InHap*pily Ever After (Incidental Happenstance) (30 page)

“Shit,”
Lexi croaked. “I just got back from freaking California an hour ago; I was
there doing an interview for you two, I’ll have you know—Bo was on the show
with me. I seriously just got into bed, and we’ve got a party tonight that’s
going to go late. I look like death warmed over—no way you’re seeing me. Video
stays off.”

“Well,
this conversation is pointless then,” Tia teased. “I wanted you to be among the
first to know, but there’s a necessary visual component, so if you absolutely
refuse, I’ll just call someone else. But I don’t want you to be bitching at me
later that I didn’t tell you first…”

“Ohhhh
shit, this better be good,” she mumbled.

“Not
one more word until you turn on the video. I need to see your face, and you
need to see something too.”

“Christ,”
Lexi muttered, but she turned on the video feed. Tia waited a few seconds for
the images to load, her heart beating a mile a minute. “What the hell is that?”
Lexi asked when the image popped up on her screen. “Holy shit, is that a
fucking
ring
?”

“We’re
engaged!” Tia exclaimed, moving her hand from in front of the screen and
getting her first glimpse of Lexi; her normally coifed hair matted down on one
side and sticking out in all directions on the other; a raccoon-ish smudge of
mascara beneath both her eyes.

“Yikes!”
Tia teased. “You weren’t kidding about the beauty sleep, honey…”

“Never
mind that,” she said excitedly, her eyes widening. “Is this for real? You guys
are getting married?” Her head turned from the screen and her face pinched.
“Crap,” she said, trying to tone down the excitement in her voice, “I woke Ryan
up. He’s going to be pissed.” She smiled back through the camera. “I can’t
believe it—I mean, of course I can believe it, but I wasn’t expecting it so
soon…oh my God, congratulations!”

Dylan’s
smiling face appeared on the screen. He took one look at Lexi’s image, and his
expression morphed to exaggerated surprise. “How much of that beauty sleep are
you allowing yourself, Lex? Tonight’s New Year’s Eve, you know.”

“Screw
you Miller!” she laughed. “And don’t you dare tell Bo you saw me like this…I
have to remain the perfect princess in his eyes.” She frowned, feeling the
sense of loss and confusion from the previous night settling down on her. She
may never be anything to Bo again, she thought sadly.

“Not
a word from me,” Dylan teased back. “I wouldn’t even know how to begin to
describe it…”

Lexi
very purposefully scratched at the end of her nose with her middle finger.
“I’ve seen Tia in the morning too, and it isn’t any better.”

“I’ve
seen her plenty of mornings,” he chuckled, “and she always looks beautiful.” He
put his palm up to block the view of the camera, and smacked a loud kiss on
Tia’s cheek.

“Alright,
enough talk about my natural attributes,” she said. “You’re engaged! Holy crap,
after all you guys have been through, you so deserve to be happy. I’m so
excited for you!”

 “Can
you believe it?” Tia shouted. “It’s been a hell of a year, but this new one’s
going to be nothing but awesome!”  She recounted for Lexi how Dylan had popped
the question, and happily granted every request to see the ring.

“That
thing is enormous,” Lexi said. “Are you sure it’s real?”

“It
bloody well better be,” Dylan said, “Why do people keep asking me that?”

“Uh,
maybe because stones that big are usually only found in quarries? Oh my God,
when are you going to do it? You think you’ll get married this year?” Lexi
asked.

 “We
haven’t gotten that far yet,” Tia said at the exact same time Dylan answered,
“As soon as possible!”

Tia
knew instantly what she was thinking. “Not July, Lex, don’t worry about that.
We’ve only been engaged a couple hours—we haven’t even started that
discussion…” It was the month of Lexi and Ryan’s wedding, and Tia was the maid
of honor. She’d never consider treading on that.

“July?”
Dylan interjected. “No way I’m waiting that long.”

Tia
looked up at him, narrowed her eyes, and shook her head. “Obviously, my
fiancé
…”
she said, loving the sound of the word rolling off her tongue, “has no clue
about how much time it takes to plan a wedding.” She smiled up at him.

