Unbreakable (17 page)

I had said to Elaine that I didn’t want anything too elaborate or for her to go to too much trouble, but she insisted on chairs covered in fabric with big bows on them, lots of fresh flowers, and Heath’s son Ian was going to be our ring bearer.

Everyone who was going to be taking part was scheduled to arrive for dinner and drinks, so once the rehearsal was over and we all went through our paces, we had a meal together. Drake sat beside me and kept my hand in his most of the time, except when we had to actually eat our food. When we had to separate our hands, he shimmied his chair closer so that our knees and thighs touched and it put a smile on my face that he wanted to keep in contact.

When we were finished, and after having tea and coffee in the living room, we said goodbye to everyone and went back to the apartment. Before we could leave, my father stopped me at the door.

“You’re not staying here tonight?” He sat in his wheelchair in the front entrance and turned to Drake, winking.

“No, daddy,” I said and smiled. “Drake insisted that I stay at the apartment with him.”

“I said I never wanted to be separated from Kate again,” Drake said defensively, “and I meant it.”

“Good man,” my father said and nodded. “It’s a wise goal to have even though it’s sometimes hard to keep. You never know when someone might be taken from you. Cherish each other.”

“We will,” Drake said and shook my father’s good hand. “Good night, sir.”

“Please, Drake, call me dad, or father. Whatever feels right to you. I feel like I’ve been kind of a second father to you since your own died. I’d consider it a privilege to have you call me father.”

“I’ll try,” Drake said and smiled. “But I can’t promise I won’t lapse into Judge now and then.”

Then I kissed my father on the cheek and Elaine as well, and we left.

In the car on the way home, Drake took my hand and kissed my knuckles.

“I feel like I finally have a real family,” he said.

“Poor Drake.” I thought of him growing up without a mother and an absent father, a succession of nannies to look after him instead of real family. “You really do want a family and all its trappings.”

“All of them,” he said with a nod. “Every single one. Father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, nephews and nieces, Christmas dinner around a huge table, holidays spent together… I want our children to have your life, not mine. I won’t be my father, Kate. I promise that.” I nodded, looking in his eyes when we were stopped at a traffic light. He kissed my knuckles once more and then we drove off through the busy Manhattan streets on a Friday night, back to our apartment

.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Drake

Once we arrived at the apartment, I stopped Kate and made her wait outside the door.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t come in yet.”

I slipped in and went to my bedroom closet to remove the blindfold I’d used many times with Kate during our scenes. Tonight, I’d use it to allay her superstitious fears that if we saw each other before the wedding, we’d have bad luck.

I returned and stood outside with her, the black blindfold in my hand.

“I’m doing this for you,” I said. “For your peace of mind, but I’m doing it under protest that it’s all a bunch of malarkey.”

Then I tied the blindfold around Kate’s eyes.

“Malarkey?” she said, smiling, touching the blindfold to make sure it had proper coverage. “It’s been a tradition for hundreds of years. There must be something behind it.”

“I already voiced my opinion about the purpose of the whole business,” I said and led her into the apartment. “I’ll tell you what’s behind it. It has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with arranged marriages where the groom and bride never laid eyes on each other. We’ve laid more than eyes on each other, so it really doesn’t apply. But seeing you like that,” I said and held her at arm’s length, looking her over from head to toe, “I am getting all kinds of ideas…”

She grinned. “You always have great ideas.”

“I do.”

Then I put my arm around her waist and one under her knees and picked her up, eliciting a squeal from her. She hated being carried, but I had to keep her off balance, so she’d give in and just let go.

“No fighting,” I said and placed her down on the floor beside our bed. Then, I kissed her forehead. “
Katherine
…”

That was our signal that we both were to fall into proper Dom/sub headspace, but it didn’t always work. Right then, she had this wicked grin on her mouth, and I knew I’d have to work extra hard to get her into proper sub mode.

“
Katherine
…” Then I turned her over onto my lap, pulled up her dress and down her panties and gave her ass a nice smack. “Behave.”

