311 Wedding preparations(5)
Since Zaria left them in the name of not wanting to be the center of their wars, the women thought about how she must feel being caught in between them.
Of course, they didn’t truly hate each other. Heaven knew why they were so hell set on asserting dominance because they didn’t know either. So as soon as zaria left, Ximena suggested they don’t follow her. She must have left because she couldn’t take their insanity anymore.
“You know, I don’t actually care what role I have at the wedding. Zaria knows she can always count on me.” Ximena was the first to break the ice.
“Neither do I. For the same reason, by the way.” Natalie added.
“That’s exactly why we fight.” Ximena burst into laughter. If they were different, maybe they wouldn’t want to murder each other each chance they got. But putting their physical differences aside, they had more similarities than they would ever admit.
“We don’t have to.” Natalie shrugged, reading Ximena’s mind. “I’ll take the fake wedding. You take the real one. Let’s give our girl some time off so she can rest.”
“Deal.” Ximena stuck out her hand for a shake. “But just so you know, if you try to be her kids’ godmother, I’m throwing you off to Mars.”
Natalie shook her hand with a scoff. “Why would I care about being a godmother when I can be the cool aunt?”
“Fine.” Ximena pouted.
.....
Surprisingly, they could work perfectly well together once they came to an agreement. They opened up about not entirely trusting each other and decided to work with whatever friendliness they had, then they settled on floral arrangements, venue decorations, cake flavors, and invite drafts.
By the time they finally joined Zaria at home, they had everything in order and brought a wedding invite to her for her approval.
“There you are!” She raised her eyebrows when she saw them. She had forgotten all about them when Lucy dropped by for a visit. She peeked at them from over Lucy’s shoulder. “Did you kill each other yet?”
“Unfortunately for you, no we didn’t. That wasn’t nearly as fun as what we did.” XImena answered while Natalie gave her invitation to Luccy.
Zaria had just filled her in on the fake wedding, but she was still puzzled when Natalie gave her a real invite.
She glanced at them then back at Zaria. “You do know you wouldn’t have to do this if you contacted me, right? I would have sent Nathaniel to his grave faster than he can say his mother’s name.”
“And then a vengeful descendant of his would rise in his place and give us hell for eradicating his grandfather.” Zaria explained. Lucy couldn’t argue with that. It was true.
“This is why it has to look like an accident. Let everyone who hears of it think Nathaniel set up a trap for us and it backfired in his face and it’s not our fault that we didn’t get caught up in it.”
Lucy was still worried. “Are you going to go through the trouble of having your hair and makeup done twice? That sounds hectic!”
“It’s not hectic if at the end of it all I get to marry the love of my life.”
“Did someone sprinkle cheese in here?” Ximena pretended to scrunch her nose in response to Zaria’s statement. They all chuckled.
“Do you guys want to see my final choices for a gown?” Zaria stood to show them. They all responded with ‘of course’ but when she led them upstairs, Lucy didn’t move. She grabbed Natalie’s hand before she could make her way past.
“A word?”
“Okay.” Natalie glanced up the stairs at Ximena and Zaria who had rushed away without them and figured they would have a moment before they realized they were alone.
Lucy brought her back to the living room and sat back on the couch with her legs crossed at the knee, while waiting for Natalie to occupy the beanbag before her.
“Do you need anything, aunt?” She swallowed. Lucy did not look like she had pulled her over to catch up.
“The truth.” Lucy demanded. “Why did Nathaniel invite you over?”
“Invite me?” Natalie scoffed.
“I thought it sounded better than kidnap, considering you are his granddaughter after all. Why did he invite you?”
“I assumed Zaria told you everything but…” she took a deep breath. “He wanted me to help him take revenge for what you tried to do to my parents. Since you tried to kill his daughter, he wants to kill yours.”
“I see. What do you have to do?”
Natalie frowned but answered her anyway. “Report every single thing about the wedding. That’s why there are two of them. One is for Nathaniel.”
Lucy observed her body and expression. She was nervous, but she was telling the truth. “What’s in it for you?” She asked.
“Wealth. An immense amount.”
This time, Lucy observed a slight shift in her leg. She was telling the truth, but not all of it. She was hiding something. She stared down at the woman, who didn’t flinch, so she came out with it. “How does he know about Dawn?”
As expected, Natalie couldn’t hold in her shock. She didn’t think that would be found out.
Lucy chuckled. “In case you didn’t know, my son can hack into Fort Knox and no one would find out. So tell me, how the hell does Nathaniel know so much about Dawn?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t tell him about it. It was the other way around.” She shut her eyes for a moment. “Now, do you think it’s time to stop treating your niece like a prisoner under interrogation?”
She uncrossed her legs and took both of Natalie’s hands in hers. “Of course, dear. What was I thinking, scaring you like that?
We have not known each other for a long time but I’m very fond of you, Natalie. That’s putting it mildly. I like you very much. I have never seen my daughter so happy and I know it’s not only because of Desmond and Rosaly, you have a role to play too.”
She played with Natalie’s fingers for a while and when she stopped, the smile had faded on her face. “But that doesn’t mean I have forgotten whose daughter you are or how manipulative your parents are. They will try to use you to get to my daughter and I won’t blame you for that. But if you are going to hold what I did against her, step away from her now and we can part ways peacefully. Try to hurt her and you will be six feet underground faster than you can think about it.”
Natalie pulled her hands back. “This is the last time we will have this conversation. I will never hurt Zaria. Not deliberately, anyway.” She then stood up to join the others, but not without throwing a glance at Lucy over her shoulder. “By the way, you almost did me a huge favor that day. ‘Almost’ being the operative word.”
Lucy couldn’t stop smiling. Was Natalie fed up with her parents too? If that was the case, then it didn’t matter if Ava and Owen stayed alive. Their most prized chess piece was in her hands. Only, she was not a chess piece on her side. She was much more than that.
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