Dylan
sat down beside her on the loveseat, bringing his face back into the camera’s
view. “Obviously,
my fiancé
,” he said with just as much emphasis, “has
no clue about the perks of her new celebrity status. Designers will be knocking
each other over for the chance to design her dress, and the same goes for
florists, cake decorators, caterers…plus, we have a secret weapon,” he added.
“Guess what Jessa did before she started working for me?” 

“Holy
crap,” Tia breathed. “She was a wedding planner!”

“That’s
right,” Dylan boasted. “No way I’m waiting until July. I was thinking more like
May. I think I could be available on Memorial Day weekend.”

Tia
sucked in an audible breath. “That would be the one year anniversary of when we
met!” she said.

“It
would,” Dylan smiled before he caught himself. “Oh bloody hell,” he said, “I’m
an idiot. It would also be the anniversary of Nick’s…”

Tia
cut him off. “No Dylan, it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be the same day. Besides, it
would be good to associate something happy with that time of year too. And if
Nick could hand pick the guy I’d be with, it would definitely be you. I love
the idea!” She turned back to the camera. “Of course you’ll be my maid of
honor, right Lex?”

“I’d
kick your ass if you asked anyone else,” she said. “Holy shit, I can’t believe
you’re going to get married before me—I’ve been planning this thing for over a
year!” Her eyes widened, and she looked right into the camera. “Oh, T, it’s
going to be so much fun doing some of our wedding plans together. Have you
thought about where you’ll get married?  I mean, your family is in Chicago and
his is in freaking Australia, for chrissakes. Can’t get much further apart than
that. It won’t be that warm here in May yet, but it’s almost winter there,
isn’t it?”

Tia
turned to Dylan. “Wow, that is going to be a tough one,” she said to him. “Not
only that, but you have friends in England, Colorado and California, too. How
are we going to get everyone together in one place?” she asked.

“I
have an idea about that, but I’ll talk to you about it later,” he said.

“What
later?” Tia said, punching him on the arm. “You’ve already considered this? You
know you have to tell me…”

“I
think this is the spot in the conversation where I check out and go back to
bed,” Lexi said, “although I don’t think I can sleep anymore. You’re getting
married! I’m so excited for both of you! Happy New Year—love you both!”

“Love
you too, Lex—have fun tonight!” They cut the connection, and Tia immediately
turned to Dylan, hands on her hips.

“OK,
spill. You have an idea about how we can get everyone together for our
wedding?”

“I
have a great idea,” he smiled at her. “It may sound a bit off at first, so
listen to the whole plan before you decide, OK?”

“OK,”
she said suspiciously. “I’m all ears.”

“Where
to start,” Dylan pondered. “OK. So first of all, our wedding is going to be big
news—I wish it wasn’t that way, but this media circus has gone beyond my
wildest imagination, and it is what it is.”

Tia
nodded. “Yeah, it’s gone above and beyond, that’s for sure.”

“What
that means,” he continued, “is that the media is going to do everything it can
to get access to the wedding—everyone’s going to want an exclusive, or a
picture they can sell…but if we can control the media, we can still have a
private wedding and have the final say in what gets published.”

“Yeah,
but who can control the media? The tabloids don’t take no for an answer, and
they certainly aren’t polite.” She groaned. “Oh Dylan, the last thing I want is
for our wedding day to be a three-ring circus.”

“Absolutely
not,” he said. “That’s where this idea comes from. Remember, I have a very good
friend who is a media mogul…”

“Tony.”

“Exactly.
His influence runs deep. He made me an incredible offer—one that has the
potential to be a win-win-win-win situation. I think he threw a few more “wins”
into it when he pitched it to me, but it really could be the perfect solution. 
But the decision is ours, Tia, so don’t feel like you have to take him up on
his offer if it isn’t what you want. Just hear it all out, and then give it
some thought.”

“That’s
an awful lot of ‘wins,’” she smiled, “but I’m not getting married on TV, if
that’s what he’s thinking.”

