“They’ve been my and Alex’s second parents!” she wailed. “If you could only see how they loved Alex, how they treated him like a beloved son...after they’d thrown you away to certain death or worse. Oh, God!”
He pressed her to his heart again, stroking her back, her hair, crooning words of comfort. After everything he’d endured, he was trying to soothe her.
“I’ve always understood what drove them to sacrifice me,” he said, his voice now more than calm. Peaceful. “It was a deadly situation, and they had to make a terrible choice. I never had any wish to confront or expose them and now more than ever I see absolutely no reason to. I’m the one who caused you and I all the heartache, not them, when I let my hang-ups and fears of my past deprive me of you, deprive us of each other. And I’m never doing that again. I also don’t want you to give up anything for me. I want you to have your family and friends and everything that makes your life normal and whole. I only wish to share it with you.”
Her still-mushrooming outrage choked her all over again. “There is no going back to normal for me, not after I learned the truth about what happened to you!”
He caught her trembling face in a cherishing grip. “I only told you so you’d have access to every corner of me, so there would be no part of me you didn’t see, didn’t own. Not so you can wallow in a past I already intended to leave behind. My love for you fills me, heals me, makes me whole in ways I could have never dreamed I’d be. And I want us to never look back, to move only forward.” His lips clung to hers, as if he needed the contact to breathe. “All you have to do now is tell me everything you wish for in a wedding and in a home for us and I’ll make it happen. Even if you want it today, right now, I’ll make it all happen.”
“You know I want only you.”
“See this?” He made a sweeping gesture at her, them, his smile exquisite. “What you feel? This is reward and cure enough to erase ten times the injuries and injustices I’ve suffered. But you will be my bride, and we will have a wedding, and you will have your family with you. After their incalculable loss of Alex, we can’t let them lose you, too. They deserve to be happy for you.”
And for the next hour she argued, cried and bargained, unable to think how she’d let him out of this room, how she’d expose him to his parents, who she knew were coming to dinner.
But he patiently, persistently, adoringly countered her every protest on his behalf.
Then at long last, she realized.
This was part of his healing.
This was how he’d truly move on.
* * *
“Getting married? Next week?”
Those were the exclamations that met Anastasia’s announcement at the dinner table.
She didn’t know which stunned her and Ivan’s parents more. That they were getting married at all, or that they’d set their wedding date for six days from now, which also happened to be Christmas.
He’d finally convinced her not to elope, to have a wedding where all the people in her life would take part. She’d succumbed only because she knew this was important to him and she wanted to give him whatever he wished for. Once that was decided on, he’d messaged his brothers. Six days from today was the earliest he could round them all up.
She looked at Ivan now, her eyes asking if he’d like to say something, but he only gave a slight nod, giving her full control over the situation.
She swept a glance around the table, her gaze unable to rest on Ivan’s parents. She now hated them, and hated how Ivan must be feeling sitting so close to them. It amazed her all over again that he didn’t show any emotion that even she could detect, nothing in his eyes and vibe but adoration for her.
To honor his wish to make this as normal and smooth as possible, she forced herself to flash a smile at her parents. “I hope that was you being surprised in a good way.”
“God, darling, yes!” Her mother’s stunned eyes shone with tears as she reached out to squeeze her hand, before turning to her father. “We’re thrilled. Aren’t we, dear?”
Her father nodded dazedly. “It’s just that we didn’t know what was going on. And it’s so soon we won’t have time to do much.”
She waved her father’s concern away. “There isn’t much to do.”
She had to make that perfectly clear upfront. Her parents had always dreamed of giving her as elaborate a wedding as Alex’s, but with her seeming to be a bachelorette for life, she’d long thwarted them. If she gave them half a chance, they’d go all out. Ivan, too, would go to lengths she couldn’t even conceive of to give her a legendary ceremony if she let him.
“We’re going to keep it very simple.” Before her parents or Ivan could voice any objections, she added, “I actually didn’t want a wedding at all.”
Because of Alex went unspoken but heard by all.
“When Ivan proposed a few hours ago I suggested we just inform you over dinner and elope.” At everyone’s gasps, she reached for Ivan’s hand. “So you’ve got Ivan to thank that we’ll have a wedding. He insisted that Alex wouldn’t have wanted us to get married without one. But even had everything been perfect, I’m not one for frills, as you all know. I just want a gathering where everyone we love would be present.”
She had to stop to swallow the bitterness that would now perpetually fill her throat. They’d both have to bear his parents’ presence at their wedding, smile and pretend that everything was okay.
“Thank you, Ivan.” That was her mother, turning to Ivan, her gaze filled with so much Anastasia couldn’t fathom. Though she could guess. This was the man who’d saved her daughter, would now marry her and become a new son, after she’d lost her own. It must be all emotionally tumultuous for her. “I doubt any of us would have been able to change Ana’s mind.”
Ivan gave such a gracious smile. “It’s my pleasure and privilege, Mrs. Shepherd. Quite literally.”