Chapter 32

Tanner

The wedding bells are ringing in the cathedral overhead, and the smell of freshly-cut roses is in the air. I’ve donned my finest tux and my best bow-tie—now, all I’m waiting for is my blushing bride.

But Elsa Blakely doesn’t blush.

In fact, as of right now, Elsa Blakely still isn’t here.

Part of me is so sure she’s going to show; I’d bet all twelve inches of my cock on it.

Another part of me—a part significantly smaller than my massive fucking cock, for the record—worries.

Maybe she really is done with me this time.

Maybe she won’t show up at all.

If she doesn’t, all these fucking people are going to be pretty damn pissed. It takes a lot of clout to get an invite to the Sharpe-Blakely wedding—and I would know, considering that I addressed most of the invitations myself.

I wanted these people to see that I had invited them with my own handwriting, had taken time out of my busy day to put their names on the envelopes in ink.

Maybe then, they’d get the message, you know? My time is worth three million dollars a minute, and I chose to spend it putting my high school calligraphy classes to use while addressing wedding invitations.

It might not say a lot to some, but to these people? These fat cats and industry giants?

It says more than you’d think.

This isn’t a fucking game for me anymore—and I’m here to prove it.

I want Elsa Blakely to be my wife, and if she stands me up...

Well, there are worse ways to spend a Saturday, I guess.

Fucking Elsa. I haven’t seen her since that glorious fucking fight.

My only communication with her has been through Lis fucking Langley. Anything else was out of the question, for reasons I’m not exactly at liberty to expose quite yet.

I’m pacing outside of the church—confident, but not over confident. I know only too well what a hard woman Elsa Blakely is to pin down. So, I’m not about to go counting anything a sure win until I see her on the other end of the aisle before me, all dolled up and dressed in white.

“Nervous, Sharpe?” a smug little voice says from behind me.

“You wish, Langley.” I turn and smile my million-dollar smile at her. “Tanner Sharpe: Nervous Wreck at the Aisle. Your papers would sell themselves.”

Lis Langley, in her soft pink formal dress, shrugs. “They already do. But if Elsa doesn’t show...”

“Oh, she’ll show,” I reassure her, adjusting my cuff links.

In fact, if Elsa’s not showing, I’ll eat my own dress shoes.

They’re Italian leather. Expensive. Soft but very durable.

Actually, if my estimations are right, she’ll be showing about six months or so at this point.

“You seem sure of yourself.”

“Oh, I am. I mean—really, Lis. Just look at me.”

Lis pulls a face. “Not my type. Him, on the other hand...”

My best man, Nathan Hudson, comes up behind me and claps me on the back. He’s got golden blonde hair and the eyes of a Swedish prince—he’s a fucking looker, and I’m man enough to be able to admit it.

And the way Lis is looking at him...

“Nathan, Lis. Lis, Nathan.” I can feel the sparks flying between the two of them before I even finish introducing them.

I swear; I even see Lis shiver as he shakes her hand.

“A pleasure, Lis,” Nathan says. “Ah, Tanner...”

I nod, straightening my bow tie and taking a deep breath.

It’s time.

They have to play the wedding march twice. Every hoity-toity, elbow rubber in the congregation is holding their breath.

By the end of the song, the second time around, even I’m finding myself waiting to exhale.

Monique, Marge, and a half-dozen of the Dirty Little Angel models are dressed in matching pink bridesmaid gowns and waiting for Elsa on her side of the church.

And me? I’m staring down those double doors at the other end of the aisle like I’m challenging fate itself to keep Elsa Blakely from me.

So, when she throws those doors open and stands there between them—clad in white lace, framed by sunlight and six months pregnant with my firstborn child—I’ll admit it.

I fall in love with her all over again.

“Tanner Sharpe,” she says, and I fall in love with the way my name sounds on her tongue.

“Elsa Blakely,” I shot back at her.

“You rat fucking bastard,” she snarls, and the whole congregation gasps.

Not just because she’s swearing inside this beautiful cathedral I booked for us, but because

as Elsa marches into the church, they get the first good look at her that they’ve had in six months.

Looks like we did a better job of keeping this pregnancy thing under wraps than I had even hoped.

“Darling,” I coo at her, grinning like a jackass. “You haven’t changed one bit.”

“Cut the shit, Tanner!” Elsa snarls theatrically, tossing her hair and veil back over her shoulder. “I want you outside. Now! We’re settling this once and for all.”