“No
way. I wouldn’t even consider that for a minute. However, we do have a
responsibility to our fans, so try to have an open mind, OK?”

“Oh…alright,”
she said grudgingly.

“So
Tony has his own island in the Bahamas…” he paused and let her soak that in for
a minute, smiling when he saw her perk up and a smile touch her lips.

“…and
he’s been developing it, building a very small and exclusive resort for the
rich and famous. It’s going to be operational sometime in mid-May, if
everything stays on schedule, and he’s pretty confident that it will. It can
accommodate around 150 people, maybe a few more, and he’s offered to give us
our wedding, on his island, as a gift. We’ll have the entire island to
ourselves for the whole Memorial Day weekend.”

“Wait…are
you saying we could get married on the beach, on a private island?” Her eyes
widened and then narrowed as she contemplated the idea. Dylan imagined he’d run
much the same gamut of emotions over his own face when he first heard the news,
and he’d only shown Tia the tip of the iceberg thus far. He smiled,
contemplating the next concern she was likely to voice. He had solutions for
every single one of them, he thought, as he’d considered them all during his
discussion with Tony, as well. “Oh Dylan, it sounds positively wonderful,” she
started, “but remember, my friends and family aren’t rich. How can I ask them
to spend so much money to fly out for a weekend? I mean, Lexi and Ryan and my
parents could afford it, but my teacher friends…”

“That’s
one of the ‘wins,’” he said. “Tony has a couple planes, and one of them’s a
corporate jet. He’s offered to fly our guests over and back. They wouldn’t have
to pay anything.”

“Whoa,”
she breathed, her mind racing, “seriously?”

“Our
wedding would be the ‘grand opening,’ for lack of a better term, of his resort,
and so for him, it would be a test run of how the whole place will work. He’s
got a full staff—cooks, housekeeping, groundskeepers, the whole deal—and he
wants a chance to fill the place and make sure everything is perfect before he
opens it officially. So all of our guests win—they get a free weekend at an
exclusive property on a private island—a place that’ll only be accessible to
people willing to pay big bucks after that weekend. Tony’s going to be charging
a small fortune to stay there once it opens officially, and our guests will
always be able to say that they were the very first to christen the place.”

“Oh
wow, I’d call that a huge win!” she exclaimed, her smile growing wider.

“And
of course we win, because we get a perfect setting for our wedding and the
media doesn’t have to know about it. We’d keep the location secret—we’d just
tell people to save the weekend, and tell them to pack swimsuits. They wouldn’t
know where they were going until they were on the plane, so the details won’t
even have a chance to leak out. We can have our day without helicopters buzzing
overhead or reporters standing outside the church.”

“OK,”
she said, contemplating, “I definitely like the sound of that. I can’t even
imagine having paparazzi invade our wedding day—that would be awful. And
getting married on the beach…that’s been a dream of mine since I was a kid…”
her eyes glazed dreamily as she envisioned it in her mind. “But that’s two
wins—us and our guests. What are the other ones?”

“Well,
believe it or not, Tony wins a few times.” Tia raised her eyebrows. “He’s an
investor, and a shrewd one at that. There’re a few things in it for him, but
none of them impact our bottom line. First of all, he gets the trial run for
his new resort and business venture—we do have to be prepared for the
possibility that there may some bugs—it’ll be the first time the place is up
and running, the first experience for the staff; things like that. He doesn’t
anticipate any issues, because he’s got a whole team of people working
proactively on the final outcome, but he wouldn’t want anything to go wrong if
he had paying guests—and like I said, people who stay there are going to pay
big.

“Second,
and this includes another win for him too, is that he has several big
investments in tabloid television. He has his show, obviously, but he also has
a controlling interest in a tabloid TV show and holdings in a pretty popular
magazine…I forget which one, but it’s big.”

“Really?
I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“There’s
big money in it, apparently, and Tony is the epitome of big money,” he smirked.

“That’s
for sure,” Tia agreed.