“What about you, Kat? What do you think?” Elizabeth nudged Kat with her elbow, prompting her out of her silence.

“What do I think?”

Elizabeth nodded then turned her sweater to begin a new row. “Yeah, what’s your take?”

Kat’s wide eyes glanced around the room. “Uh….” She cleared her throat then turned her attention to me. “It might sound like a cop-out, Janie, but I think you need to follow your heart. And if your heart is uncertain of Quinn, and as long as you’re being honest with him….” She ended the unfinished thought with a shrug, and her soft brown eyes told me she’d support me in whatever I decided.

“It’s not that I’m uncertain of him. It’s that I want our marriage to be built on a strong foundation. Right now, we’ve only had good times. We haven’t been tested. I haven’t been tested.”

“Withholding your body for the next several months certainly would be a test for Quinn.” Elizabeth gave me an evil grin, even though her words sounded like a warning.

“Well, I wouldn’t do it unless he agreed to it.” I crossed my arms, my attention shifting to a spot over Elizabeth’s shoulder as I thought through how to convince Quinn to go without sex for the next eleven-ish weeks. “If we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives, then abstinence for the next three-ish months shouldn’t be that big of a deal.” After I said the words, I wondered if I could actually last that long without his hands and mouth and…other parts.

“Good luck with that!” Marie shook her head and lifted her glass in my direction. “If you can manage to convince Quinn to go without physical intimacy while you’re planning the wedding, then I might hire you as my agent—because your powers of persuasion would obviously be magical.”

“I think everyone is overlooking the most important part of this whole situation, which is Janie’s insistence that she have a traditional wedding.” Sandra glanced around at us, her green eyes wide and serious.

“What is that?” Ashley sighed. “And you better not say bridesmaids dresses because, as much as I love Janie and will wear whatever she tells me to wear, I have never seen a bridesmaid dress that did anything but make the wearer look like Molly Ringwald in that movie Pretty in Pink. Was that not the ugliest dress? Why did she think she’d look good in that dress? That didn’t make any sense.”

“Someone cut her off,” Elizabeth said, looking pointedly at Ashley. “I think she’s had too much to drink.” She moved to take Ashley’s glass.

Ashley lifted her knitting needles in a very threatening way. “If you touch my wine, I will stick my Hiya-Hiya circular needle up your nose, and it’s one of those extra pointy ones.”

Elizabeth backed off, holding her hands up, palms out.

“No, not the dresses—although Ashley makes a good point about the bridesmaid dresses. We really should all sit down and come to a consensus before any decision is made.” Sandra spoke with a surprising degree of earnestness regarding the theoretical bridesmaids’ attire.

Then, suddenly, her entire expression changed to one of intense excitement. “I’m talking about the bachelorette party. Vegas, baby!”

Part 3: Planning the Wedding

CHAPTER 11

I found and purchased a three-ring binder wedding planner Wednesday afternoon during lunch.

In addition to the list provided within the planner, I made an additional list of all the Quinn-Janie specific issues and plans that needed to be discussed and settled prior to the wedding.

Of course, the unresolved issues relating to the private clients were at the top of the list. Other major issues included meeting the parents, discussion of children (how many and how soon), prenuptial agreement, a voluntary period of abstinence before marriage, and riding his motorcycle without a helmet.

I felt pretty confident about the fact that Quinn would want me to meet his parents; the only question was how soon. I’d met his sister, Shelly, and we got along very well. In fact, Quinn and I typically had breakfast with her every Saturday morning at Giavanni’s Pancake House.

I sent an email to my dad and told him about the engagement. I made sure to offer to pay for his travel so he wouldn’t worry about the burden of expense. As well, I asked him to send me some possible dates for us to visit so he could meet Quinn. Reluctantly, I also asked him if he knew where my older sister was. I hadn’t spoken to her in years and didn’t know how to get in touch.

I assumed Quinn would agree that a prenup made a lot of sense, because it did make a lot of sense. In fact, I was a big advocate of prenuptial agreements in general and felt that the state should hand out a template with every marriage license application.

