"Let's go upstairs … I bought a bed for us and had it brought in earlier today," he said.
I smiled.
Of course he did,
I thought.
"What? Don't look at me like that. I didn't want the first time we actually slept together all night in the same place to be on the floor."
"This romantic thing of yours is getting old," I told him sarcastically as I climbed a few steps up ahead of him to reach his lips for a playful peck.
"Are you calling me old, little girl?" he asked while lifting me off my feet and carrying me up the stairs.
Happy birthday to us...
T
he circular master bedroom was as completely empty as the rest of the house, except for the white rococo, ornate carved bed in the middle of the room. It was covered in crisp white sheets and a sea of pillows. The hum of the ceiling fan high above the bed kept a steady hypnotic pace. The scent of seawater and exotic flowers was incredibly intoxicating. The wide-open French doors led to a balcony overlooking the ocean and let in the night breeze. Louis was quietly observing my reaction to yet another one of his well-orchestrated plots.
"The way you take in your surroundings is awe-inspiring," he said while watching me and pulling me close.
"The inspiring surroundings you provide for me are awe-worthy," I answered, looking back at him from under my lashes.
"I'll never stop trying to put that look on your beautiful face, Em."
I looked up at him waiting for his soft lips to make contact with mine. I was his completely: heart, body, and soul.
I took my overnight bag to the bathroom to take a quick shower and freshen up. Louis said he'd be downstairs making a few phone calls while I showered. I suspected he wanted to give me some privacy. I unpacked my bag, pleased to find underwear, bathing suits, and some light summer dresses. My sister packed a toiletry bag for me with all my favorite products. I also found a wrapped present that said in big bold letters
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOUR BIRTHDAY! Love, Nana Rose.
I guess even Nana knew about my romantic getaway with lover boy turned Prince Charming. I showered, washed my hair, and felt refreshed but still a little spent from our long journey. I put on a dusty rose-colored silk camisole that my sister had packed for me and came out of the en-suite bathroom. The room was empty. I could hear Louis still on the phone talking animatedly to someone downstairs. I climbed into the tantalizingly inviting, soft bed and lay down. I was engulfed in a sea of gossamer sheets and satiny soft pillows. I rehashed the day's events and waited for my love to join me for our first uninterrupted slumber party.
*****
"Sweet Emily … wake up, my love."
I could hear Louis calling me.
He sounds so close
I thought to myself, still in a fuzzy dream state. I could feel him kissing my décolletage.
"Wake up, sleeping beauty. Open your eyes and let me see my birthday present."
What? Where am I?
I need to get up,
I thought. I opened one eye to see Louis lying down next to me in bed in a sun-drenched room.
"Happy Birthday, Emily Marcus," he said with the most heart stoppingly beautiful, perfect teeth-displaying smile I'd ever seen.
"Happy Birthday, Louis Bruel," I said back to my dream man.
I propped myself up sideways on my elbow facing Louis, mirroring his position. I focused on his smiling sexy eyes and those long lashes. Lord, I could watch this man all day. I ogled my boyfriend's too-beautiful-for-his-own-good face and hadn't yet drunk in his naked form beside me. He ran his fingertips down my shoulder and along my arm until he reached my hand. He laced our fingers together and drew my left hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. I still hadn't torn my gaze from his.
Louis was still nibbling on my hand clasped in his when he started to say between kisses,
"I love her against reason … against promise … against peace … against hope … against happiness … against all discouragement that could be."
My breath caught. I recognized that line from
Great Expectations
.
I took our entwined hands and brought them now to my lips and kissed the back of his hand. I said to him, teary-eyed and in between soft kisses, the quote that I had engraved on the chain under his pillow back in New York,
"You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I came here."
Louis stopped smiling; he looked as though he was about to cry. He lowered our clasped hands, urging me on my back and lowered himself on top of me.
