Mine to Promise (Southern Wedding #6)
Natasha Madison
prologue
Dearest Love,
Well, well, well, what can I say.
Two universes are about to meet again.
Five years later.
Just this time there is more than the two of them.
How will Stefano react when he sees Avery?
How will Addison react to them co-parenting?
How will the family react?
Only time will tell.
XOXO
Love NM
addison
. . .
“W hat do you mean she fell?” I ask with my teeth clenched, one step away from a total panic attack.
“I mean, she drank a little bit too much sweet tea and she fell,” Zara says from the other end, trying not to laugh but laughing still the same. “It will be fine. We’ll take care of it.” Zara, the future groom Mathew’s aunt, was supposed to be taking care of things.
“Where is Ingrid?” I look over my shoulder to make sure no one sees me panic. “Can I talk to her?” Ingrid was in charge of serving drinks and food in the bridal suite, something we should have not been doing from the sounds coming through the phone. The bridal suite where they were supposed to be resting and waiting until the bride was ready. I can confirm they were not in fact resting and waiting.
I hear yelling from the other end of the phone, some giggles, well, lots of giggling, and then Ingrid comes on the line. “Hello.” She sounds like she’s one step away from losing it.
“There will be no more drinking,” I order. “It’s coffee and water and get them some food.”
“On it,” she replies and then quickly hangs up.
“She’s coming,” someone says, and then I turn to watch. I can hear myself breathing heavily but try to do it as silently as I can, which is proving to be harder than I thought. My heart is beating a million times a second, if that is even possible. I have never in my life been this nervous. Well, that isn’t exactly true. There have been other moments. Monumental moments, actually.
I can count on one hand when my life undertook a major change. One was the time I had my first ever one-night stand. The second was when I found out I was pregnant from said one-night stand. The third was being cut off from my whole family and giving birth alone. The fourth was getting this job, and now the fifth is them giving me the reins for this wedding.
I swear to God, I can feel the drops of sweat pouring off me as my hands shake. I look over at Clarabella, Presley, and Shelby—the four of us are hidden in the middle of a forest, waiting for the surprise proposal to happen. We all know Sofia is going to say yes; she’s been in love with Matty since they went to college together. Sure, they had a break between and he did get engaged to someone else, but that led them to be together again. I mean, it’s not every day your wedding planner
is the ex-love of your life. It’s also not every day, you leave your fiancée for your wedding planner once you realize you’ve been in love with her and only her your whole life.
“The wait is killing me,” I whisper to Clarabella, who stands beside me. Shelby stands on the other side of Clarabella next to Presley. The three of them have the biggest and most prestigious event-planning business. They originally started out just doing weddings and then slowly started adding in corporate events. That took off so much, they have recently decided Clarabella, Shelby, and Presley would take care of the corporate side of the company, leaving Sofia to handle the wedding side. The first thing she did was officially place me as a junior event planner. I have been working under her to make sure I would be ready. News flash, I was not ready. I mean maybe I was, but I was definitely not ready for today.
When Matty came into the office last month to let us know he was proposing, we went wild. He then told us he not only wanted to propose to her but also get married at the same time. If I thought that was nuts, imagine my surprise when he left and the three of them looked at me and said,
“Congratulations, you just landed your first client.” I was shocked to say the very least. I told them I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready, but push came to shove, and they said they were going to be there in case I needed them. From that day, the next two weeks were the most stressful of my life. Not only was I planning this wedding but I was doing it in secret, which made it even more stressful. Let’s just say, tonight I’m going to have the biggest drink of my life, then properly collapse.
“It’s happening?” someone whispers from beside me, and I see Sofia and Matty walk into the open space we spent the morning decorating. I wanted it to be magical, so the trees have tea lights wrapped around them. I made the men wrap every single tree you could see in the distance with lights. I got a lot of huffing and puffing, but for Sofia and Matty, they did it.
Sofia looks around confused, and then she gasps when Matty gets down on one knee. My hand goes to my heart. I don’t know about everyone else, but I stop breathing as we listen to him.
“Sofia.” You can hear the smile and love in the way he says her name. She doesn’t say a word.
Instead, she steps back and shakes her head.
I don’t hear what she says, but I see Matty smile at her. It’s a look I see often. It’s a look I secretly wish for myself one day.
“From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew two seconds later I had to know who you were.” She laughs at his joke. He calmly says the two words that will change them from dating to engaged.
“Marry me?” he asks her, and I can’t stop the lone tear from running down my face. “After all the ways I practiced asking you this, the only two words I can remember are those two. When I was getting ready to propose to you, I went to my father and told him. He came with me to ask your father for your hand in marriage.” Sofia mumbles something, and then her laughter fills the forest. I look at the other side of the clearing to see her family there waiting for her to answer. “Yeah, well, he said no. Luckily for him, I was going to do it no matter what he said.” He takes the black box out of his pocket, and all I can do is hold my hands up and cross my fingers. My eyes are closed as I wait for
the words. “So, what do you say, Sofia? Will you marry me and make me the happiest man in the world?”
I wait for her to say yes, but instead, all I hear is gasps from all around me. I open my eyes in time to see the ring box flying out of his hand. My eyes follow the ring box to make sure I know where it lands. “Oh my God!” Sofia shrieks. “The ring!” she yells, and I hear voices.
“He had one job,” her father, Reed, says from the other side of the forest. I look at the sisters, who all shake their heads.
“She charged him,” Viktor, Matthew’s father, says coming out of their hiding place. “Was he supposed to let her fall?” Matty quickly reaches out and grabs the box. “He found it, you see,” Viktor proclaims loudly.
“This was supposed to be just the two of us,” Matty tells Sofia, and she just grabs his face and kisses his lips, saying something else to him.
“I really wish she would speak up,” Clarabella says from beside me.
“We should have snuck mics into their clothes,” Shelby hisses.
“Can you imagine if we did that, and they had sex before?” Presley looks over at us.
“Can you imagine if we did that and gave everyone headsets to listen to it? Or better yet, broadcasted it to everyone waiting at the barn?” Shelby shakes her head.
“Why would your mind even go there?” Clarabella chides. “It’s always the worst-case scenario.”
“No, it’s not true. Remember when Travis was going to get married, and our event space almost burned down, and then the ‘bride’”—Shelby uses her hands to do quotations—“ended up in the emergency room? I never once said we shouldn’t do this.”