," she said. "For being here."
He held her gaze.
He nodded once.
He looked back at his tea.
****
DAMIEN’S POV
By one o’clock they had the following agreed:
The estate grounds. East garden. Spring date to accommodate the peonies. A cellist. A colour palette that Celeste had described as soft and unannounced which Aria had said was exactly right. A guest list that was smaller than Celeste had expected for a Blackwood event and that Damien had reduced three times during the meeting when Celeste’s assistant had tried to add names back in.
They also had several things not agreed.
The cake.....Aria wanted something simple. Celeste had shown options. Damien had rejected everything with more than two tiers. Aria had told him he was being ridiculous. He’d told her he wasn’t being ridiculous he was being correct. Mei had intervened.
The seating arrangement...Damien had opinions about where Richard sat. Richard was going to have opinions about where he sat. Celeste had noted this would be a conversation for another day.
The dinner menu....Alexander and Damien had somehow reached a point of extended discussion about a specific fish dish that had lasted eleven minutes and that nobody else had been able to contribute to and that Celeste’s assistant had captured in full because she’d never seen anything like it.
Celeste was packing up her presentation.
She looked, Damien thought, like a woman who had been through something significant and was processing it with professionalism.
"This was very...." She paused. "Productive," she said finally.
"Good," Damien said.
"I’ll have revised proposals to you by Friday." She looked at Aria. "You have very clear taste."
"Thank you," Aria said.
"And you...." Celeste looked at Damien. "You have very clear opinions about her taste."
"Yes," he said.
"That’s...." She paused. "Actually that’s quite rare." She said it like she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She gathered her things and left with her assistants trailing behind her.
Marcus appeared in the doorway after they’d gone.
He looked at the room. At the notepad on the coffee table. At Mei and Alexander on one sofa and Aria beside Damien on the other.
"How did it go," he said.
"We have peonies," Aria said.
"And a cellist," Alexander said.
"And a disagreement about the cake that hasn’t been resolved," Mei said.
"Two tiers is sufficient," Damien said.
"It’s your wedding..." Mei started.
"Two tiers," Damien said.
Marcus looked at the notepad.
He looked at Damien.
He said nothing.
He went back into the hallway.
Aria looked at Damien beside her.
"You had a notepad," she said.
"I was prepared."
"You researched."
"I wanted to be useful."
She looked at him for a long moment.
The man who had built an empire and ran it with cold terrifying efficiency and had spent a Thursday morning arguing about flower varieties and cake tiers and sitting arrangements for his grandfather.
For her.
For the day that was going to be theirs.
She reached up and kissed him.
Not elaborately. Just....simply. The way you kissed someone when words were insufficient.
He kissed her back.
"Two tiers," he said against her mouth.
"We’ll discuss it," she said.
"That means you think I’m wrong."
"It means we’ll discuss it."
Mei stood up across the room. "I’m getting more tea," she said to no one in particular. "Alexander, come and help."
Alexander stood and followed her out with the look of a man who understood he was being given a direction and was choosing to accept it.
The sitting room was quiet.
Damien looked at Aria.
"Are you happy," he said. "With how it’s going."
She looked at the sitting room. The presentation pages spread on the coffee table. His notepad with its handwritten pages. The tea cups. The specific comfortable disorder of a room that had been full of people deciding things that mattered.
She thought about the east garden. Peonies. A cellist playing like they were just existing in the space. The day that was going to belong to them completely.
"Yes," she said.
He looked at her face.
"Good," he said.
He picked up the notepad.
She looked at him.
"The cake," he said. "I’m going to make my case properly."
She laughed.
She took the notepad out of his hands.
"Two tiers," she said, reading his notes. "Structural integrity. Proportional to guest list." She looked up at him. "You wrote structural integrity."
"It’s a valid consideration."
"For a cake."
"For any structure."
She handed the notepad back.
"Fine," she said. "Two tiers."
He looked at her.
"Really," he said.
"You made your case," she said. "I’m persuaded."
He looked at the notepad. Then at her.
"You’re not persuaded," he said. "You’re letting me have it."
"Is there a difference."
He looked at her for a moment.
Something moved across his face. That thing. The one that lived next to a smile and was better than a smile because it was rarer.
"No," he said. "I suppose there isn’t."
She leaned against him.
He put his arm around her.
They sat with the wedding plans spread around them and the sound of Mei’s voice from the kitchen telling Alexander something with great authority and the estate quiet and warm outside and the east garden somewhere beyond the window where the peonies were going to be in spring.
She thought about the bench. The morning. The ring.
She thought about how much had happened to get here.
She closed her eyes.
It was worth every single piece of it.
