Six months later…
“This is not how I envisioned this to be, Tyler. I wanted to wait until the spring.”
“I know, but I didn’t want to wait.”
“And you always get what you want, huh?”
He shrugged and gave me that boyish grin that made it hard to be mad at him. I liked the way he always took control, but this might be his craziest idea yet. I’d wanted to wait until after the baby was born to get married. That was the plan. It had been ever since I found out about it, but then Tyler decided that it wasn’t going to do.
“I’ll never say that I get everything I want, but I’ve been told that I can be quite persuasive.”
“Well, I think in this instance you bamboozled me with the idea of a shopping trip. You know that I’ve been looking for things for our son. Now you won’t tell me where we’re going, just that we’re getting married? This isn’t fair, and I still want to go to Marcus Reeve.”
“Would you have come if I would have told you what we were really doing?”
Probably not. I didn’t want to get married when I was as big as a whale. While Tyler insisted that I looked stunning, I could see myself in the mirror, and the last thing I thought about was how glowing I was. I felt awkward in my own skin and now Tyler had sprung this on me. I didn’t want him to remember me this way. I didn’t want this to be the way it was, but I was starting to think that I didn’t have a choice. He’d gotten me on the plane, and after that I was left to worry about what was next. I wanted to marry him more than anything else, but not like this.
“I don’t know, Tyler, but you know that I don’t like surprises. I have work in the morning. I don’t know how you thought this would work.”
“You don’t have any clients that can’t be canceled. I already checked and made arrangements for the rest of the weekend. You do like surprises, but you’re not feeling this one, obviously. I thought you wanted to marry me?”
He had that puppy dog look in his eyes that I knew he did on purpose. Once he’d figured out that I couldn’t say no to it, he made sure that he used it every chance that he got. It drove me crazy, but that was another problem all together.
“Of course I want to marry you, Tyler. We’ve been planning a wedding for months. Remember? What are we supposed to do about all of that now?”
“We’ll still have the wedding. I don’t even care if no one knows that we’re hitched before then or not. We do the wedding for everyone else, but this is for us. When our son is born, I want to make sure that we’re married. I don’t want him born into this world the way that I was.”
I knew then that he was serious about it. I had a good idea of why he felt so strongly, so there was nothing more for me to do but agree with him. If it meant that much to him, how could I deny him such a request? I really just couldn’t, and the truth was that I didn’t want to.
“If it means that much to you, I’ll marry you whenever and wherever you want. It doesn’t matter to me, Tyler, as long as we’re together. I just wanted to be pretty for you. I wanted to lose some of this weight that I’m gaining and get back to how you like me.”
“I don’t like you, Camilla. I love you, and I don’t think I could love and desire you any more than I do right now. You know that, right?”
I was trying to get it through my head. He said it all of the time, but the truth was that it was hard to believe him when I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror. It was hard to rectify that in my head. It was even harder to be as confident as what he was used to, when everything physically was so different. His need hadn’t slowed down, and that helped, but it was harder to feel okay with everything when I was so close to popping.
“I know, Tyler, but that’s just love making you say that. You can’t possibly want to marry me like this.”
He sighed and told me that I was just going to have to trust him. I did, more than I cared to admit to my independent self, but there was still this nagging thought in the back of my head that everything was going to go tits up. I wasn’t going to feed into that negativity, though. I was going to try.
“So what am I wearing, a curtain?”
“You’re really blowing it all out of proportion. You look beautiful, and I wish you could see yourself the way that I do.”
I didn’t want to hear his sweet words. I was sure that it was because I was pregnant. He’d treated me with kid gloves ever since finding out.
“I’ve found you something to wear that I think you’ll like. It’s just like the one that we’ve ordered for our wedding in the spring, but this one will fit you now.”
“While I’m like this?”
I was skeptical because of the cut, but he was positive that it would, though he wouldn’t let me see it until we got there.
“So where are we going?”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of afraid to tell you, because I don’t know if you’re going to like the idea or hate it completely.”
“I’m sure that I won’t hate it.”
“We’re going to Vegas.”
