Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“I … um …” I take a deep breath. “The houses are close, and it’s a dead-end street. You have a security system, and I won’t be alone.”
He pulls back. “Do you want to do this?”
“Kind of?”
Admitting this feels a bit vulnerable for some reason. I just met these women. Do I come across as needy or desperate? But as I glance around the room and feel their energy and kindness—and absorb their excitement, I really want to do it. For the first time in my life, I want to spend time with women who might be able to be my friends.
Hesitation is written all over him. Stress is evident on his shoulders. He closes his eyes briefly before nodding. “Okay. Then we’ll make it work.”
Thank you, Foxx. I don’t say it, but I don’t think I need to. The crooked smile he gives me tells me he knows.
I lean against him again, taking the contact while I can get it. He adjusts his grip around my waist. The sturdiness of him beside me and his invisible shield around me are new sensations I could get used to.
“Let’s fill our plates,” Kixx says from the kitchen.
Damaris turns to us, her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Do you have a time you’re thinking for tomorrow?”
“Three?” I suggest. It’s a random time, but I need something nailed down so we can move on.
“Fine with me,” Foxx says.
“Three it is,” Damaris says with a confident nod. “I’ll get things rolling. Favorite color, Bianca?”
Foxx sighs.
I giggle. “Vermilion. It’s a reddish-orange.”
“Love that.” She ushers me into the kitchen with an arm around my shoulder. “Now, let’s talk about flowers …”
I glance at Foxx standing by himself in the doorway to the living room. He’s watching me with his mother like it’s a foreign picture he can’t quite understand.
But by his small, shy smile, I think it’s one he likes. Maybe even a lot.
CHAPTER 16
Bianca
A knock has me stepping back from the mirror. “Come in.”
Pippa peeks around the corner of the door. “You sure?”
“Please. I’d like the company.”
She walks into Foxx’s bathroom with a clear container filled with makeup. It rattles when she sets it on the counter.
“How are you doing?” she asks carefully.
“Great. Just overthinking my entire life, as one does on their wedding day.”
She gives me a soft grin.
The Carmichael women stayed the night with me. I imagined we would get to know each other, share a couple of bottles of wine, and talk about me marrying Foxx. And we did that. But we also did so much more.
I’ve never met a group of people as generous and kind as Brooke, Ashley, Pippa, Sara, and Damaris. By ten o’clock, we were laughing so hard that tears streamed down our faces, ruining the face masks Ashley had brought. By midnight, they had invited Becca, the girl I met at the auction, to join us. She brought leftover pie from her job at Smokey’s, a local restaurant. We gave each other manicures. They helped me decide how to wear my hair for the ceremony. They also gave me the rundown on what I needed to know as a Carmichael, where the best shops are, and how they all met their men.
Then they wanted to hear all about my relationship with Foxx.
Creating our love story was more fun than it should’ve been. I tried to keep it as broad as possible on the rare chance that Foxx shared details with his brothers. They must match, after all. But our relationship must also be believable, so a few specifics were necessary.
The details I shared weren’t from a perspective Foxx would understand.
And if there is any goodness in the world, the universe will see that those details come true.
“Are you getting cold feet?” she asks. “Because it’s okay if you are, you know. It’s completely normal.”
I laugh. “How could anyone have cold feet when marrying Foxx?”
My insides twist at my remark. I might not have cold feet, but I am slightly reluctant.
For a girl who never imagined she’d get married, I’m strangely emotional about it.
Things here are so much … warmer than they are at home. Life is so much more laid-back. They focus on the little things—Sunday dinners, inside jokes, caring for one another—and not just contracts and legacies. It’s a world I didn’t realize existed. I’m also completely smitten with it.
I’m also smitten with my soon-to-be husband.
“I will say, Foxx sneaking over here last night to check on you was very, very endearing,” Pippa says. “I’ve never seen him act like this before.”
“Really?”
“No. Are you kidding me?” She laughs breezily. “I think I saw him longer and conversed with him more last night than I have the whole time I’ve known him.”
My heart swells.
“The man is crazy about you,” she says.
He is? I sink back into the chair I dragged into the bathroom from the kitchen.