I was still uncomfortable with the fact that he was very rich, but it was no longer about the disparity in our circumstances. I wasn’t keeping score of gifts and favors, and neither was he. We did what came natural. I paid half the rent for the apartment with Elizabeth because, technically, that was where I lived. All my comic books were still there, as were the bulk of my shoes.

But the fact remained, he was very wealthy. A prenup would draw a visible protective circle around his money, and it would always be his money, his business. Therefore, I wouldn’t ever have to take ownership for it. I didn’t want ownership of it. I didn’t even like thinking about it.

I guessed that he wanted children. This guess wasn’t based on any actual data, just a feeling I had. Therefore, on this point, an explicit confirmation was required.

Regarding abstinence before marriage, however, I was pretty sure I’d have to develop an extremely compelling and persuasive argument with graphs, citations, and figures if I had any hope of securing his stamp of approval. In all honesty, part of me wanted him to completely reject the idea.

Nevertheless, I was committed to my plan of manufacturing as much stress and hardship as possible during the next few months. At the very least, the conversation would be an excellent experience for us both. Perhaps it would even escalate into an argument.

Quinn found me at the kitchen table that evening surrounded by my bridal binder, wedding magazines, laptop, and miscellaneous citations and notes relating to waiting before the wedding.

I thought I heard the door, but I didn’t hear his footsteps, nor did I expect to. He was stealthy.

I imagined I felt his eyes on me, but his hands brushing away the curtain of hair from my back was my first tangible evidence that he was home. He placed three languid kisses on the center of my neck and then—pulling my shirt to one side—he kissed the top of my shoulder.

“Hi.” The single word greeting was more of a rumbly breath against my skin than sound; it made me shiver.

“Hi,” I responded, and turned my face toward his to request a kiss, which he supplied; yet I pulled away before he could deepen it, purposefully not meeting his eyes.

If I met his eyes then I would be hypnotized and witless. Then we wouldn’t talk and I would grow increasingly agitated until I unfairly lost my marbles over something ridiculous—like an inadvertent inaccurate reference to string theory as a science.

I cleared my throat, pressed my lips together, and found my Quinn-list of conversation topics. “Welcome home. I hope your trip was satisfactory.”

His hand stayed on my back, his arm on the back of my chair, as he claimed the spot next to mine. Quinn used it to pull my seat closer to his, the wooden legs making an abrupt sound against the tile floor, and turned my knees so that I was facing him.

I was wearing an A-line grey wool skirt that ended just below the knee. On a normal sized person, the skirt would have ended mid-calf. Beneath the skirt I wore black tights. Quinn’s hands snuck under the hem and caressed a path to my thighs, his fingers searching.

“These go all the way up.” He sounded disgruntled at this discovery. There was a visible frown in his voice. I wasn’t looking at his face because, again, hypnosis. Instead, I was scanning the list of issues and mentally reorganizing them based on importance and conversation flow.

I nodded because I assumed he was referring to the fact that I was wearing warm tights befitting the cold Chicago weather and not lace-topped thigh-highs. “Yes. Are you hungry? I made chicken and saved some for you in the fridge.”

“No, thanks. I grabbed something on the way home.” His hands continued their path upward. “Why are you wearing so many layers of clothing?”

“Because it was cold outside today. I think the high was twenty-four.”

“Are you cold now?”

“No.”

“Then….” Quinn paired this non-thought with a swift tug-yank that landed me on his lap. His fingers had already inched my tights and cotton underwear down a few inches before I could protest.

“Wait! Wait a minute!” My hands gripped his shoulders mostly due to instinct, and I squirmed away. His mouth was once again on my neck, and he gifted me wet kisses along the column of my throat.

“I need my wife.” His words were hot and possessive, causing me to shudder both inwardly and outwardly. I knew this shudder. It was the hypnotized shudder of cautionless desire.

“I’m not your wife, I’m your fiancée.” I arched my back, offering him more of my neck.