That was not all what I’d expected, but as I looked out the small window, I could see that he was telling the truth. It was hard to miss it from the sky when there was nothing else around it for so many miles. It was dark out and the lights from all of the casinos shone bright. There was no way to miss such a place, not even from way up here in the sky.
“You’re serious?”
“See, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”
“Well, it’s definitely a surprise…”
I wasn’t trying to make him nervous, but I didn’t know what to say about it. It was the biggest cliché there was, running off big and pregnant to get married in Vegas. There was something more to him being there. The place was somewhere that he’d gone to win his fortune a long time ago. He’d taken some seed money that he was supposed to put into starting a company and moved to Vegas for a couple of years. After he multiplied his money tenfold, he got into stocks, which was just another way for him to gamble.
“You know how I feel about this place.”
“I know. I just never thought I would be getting married in a place like this.”
“You hate the idea, don’t you?”
“No, I’m just getting used to the idea is all. I mean, I thought we were going out to dinner and a little shopping. The next thing I know we’re on a plane and now we’re about to get married. You don’t take your time, do you?”
“I don’t remember you being too upset about that any other time.”
His suggestion made me blush, and I couldn’t help but grin at him and give him a kiss. He really did know me too well.
***
“This is where we’re getting married?”
The place was nothing like I’d imagined in my head. Instead of getting married at St. Vincent’s Cathedral, we were going to get married in the Sunshine Church and Hotel. This was not a place that I ever saw myself being. It was not the place that a person would expect a billionaire to want to get married, but Tyler had always been a bit of a no-frills kind of guy. He liked the finer things in life, but coming from nothing, he didn’t have the same airs that others in his position had.
“Yes, is this not fancy enough for you, Doc?”
I shrugged and looked down at the dress that must have cost thousands more because of all of the extra fabric. It seemed wrong to get married there in that dress, but this was how it was going to go, and I was okay with that.
“I told you I don’t care when and where. As long as we’re together, I’ll go anywhere with you, Tyler.”
He grinned and told me that he knew I was the one for him. “You’re always so strong, but a little submissive at the same time.”
“Submissive?”
I didn’t like the word, and he tried to make it sound better, but I knew what he meant. When I was with Tyler, nothing else really mattered. I loved him too much to care where he wanted to marry me. As long as he still wanted to marry me, that was all that mattered. But was I ready to hear ‘submissive’?
“Why does that word bother you so much? Aren’t you mine?”
Tyler had gotten serious all of a sudden. There was such ferocity in his eyes, with a touch of vulnerability. It was then that I realized that I could hurt him just as badly as he was able to hurt me. I didn’t want to, but the idea that he was the one with all of the power went out the window when I saw the depth of his emotion.
“Yes, I’m yours. And you’re mine.”
He grinned and pulled me to him. Tyler was always so gentle on my body, not crushing me against him like he used to. Just then, I wanted him to do that more than anything. I needed it.
“I’m so glad I got you, baby.”
I was glad to have him. After the men that I’d had in my life, especially the last couple, Tyler was like a breath of fresh air. Not to mention that he was literally my savior. There was nothing more that could be said. I owed him everything, and if he wanted to get married here, I was just going to go with it.
“I’m lucky to have you, Tyler. I knew when you came into my office with your bad-boy attitude that I wanted to know what was behind that wall of yours.”
“What did you find?”
“The love of my life. I don’t know what I would have done without you. I would have never gotten away…” I started to choke up with the thought of what he’d done for me. Ever since I’d met him so long ago, he’d been helping me in one way or another. Tyler was like nothing I’d read about him. He was not this monster that he was supposed to be. He was the man I loved more than anything, and it was he who had healed me. I was the doctor, but he was the one with all of the answers.
“You know what you did and what was going to happen. You’ve always made me feel better about everything. I just wanted to be perfect for you.”
Tyler moved to kiss me, and it was in the way that he cradled my head so softly, with his lips so gentle, that told me everything I needed to know, pushing away the last little doubts that I had. “You’re perfect, Camilla. You always have been to me. Are you ready to get married now?”
“There’s nothing that I would rather do more, Tyler. God, I love you.”
~The End~