Stolen Heir: Chapter 34

It’s my wedding day.

You picture that day from the time you’re a little girl. You imagine what colors you’ll use, what your favors will look like. You plan it down to the tiniest detail.

Now that it’s here, I don’t give a damn about any of that.

The only thing I’m picturing is the man waiting for me at the altar.

I’m already bound to him, mind, body, and soul. All that’s left to do is say the words out loud.

My mother helps me get ready in the morning. She tries to put on a cheerful face, but I can tell she’s still worried about all this.

“You’re so young,” she says, more than once.

“Grandma was younger than me when she got married,” I remind her, holding up my left hand with its lovely old ring.

“I know,” my mother sighs.

My grandmother was the baby of her family, just like me. She was wealthy, pampered, and tacitly betrothed to a banker twenty years her senior. Then she got a flat tire on her bicycle, riding around down by the boardwalk. She wheeled it over to the closest garage. A young man pushed his way out from under a car—messy, sweaty, dressed in coveralls and coated in grease.

That was my grandfather. They snuck out to see each other every chance they got. She said the first time they met up in the park, she wasn’t even certain it was him, because she hardly recognized him cleanly scrubbed.

Eventually they were caught, and her father swore to cut her off without a dime if she ever saw that boy again. They ran away together the next night. The ring she wore on her wedding day was just a cheap nickel-plated band. My grandfather bought her the diamond ten years later, after he became an enforcer for the Callaghans.

My grandmother never spoke to her parents again.

My mother knows that. It’s why she gave me the ring, in the end. She doesn’t want the same thing to happen to us.

She kisses me gently on the forehead.

“You look beautiful, Nessa,” she says.

Riona brings me my bouquet of white roses. I didn’t bother with bridesmaids, so she’s wearing her usual style of sheath dress—tight and smooth, like armor. Her red hair is loose and bright around her shoulders.

“I like when you wear your hair like that,” I tell her.

“I hate when it’s in my face,” she says. “But I wanted to look nice today.”

She sets the roses down next to me on the dressing table.

“When will your new ballet be done?” she asks me.

“A few more months,” I say.

“Is it another fairytale?”

“I don’t know,” I laugh. “I don’t know what it is yet. I’m experimenting.”

“That’s good,” Riona says, nodding. “I admire that.”

“You do?” I say, surprised.

“Yes,” she says. “You’re finding your own way. That’s a good thing.”

“Riona,” I say, feeling a pang of guilt. “Didn’t you want Grandma’s ring?”

“No,” she frowns. “I told you—I’m never getting married.”

“How can you be sure?”

She tosses her head.

“I know what I’m like. I’m not a romantic. And I can barely stand living with my own family.”

“You never know,” I tell her. “You may be surprised who catches your eye someday.”

Riona shakes her head at me.

“You think that because you are a romantic,” she says.

Aida comes in to visit me last, bringing me a pair of her shoes—the ones she wore at her own wedding, not even a year ago. It seems like another lifetime.

“There you go,” she says. She looks at my ring, my bouquet, and the shoes. “Now you have something old and something new, something borrowed and . . . do you have anything blue?”

I blush.

“My underwear is blue,” I tell her.

She laughs. “Perfect!”

She helps me slip on the shoes and buckle them. It’s hard for me to bend all the way over in my dress. It’s bright white, with fitted sleeves of transparent lace, an open back, and a full tulle skirt. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a full-grown woman for the very first time. I see who I was meant to be.

“My parents aren’t very happy,” I say to Aida.

She shrugs.

“They weren’t happy on my wedding day, either.”

“At least it was their idea.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Aida says, fiercely. “Cal and I hated each other. You and Miko are crazy about each other. All that matters is passion. A marriage strangles and dies on apathy. Passion keeps it alive.”

“So you don’t think they were brilliant matchmakers?” I tease her.

“Hell no!” Aida laughs. “It was pure luck we didn’t murder each other. Don’t give your parents too much credit.”

I smile. “I’m not getting cold feet. I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

“I know,” Aida says, hugging me. “Come on. Cal’s got your coat.”

I walk across the main floor toward the back door.

We’re in Mikolaj’s house. We’re going to be married out in his garden. It doesn’t matter that it’s February—I couldn’t marry him anywhere but here, under the dark, bare branches, beneath a wide-open sky.

My brother wraps the thick white cloak around my shoulders. It trails behind me, as long as the train of my dress.

I step out into the garden and cross the grass.

I don’t feel the cold at all. The snow is drifting down, thick and soft. It makes the garden utterly quiet, muffling any sounds from outside the high stone walls.

My family is waiting for me, along with a dozen of Mikolaj’s men. I see Klara standing next to Marcel, smiling excitedly. She’s wearing the black gown from the attic, underneath a long coat, and she looks absolutely gorgeous.

Mikolaj waits for me beneath the archway of an empty trellis. He’s wearing a simple black suit, his hair combed back. He looks slim and stark, and impossibly handsome. My heart flutters like a bird at the sight of him.

As soon as I reach him, he takes my hands in his.

There’s no priest or minister. My parents hate that we’re not doing this in a Catholic Church, but Miko isn’t religious, and I don’t want anyone to say our vows but us. Mikolaj and I are marrying each other because we want to, for no other reason and under no one else’s authority.

Miko holds my hands tight and looks down into my eyes.

“Nessa, I’ll love you every second of my life. I’ll love you for exactly what you are, and whatever you become. Anything you want, I’ll make it happen for you. I’ll never hold you back. I’ll always tell you the truth. I’ll keep you safe and happy, at any cost.”

I swallow hard, not knowing if I can make myself speak. My throat is tight with too much emotion.

“Mikolaj, I love you with all my heart. I promise, you’ll be the only man in the world to me. I’ll be your lover and your best friend. We’ll do the hard things and the fun things. We’ll make our choices together, for the good of us both. I’ll always put you before anything else, so that nothing can come between us.”

I give one last quick glance over at my parents. I’m letting go of their approval, their influence. I meant what I said—Mikolaj is my priority now.

Still, I’m glad to see they’re smiling at me, at least a little. They want me to be happy.

I look back at Mikolaj and I am happy. Fully and completely.

He pulls me into a kiss and the rest of the world disappears.

We’re creating a new world now, with us at the center.

The End