Chapter 326: Chapter 328: Mei and Alexander’s Wedding
ARIA’S POV
She wore green.
Her mother had asked her to. Not white.....this wasn’t about white, Mei had said, this is about joy. Wear something that makes you feel like joy. So Aria wore green and Damien wore a dark suit.
They stood in Alexander’s penthouse elevator at six PM on a Saturday, she felt the specific weight of what was about to happen settle in her chest making her feel warm and complete.
"You’re going to cry," Damien said.
"I’m not going to cry."
"You cried at the rehearsal dinner."
"That was allergies."
He looked at her.
She looked at the elevator doors.
"It might be allergies again," she said.
The doors opened.
Alexander had done something extraordinary with the penthouse.
Not excessive. Not the performance of wealth that he was entirely capable of.....she’d seen his Singapore estate in photographs and understood what excessive looked like in his register. This was different. Simple white flowers everywhere. Candlelight. The furniture moved back to create a space that felt like a room people lived in rather than a venue hired for an occasion.
The view through the floor to ceiling windows was the city at dusk doing its best work.....gold and pink and the first lights coming on across the skyline.
She stopped in the doorway and looked at it.
"Oh," she said.
Damien’s hand at her back.
"Yes," he said.
The guests were exactly right.
Richard in the front row in his dark suit looking at the flowers with the expression of a man who had opinions about floral arrangements and was choosing not to voice them. Marcus was beside him, Lucy was in the second row already holding a handkerchief that she absolutely was not going to need which she’d told Aria very firmly in the car.
Julian was there.
She’d known he would be. He’d called Damien three weeks ago from wherever he was....Tokyo this time, or maybe Singapore, the geography of Julian Pierce was impossible to track, and told Damien he would be attending.
He caught her eye from across the room and gave her the specific look he reserved for moments that mattered.
She gave it back.
Mrs Chen was in the back row with her hands folded in her lap.
Aria sat beside Damien in the second row and felt his hand find hers immediately.
Alexander came in first.
She’d seen him in suits a hundred times, he lived in them, wore them the way other men wore skin, completely natural and entirely unremarkable. But tonight was different. Tonight he stood at the front of the room beside the celebrant and looked at the door, his face did something she’d only seen it do a handful of times.
It let go of everything.
The control. The composure. The careful management of what showed and what didn’t. All of it just....gone. And underneath it the actual man. The one who had spent twenty four years looking for a daughter he didn’t know he was looking for. The one who had learned, painfully and at significant cost, the difference between love and possession.
He looked at the door.
Then Mei appeared.
She was wearing the colour of the sky just before dark.....a deep blue that made her look like herself in the most complete way Aria had ever seen. Her hair up. Small flowers in it. The specific grace of a woman who had spent twenty four years carrying everything alone and had finally, carefully, chosen to put something down.
She walked in alone.
She’d been very clear about that. Nobody giving her away. Nobody walking beside her. She was sixty two years old and she was walking to this man with her own feet under her own power.
She walked slowly.
She looked at Alexander.
He looked at her back and felt the room disappeared.
Aria felt it happen.....the specific feeling she’d felt at her own wedding.
She gripped Damien’s hand.
He gripped back.
The vows were short.
Alexander had written his. She could tell because they didn’t sound like anything she’d ever heard him say in a public context.....no polish, no management, just the actual words of a man who had decided to stop performing and say the real thing.
"I spent twenty five years understanding what I did wrong," he said. "What it cost. Who it cost." He looked at Mei. "I’m not going to stand here and promise you I’m perfect. You know I’m not. You’ve always known." He paused. "What I can promise is that I know the difference now. Between holding someone and holding them captive. Between love and control." He held her gaze. "I choose you. Every day. With both hands open."
The room was very quiet.
Mei looked at him.
She said her vows without notes too.
"You asked me once how I was," she said. "Not what I was going to do. Not what it meant. Just.....how I was." She paused. "I hadn’t been asked that in twenty five years." She looked at him steadily. "I’m good, Alexander. For the first time in a long time I’m genuinely good." She paused. "And I intend to stay that way."
Something moved across Alexander’s face, not composure, just...something real.
****
ARIA’S POV
She was not crying.
She was absolutely crying.
She’d given up pretending approximately thirty seconds into Alexander’s vows and now she was just letting it happen quietly with Damien’s hand in hers and Lucy’s handkerchief appearing from the row in front pressed silently into her other hand without a word.
She took it and pressed it to her running nose.
The celebrant said the words.
Alexander and Mei said yes.
Then Alexandra kissed Mei.
Richard made a sound.
She looked at him.
He was looking at his hands.
His jaw was set in the way she knew....the way Damien’s jaw set when he was exercising considerable self control. The Blackwood jaw. The one that meant something was happening underneath that wasn’t going to be shown.
She looked away.
She gave him the moment.
After the couple had exchanged their vows, and everything had settled down. Then it was time for the dinner.
The dinner was at the long table Alexander had set up in the dining room....simple food, good wine, the specific warmth of a small room full of people who actually knew each other.
Marcus gave a toast.
It was six words.
"About time," he said. "Congratulations."