“Is that so? What do you think you’re going to do, Elsa? Fight me?”

“Outside!” she snarls again, marching out.

I just look at the congregation and shrug. What can you do?

I follow her out, feeling our entire audience get up to spectate.

The fight that ensues outside isn’t important. We say a bunch of bullshit that we don’t mean—mocking at reopening old wounds that have long since scarred over and throwing some more snappy insults back and forth.

Elsa and I have always known how to put on one hell of a show. I can tell from the tension in the air around our audience that they’re buying it, too—every last ‘Go to hell’ and ‘Fuck you.’

It’s almost fun, bickering with Elsa like this.

Staged, scripted and artfully choreographed.

But not nearly as fun as what comes next.

She slaps me first, insulting my manhood and accusing me of a dozen other transgressions that I’m sure I’m entirely guilty of.

When she tries to slap me again, I catch her wrist.

For a moment, we’re closer than we’ve been in six fucking months. I’m touching her again like it’s the first time, breathing in her scent. Locked in battle like this, watching the way her chest heaves with passionate fury, seeing her eyes close as she takes me in just the same...

Elsa fucking Blakely is the love of my life.

Which makes what comes next even more fucking enjoyable really.

“Are you ready?” I ask her softly—so softly that no one else can hear us.

It’s just me.

And her.

We’ve spent so much time conspiring against each other...it’s a nice change of pace, finally getting to conspire together.

“For you? Always,” Elsa purrs back in a sexy little whisper.

That’s when I make my move. I drop her wrist and storm away, obviously shattered by her last insult.

And Elsa?

Elsa chases after me, bridal gown and veil flowing behind her, and she shoves me into our very expensive, gold leaf, twelve-tiered Madagascar vanilla buttercream and rosé flavored wedding cake.

That’s what makes the guests gasp once.

The second gasp comes when I grab her and take her down with me.

The cake is a fucking goner.

We crash into it, smashing it to bits on impact and breaking the table under it. I borrowed it from a buddy who owns some professional wrestling venues. He taught me how, when it gives out beneath us, to use my body to shield Elsa and our unborn child from harm.

Which means that when the cake splatters to the ground, and we fall down on top of it, Elsa winds up straddling me, lips pulled back in a snarl as she shoves fistful after fistful of cake onto my face.

“How could you do this to me, Tanner?!” she sobs in a tone so convincing probably half of the guests will always kind of hate me, even after this is over, and they won’t even know why.

“Do this to you?” I shout back. “Elsa! How could you do this to me?”

“You son of a bitch. You got me pregnant and abandoned me!”

“Elsa, no! I would never abandon you—in fact, I’ve been waiting for you for all these months! I love you, darling—I need you—”

Reads like a fucking soap opera, right?

It ought to. I hired one of the writers from Days of Our Lives to turn over the stupid fucking script.

See, this—all of it—the fight, the cake wrestling, the overblown melodrama and the last six months?

All part of our master plan, believe it or not.

As Elsa’s lip quivers and her final fistful of cake drops to the ground, I think I can even hear Lis Langley’s little red pen scribbling in her notebook so fast that she’s going to end up starting an actual fire on the page—instead of just a journalistic one.

“You...you mean that?” Elsa simpers.

“With every ounce of my soul,” I say gallantly.

Then, it’s time for the show stopper.

Our lips collide, slick with layer cake and buttercream. I’m groping at her tits, she’s unfastening my belt, and we’re licking the cake off each other’s skin like complete fucking animals.

“Marry me, Elsa!” I proclaim.

“Oh, Tanner!” She swoons like a heroine on the cover of a Harlequin novel, and I lick the cake from her cleavage like a dirty fucking Fabio.

“Say it,” I order her. “Say it, for everyone to hear.”

“Oh, Tanner, I do! I do!”

“I do too,” I tell her, and we share a look that tells me we’re both about to dissolve into laughter if this carries on for much longer. “A thousand times. Every day. For the rest of my life.”

And our guests—our poor, confused fucking guests—well, I don’t think they know whether to applaud or just get into their fancy cars and go home with the understanding that there is such a thing as too much excitement for one night.

Honestly, I don’t fucking care either way.

I scoop Elsa up in my arms and carry her into the cathedral, shutting the doors behind us.

We did technically say our ‘I do’s, after all.

And with Elsa in my arms...

I might not technically be her husband yet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some husbandly duties I’d like to attend to.