"Emily, I will love you for the rest of my life. I will only exist knowing you are mine. I will respect you and obey you. I will never look at another woman as long as I live. I will make you proud of me. I will dedicate my whole life to you and the family we will have. I know you're still a baby but I promise to give you a great life. You and our children will have a need for nothing. I will show you the world, and I can't wait to see everything anew through your beautiful eyes. You will not find a man who could love you more than I do."
My breath caught in my throat again at the words coming out of his mouth. I was floating in a state of suspended consciousness when Louis reached one hand beneath my pillow and pulled out a small red leather box. He opened the box with trembling hands and asked, "Emily Marcus, will you marry me and let me love you and take care of you for the rest of my life?"
I couldn't tear my eyes from his and I didn't even look at the contents inside the box before I nodded my head. "Louis … oh, God … yes … yes. I love you; of course I will marry you," I said sobbing in a tear filled haze.
Louis was visibly crying, too and while trying to wipe my tear stained cheeks, he took the ring out and slipped it on my finger.
"Em, I love you so much. You are the most beautiful, captivating woman I have ever met. I don't want us to ever be apart … I never want to wake up without you."
I finally broke our staring session and looked at the ring he slipped on my finger. "Louis, this ring … is magnificent," I gasped, finally inspecting the jewel. It was a princess cut, colossal blue sapphire with large round yellow diamonds surrounding it.
"All shades of blue remind me of your eyes, and the canary diamonds just really made the blue pop. I couldn't bring myself to get you any plain old diamond. If you want to change it we can go back to Cartier as soon as we get home and they'll find you something you like more. I just saw this sapphire and couldn't stop thinking of the eyes I'll get to see for the rest of my life."
"Louis … I love you and I love this ring; it's incredible. I don't believe any of this is happening, let alone to me." I couldn't stop crying. Only six weeks ago I was having childish fantasies about this beautiful man. How could this be happening to me?
Start at the beginning...
A
fter a good hour of us crying and talking about what had just happened, I noticed Louis had a long silver chain around his neck. I yanked the chain from under the covers to see the disc with my inscribed quote. I looked up at him, not quite connecting the dots.
"My housekeeper found it under my pillow and gave it to me. Thank you, that was the best present anyone has ever given me, besides getting to wake up with you." He nestled me into his chest. I took a deep breath inhaling his familiar scent and relaxing into his grip.
"I feel like such a dork. I can't believe I fell asleep on you last night."
Louis took a whiff of my hair and said, "I ain't gonna lie, I had some great expectations for us last night. But walking in and seeing you draped on those sheets with your hair spread over the pillow like a veil … that sight made me gasp for air. I didn't know if I'd be able to make it until morning to propose. I watched you sleep for hours last night … you're breathtaking, you know that?"
"Oh no! Louis, my parents! They'll flip—they won't understand. I'm only eighteen … they're going to kill me when they find out about us," I said, sitting up as reality and panic finally made an appearance.
"First of all you're nineteen and second, your parents already know."
What?
Come again
. Was this Louis' idea of a joke? I needed a better explanation. "What do you mean they know?"
"I've known that I wanted to marry you since that first day we spent together in my house."
"Louis, I'm still confused. Can you start at the beginning? My parents knew you were going to ask me to marry you, as in, not in two years from now but now, today?" I asked, trying to slowly comprehend this crazy situation. He sat up in bed, too, and faced me. The panic and disbelief on my face must've prompted him to start filling in the blanks.
"Jenna and Mike have known for about a week now. Jenna even came with me to Cartier to help me pick out your ring. Sara knows, too, by the way. But I didn't tell her until yesterday before I picked you up. I couldn't decide if she'd be able to hold that kind of information back from you. I wasn't about to chance it."
My sister had known for two weeks that my life was about to change drastically, and she didn't tell me anything. Sara knew that I was being proposed to.