“You sound like Austin Powers,” she said with a giggle.

I couldn’t hold back a grin, but I forced myself to squelch it, breathing in deeply to gain control over my mirth.

“Oh,
fuck it
,” I said and rolled her over on her back, lying on top of her. She spread her thighs for me and I lay between them, my face over hers, the blindfold still on, the grin still on her lovely pink lips. “I’m not going to worry about proper etiquette. We have our whole lives for practice. Tonight I’m just going to fuck you.”

“Hard?” she asked softly, biting her bottom lip because she knew she was out of order.

I grinned back even though she couldn’t see me. “Any way I want,” I replied.

So I did.

She left before I even woke the next morning, and I was upset because while she didn’t want to see me the day of the wedding, I wanted to see her, maybe take her in the shower with her blindfold on, hoping it would slip off and I could prove to her that she didn’t have to worry about any superstition. Our lives together would be faced with many challenges, as all marriages are, and so we didn’t need to worry about non-existent threats.

She had her own will, and I was glad of it in the end. It made her all the more attractive to me.

Being alone gave me time to myself, to roam around the apartment, have a coffee, check my email and make sure everything was ready for our stay at the hotel and then our flight to Nassau. I called Ken and made sure he was ready, so we could pick him up on the way to Ethan’s apartment. As my best man, he would arrive with me and walk down the tiny aisle in Ethan’s apartment.

“Just about ready, bud?” he said when I called him.

“Ready and waiting,” I said. “All I have to do is pick up the necklace I bought Kate. The jeweler is waiting for me so I’ll get it on the way when I come to pick you up.”

“Sounds good, and take a deep breath, Drake,” Ken said. “I hope you’re ready for the happiest years of your life.”

“More than ready,” I said. “I think I was waiting for Kate without even knowing it. Until she showed up, no other woman could come close.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Ken said, his voice sounding warm and fuzzy. “She’s definitely the one, if that’s the case.”

“She is,” I said and smiled.

“When did you know?” he asked. “When did you know you wanted to marry her?”

I inhaled and thought back to the moment.

“We were at the Veteran's Day performance of Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3. Kate used to go see it with her mother and it was a tradition. It was the first time since her mother died that she went. I knew when I watched her that I wanted her.”

“She’s a music lover,” Ken said.

“Yes, very much. Maybe not Brit Invasion hits, but she loves music. She was in Africa during the famine working at a relief camp and wrote this really deep insightful piece on the politics of the famine. She’s beautiful…”

“I get it,” Ken said. “She’s perfect for you, in other words.”

I smiled. “Absolutely perfect.”

“See you at five o’clock,” Ken said.

I ended the call and stood at the window in my underwear, waiting for my fifteen-minute countdown when I’d get dressed and ready to go down to the limo and off to my wedding.

The limo arrived on time and I slipped in the back and gave directions to pick up Dave and Ken on the way. Then we’d go to the jeweler's and I’d pick up the necklace I was going to give to Kate before the ceremony, so she could wear it during the wedding. As we drove through the streets to pick up Ken, I felt elated that Kate and I were getting married. Once, I would have thought it meant I was being foolish, but now I knew I was being smart. Kate and I were good for each other. I’d been happier with her than
I
had ever been in my life and I wanted that to continue. I wanted us to be a couple, a family, parents, and then one day, an old married couple, our children grown and us enjoying our time together. That would be more than I could have imagined for myself less than a year earlier.

We picked up Ken and then Dave and drove to the small jewelry shop located on a side street close to Ethan’s in Midtown. I went inside and picked up the carefully wrapped box and returned, smiling.

“What is it? Can’t we see?” Ken said, excited about the whole business, the expression on his face like a little boy expecting to see a frog or lizard.

“You’ll have to wait to see it at the wedding. I’ll have to find Kate before the ceremony and give it to her.”

“Bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” Dave said, shaking his head.

