Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
It’s not constricting. The lace makes it breathable. I could do a lot of exciting things in this.
“Can one of you take a picture for me?” I ask my friends.
Tenley reaches for her phone, but my mother places her hand out to block the move.
“All right, while I don’t have an exact match for that dress, I do have these lovelies.” Nico returns with two black veils—one so long it drips to the floor and the other, a shorter, chicer option.
“My apologies for wasting your time, Nico, but she won’t be trying on any black veils,” Mom says. “This is a wedding for crying out loud, not a funeral—a celebration that six hundred guests will be talking about for years to come. We’re going for classic, timeless, elegance—not Victorian graveside chic.”
Tenley shoots a sympathetic wince my way.
Or maybe it’s apologetic.
Either way, she’s been around my family long enough to know that disagreeing with Blythe Wakemont is the quickest way to land on her personal shit list, which is akin to existing on the dark side of the moon.
My mother can move mountains for the people she adores. Even if you don’t love her, you need her to love you.
“I’m obsessed with this dress though,” I say with a dreamy sigh, placing my hand over my heart. My flawless seven-carat engagement ring glints under the soft ambient light. Its Edwardian setting representative of the woman who wore it first—Slade’s great-great grandmother. “It captures me perfectly.”
“Sure, if you were a tragically young widow in the 1800s,” Mom says, topping off her champagne. At this rate, she’s going to be blitzed before we make it to our brunch reservations. We’ll be hauling her and all of her Chanel accessories into the Joie de Vivre Café and Patisserie on Claremont Avenue. “Fortunately, you’re a beautiful, modern day bride-to-be, so let’s dress like one, shall we?”
Stealing one final glance at the moody obsidian number hugging my body, I retreat behind the changing room curtain where Nico has carefully hung the first white dress for me to try on. With its fitted satin bodice and skirted plume of never-ending organza and tulle, it’s something Cinderella herself would approve of. But the difference between Cinderella and me is that she got to marry the man she loved.
Not only that, but she married a prince.
I might as well be marrying a bona fide villain.
“Love is not a fairytale, Campbell. Not even close,” my mother told me once, when she was reading me a book of bedtime stories. It was late, we’d just finished Sleeping Beauty, and with bleary eyes I told her I hoped to find a prince like Phillip someday.
It wasn’t much longer after that when she and my father sat me down and told me my “prince” had already been chosen for me. I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, still very much in my princess era.
I beamed with excitement and elation as they told me his name, that he was the son of an old family friend, that I’d be meeting him soon, and that his family was “practically royalty” which made him as good as a real-life prince.
After that, they explained that he and I would be exchanging letters to get to know one another.
Months later, as they handed me the first piece of correspondence—a letter sealed in a scarlet red envelope—I carefully tore the flap, my stomach in knots with anticipation and the first flutters of what I could only imagine was true love.
Boys had written me love notes at school, but I’d never received one from someoneone who was almost royalty … one who promised to be my prince someday.
“Campbell, what’s wrong?” my father asked when tears sprang from my eyes after I read it. Rushing to my side, he swiped the red envelope and its matching letter from my little hands. “Oh, for crying out loud.”
“What does it say?” Mom asked.
Dad released a heavy breath, handing it over to my mother so he didn’t have to read the words out loud.
A few seconds later, she cupped her hand over her mouth. “Why would he write that?”
But what did it matter?
My future husband wrote it, signed it, stamped it, and sent it, and there was no taking it back.
They say you never forget your first love or your first kiss.
But no one ever tells you that you never forget the first time a boy tells you he hates you.
.
Campbell—
I hate you.
Slade (age 8)
Slade—
I hate you times infinity and you will never, ever, ever be my prince.
Campbell (age 7)
2
Campbell
“What about this one?” I point to a heart-shaped wreath composed of pink and white carnations as my mother follows the florist around a heavenly-scented shop that’s been a Sapphire Shores mainstay for almost seventy years.
Mom stops cold in her color-blocked Chanel heels and shoots me a death look. “Campbell.”