Louis just kept rambling. "I had Jenna and Mike arrange a meeting for me to talk to your parents privately. They came to the Crown Affairs office a week ago. I explained to your parents that I love you very much. I told them I want to spend the rest of my life lost in those eyes of yours. I made it clear that I can't and won't live without you. I also told them I'm old enough to know you are IT
for me. I assured them that I have a successful business and that I would provide for you like a queen."
This was really happening? Was there a hidden camera somewhere? I frantically looked around the room.
"Your dad asked 'What's the rush?' He couldn't understand why we couldn't continue dating and then see where it led us a few years from now. I told him that whatever we feel for one another wouldn't change because of time. Your mom then said that she thinks you're too young to get married. She worried that we wouldn't be able to handle living together. I told her living together is not our problem—it's the living without one another that is unacceptable. She then asked me if I'd gotten you pregnant. I assured both of them we haven't had intercourse … in the Biblical sense," he said, winking and smirking at me.
"Jenna and Mike were there, too, so they told your parents that you and I are in love. Mike even told your dad that he's known me for years and has never seen someone more serious and in love than me and you. Jenna told them she thinks that your age is irrelevant. That age only comes into play in a serious relationship like ours when two people are too young to support each other financially. This meeting of ours took over two hours. By meeting's end I had your parents' halfhearted blessing. I think it was a big shock for them. They needed some time to process it all."
I was trying to picture this scary meeting in my head. I'd kill to have been a fly in that room. I couldn't even imagine what my parents were thinking during this Louis Bruel ambush.
"Your parents and Nana came to see me the next day at my office. I did a small rendition for Nana Rose from the meeting she missed the day before. I told her that I would love her beautiful granddaughter for the rest of my life. I told her that you and I are soul mates. I walked her around my side of the table and showed her a picture of us."
"What picture?" I asked, entranced by his story telling.
"Baby, you've never seen it. It's from that party the night we first saw each other.
Architectural Digest
was there that night. There was a photographer taking candid pictures of the space for an article they were writing on that particular property. They took a panoramic picture of the party. It was an aerial shot. I saw the picture in the magazine two weeks later. I found myself in the picture staring at you while you were passing me by. Seeing that picture confirmed I was already in love with you then. I had the picture blown up and framed. I said to Nana 'Bashert is Bashert
.
' She pulled me down and gave me a kiss on my cheek," Louis said proudly, pointing to his dimpled cheek. "She then said 'zol zein mit mazel' which you know means
you are the most handsome man my granddaughter will ever meet.
"
"It does not mean that, you big buffoon," I said, pushing him back down. He pulled me down with him.
"Your parents, including Nana, gave me their full blessing this time. That's when I told them about Turks and Caicos and your birthday surprise."
I couldn't believe he went to battle for us like that in front of my parents without me. Wow, even my nana gave him the green light. That was huge!
"What about your mom? Does she know?" I asked curiously.
"She knew even before we came out to see her that day. I speak to her every day. She knows what you are to me. After meeting you once she told me that she approves of you, of us, without a shadow of a doubt."
"God, I can't believe you did all this for me, for us. I know hands down that I am the luckiest girl in the whole world to have you."
"Thank you Em, for giving me and us a chance. I know I don't deserve someone as beautiful and sweet, and pure both on the inside and out as you. But I promise I will make you proud to call me your husband."
"Louis, I love you but I hate to disappoint you. I'm not so pure," I said, getting on my knees and removing my satin camisole. His eyes traveled up to my bare breasts as I sat naked in his lap. I then asked him, "Will you please make love to me as my future husband?"
"Yes ma'am." He saluted me and flipped us both on the bed so I was now pinned under him. "I don't have any condoms and I never want to wear one with you," he said while hovering over me.
"Louis, I know. We spoke about this already. But what happens if I get pregnant? I'm not on the pill."
"Well, I guess I'd have to marry you then."
We both laughed.
"Emily, seriously I don't want to hurt you. I know how petite and tight you are. First I'll need to make you very wet. Then I'll need to stretch you out with my fingers. I will not penetrate you until I make you come at least three times. Is that understood?"