“Hogwash,” I said, and smiled. “I saw her less than twenty-four hours ago, so if it’s true, we’re already done and we haven’t even married yet.”

“Just sayin',” Dave said and grinned.

We arrived at Ethan’s penthouse and the limo dropped us off at the front entrance. The three of us piled into the elevator and straightened our suits and ties, smoothing our hair, and generally primping. I rang the bell at the entryway and Christie answered, her face flushed. She looked frenetic but smiled when she saw us.

“Oh, it’s
you
guys,” she said and smiled. “We were wondering where you were.”

“We’re here with only the second most important person of the day,” Dave said and grinned. “We have the groom all ready and waiting to marry his bride.”

We entered and Christie pointed to the living room. “Guests are sitting down already,” she said, her voice breathless. “If you need it, you can use the spare bedroom in the back and the main bathroom is for you guys. Kate will be using the master bathroom in her parent’s bedroom.”

“Thanks,” I said and we proceeded to go back to the spare bedroom, which had a sign taped to the door.
Groom
.

“That would be me,” I said and opened the door. We went inside and Dave went right to the mirror on the closet door and checked himself out.

“We got about ten minutes to spare,” Ken said. “If you’re going to give that to Kate, you had better do it now.”

I nodded and took in a deep breath. “No time like the present.”

Then I left the room in search of my bride.

I slipped out of the spare bedroom and went down the hallway to Ethan and Elaine’s bedroom, expecting to find Kate there but instead, she was hopping down the hallway to the main bathroom, her skirt held up. While I watched, she seemed to get stuck and fell against the wall, muttering under her breath.

When she turned around and saw me, I knew she’d be upset that we actually laid eyes on each other, but I wasn’t going to let her superstitions prevent me from giving her my gift.

I smiled. The first time I ever saw her, she almost fell into my arms. Now, a few moments before our wedding, she was still falling.

Just as I fell for her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kate

A year to the day that I met Drake at my father's fundraiser, I was in my parent's bedroom at their apartment on Park Avenue.

The master bedroom was decorated in a sparse Zen décor but today, it was crowded. My father sat in his wheelchair and presided over the final touches to my 'costume' for the day – a floor-length white wedding dress with a corset-style bodice and a sweetheart neckline, the sheath covered in French lace, the skirt A-line with a long pleated train that spread out behind me a full five feet, tiny satin-covered buttons down the back. It was far more than I had wanted, especially for a small ceremony at my father's apartment, but he had his ways of convincing me. He helped me pick it when Drake and I returned from Africa.

"What do you think, Daddy?" I asked, turning around in a circle in front of him. When he got tears in his eyes, and covered his mouth with a hand, I knew I made the right choice.

"Beautiful," he managed, blinking his eyes.

"Oh,
Daddy
…" I went to him and kissed his cheek, taking his good hand in mine and squeezing. He'd never recovered the full use of his left side, the paralysis lingering longer than we anticipated but he was getting therapy for it and had been making slow progress month by month. His name had been removed from the ballot, but he was determined to try once more in two years.

He wouldn’t walk me down the aisle, but he'd wheel me and that was good enough for me.

When we were alone, I sat on the bed beside him while he sat in his wheelchair, adjusting his cuffs.

"What did you and Drake talk about before he left Manhattan to return to Nairobi? I never did ask you and Drake won't tell me."

My father tilted his head, a faraway look in his eyes.

"He told me to get better. That I was too young to kick the bucket just yet and that he didn’t want to lose the only father he had left." He turned to me and smiled softly. "He said a bunch of other really melodramatic stuff that men of our nature don't really like to admit to, stuff about love and family and loyalty, and all that crap. You know."

I smiled and shook my head. "You’re both old softies at heart."

"I'll deny that to my dying day," he said and laughed.

Outside the bedroom, I heard the harpist start to play music, signaling that the few guests who were attending must be arriving.

"Guess it's almost time," my father said. "Better finish up your primping and preening. Take a pee before we get started."