I glanced around to find the rest of the women nodding their heads in agreement.
Pulling my hand from hers, I opened my mouth to tell her that she had this all wrong, but that’s when I was saved by my fiancé.
“Excuse me, ladies. If you don’t mind, I need to steal my fiancée.” Robert didn’t wait for any of the women to respond, including myself. With his arm around my waist, he led me away from the other women.
I was more than happy to leave their presence, still stupefied at their beliefs.
Robert led me down a long wall that turned off from the mansion’s dining space where most of the engagement party was being held.
I stopped abruptly and turned to face him. “I did not go to Stanford just to marry a rich guy!” I insisted.
He paused, obviously stunned at my outburst.
His eyes read mine. “Okay,” he stated cautiously.
“And I am not quitting my job, Robert.”
His forehead wrinkled. “Did I ever ask you to quit your job?”
“No, but just in case you had those thoughts. You can just discard them right now. I’m not leaving Glamour Cosmetics. I will continue to work.”
He nodded. “Okay, anything else you need to get off your chest?”
I thought for a few seconds, my eyes roving up toward the vaulted ceilings before they landed back on him. “No, that’s it for now.”
He nodded sharply. “Good. Now that that’s settled, let’s get married.”
I gave him a wary look. “It’s way too early for you to be going senile, sweetie. You’ve already asked me to marry you. And I agreed. I know this because otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing in your parents home, wearing this pink sequined gown—”
“You look delicious by the way,” he growled as his eyes roamed up and down my body in the fitted, floor-length gown.
“Thank you, but back to what I was saying. We’re already getting married.”
“Right. Tonight.”
My eyes doubled and mouth fell open. “Robert, where is this coming from?” He’d never shied away from the fact that he desired a short engagement, but we had originally planned for our wedding to be six months out from the night of our engagement party.
“From the fact that we’ve waited long enough.”
“We haven’t even been dating six months.” How he had managed to get me to say yes to marrying him in such a short amount of time, I didn’t know. I’d dated Cohen for two years, was friends with him for two years prior to that, and the idea of marrying him had never entered my mind.
“What’s your point?”
I sighed.
“Additionally, this is coming from the fact that you nor I even like half of these people here.”
“Half?” I questioned, giving him a look.
“Okay, ninety-nine percent of these people. And yes, it’s mostly me who doesn’t like them. You hardly know anyone here.”
I snorted. A handful of my friends had come to the party to congratulate Robert and I, but the bulk of the people in attendance had been invited by Robert’s parents. Needless to say, I didn’t know any of them.
“And what does that have to do with us getting married tonight?”
“Because these same people will be at our wedding if my parents have anything to do with it. And look, I’m willing to give you the wedding you want. Anything you want. If you want the big, fancy dress with a long train and all that shit, I’ll do it. But all I need is for you to be my wife. Tonight. We can still plan a big, opulent ordeal if you—”
“Yes.”
