Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
“We need to book a venue,” I said.
Tallon nodded his agreement, but a look of unease passed across his face. I did my best not to grin or laugh at him. I could tell by his reaction that he had forgotten all about the venue. I couldn’t blame him entirely for the lapse. He had a lot of other things on his mind recently.
“Have you put any thought into what you want?” he asked.
I shrugged. “A bit, but I don’t have my heart set on anything. I would like a place that’s in a quiet location where we don’t have to worry about making too much noise. I think that I would like for us to have use of the entire venue, too, not just a dance hall or something like that.”
“That all sounds good to me,” he said. “Some venues have a lot of restrictions on caterers and such, so we’ll want a place that will let us have our chosen vendors and not raise a fuss about it.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.
Tallon walked to the couch and sat down. I joined him and watched curiously as he pulled out his phone and started searching for wedding venues in the countryside.
I was amazed by how many options there were. As we scrolled through the options and looked at pictures of many of them, I began to realize that my desire for privacy was outweighed by how much I really didn’t like the rustic wedding look.
“I think that I’m changing my mind,” I said softly.
“Why is that?” Tallon asked.
“I just don’t like the country feel,” I answered. “I don’t think it’s really right for us.”
He smiled broadly at that. “I’m so glad you said that. I wasn’t sure how to tell you that I hated all of these.”
We both laughed and I leaned heavily into his side. “I wish you’d said something right away,” I said. “We’re doing this together, right? That means that we both need to state what we want so we can find a good middle ground.”
“That’s true,” he conceded. “I just feel a little strange joining in on the planning this late. I didn’t want you to feel like I was trying to take over.”
“I don’t think that at all,” I said in surprise. “Tallon, I am so excited that you want to be part of the planning. It takes a lot of the pressure off. I’ve been trying this whole time to take into account what you might want, and I’ve felt like this was some kind of test… like I was going to screw it all up if I accidentally made a choice that you really didn’t like.”
He looked surprised by that. “I wouldn’t try to test you,” he said. “I just wanted to make the day perfect for you, that’s why I wanted you to choose whatever you wanted.”
We both laughed again. It felt like a ton of weight had been taken off both of us.
For the next few hours, we looked at dozens of wedding venues and picked them apart thoroughly. We wanted something big, with a bridal suite and a wet bar. Those were the must haves. We also wanted something with plenty of parking that was a standalone building, not part of a bigger complex.
We ended up with a short list of promising options. We wrote down the contact information for each and Tallon promised to call and set up tours of the venues so that we could see them in person and see which felt right to us.
It would also give us an opportunity to get a feel for the management of the venues and see which would be the best fit for us. It didn’t matter how perfect the venue was, if we hated the manager then it was going to make things difficult.
Tallon had a few business calls that he had to make anyway. He kissed me lightly, then excused himself to go up to his office.
I watched him go with a fond smile on my face. I couldn’t help but feel optimistic about how things were going.
We were finally on the same page about Bianca, which meant that Tallon would deal with her and get that headache out of our way.
Even better, we were working on the wedding planning together. I felt so close to Tallon while we went through the venue options and discussed what we liked and disliked about each. We had our differences, of course. I wanted a garden in place of expensive floral arrangements, and he wasn’t really interested in the flowers at all. He wanted to ensure that there was an expansive wet bar that could cater to our large guest list, while the alcohol wasn’t a big consideration for me.
The differences didn’t really matter, though, because we had so much in common. We both wanted the venue to be large and open so that everyone could congregate together. We wanted on-site security to be available, even though we would have our private details as well. We both wanted suites for the bridal party so that everyone could get into their dresses at the venue and not try to travel in formal wear. We also agreed that the dining room and dance floor should be separate, rather than transitioning the dining hall into a dance space after dinner.
It felt like everything was finally coming together for us. It might have been tempting fate, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that things were finally going to start going smoothly for us from now on.
*Natalia*
Last night had been a bit of a mixed bag. I was so happy that I got to spend time with Tallon working on our wedding plans, but we weren’t able to spend more time together after that. Tallon had ended up working for the rest of the night. He even missed dinner. I understood and I didn’t hold it against him. He was still dealing with the fallout of his arrest, and it was going to take a lot of time and effort for us to get things back to normal.
He must have felt pretty bad about it though, because when I woke up the next day, he had a surprise for me. I had walked downstairs to find a lavish breakfast prepared and a bouquet of roses in the center of the table. Tallon had been sitting at the table and he smiled brightly at me when I walked in.
“Good morning,” he said. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine,” I said. “What’s all this?”
“A good breakfast to start your day,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have a surprise activity for you. I’ve scheduled a limousine to pick up Mia and take the two of you for a spa day.”
I was wildly excited by what he told me. I really enjoy spending time with Mia, and a spa day sounded like a great way for us to continue to bond and to shake off the residual stress and tension from the long ordeal of Tallon’s incarceration.
We had shared a pleasant breakfast together, then Tallon walked me out to the limo. He held the door for me as I slid inside next to Mia.
“Have fun ladies,” he said.
“We will,” I promised.
“This is a nice surprise,” Mia said, as the limo pulled out of the drive.
“I know,” I said with a smile. “I hope it wasn’t too last minute.”
“Not at all,” she assured me.
The spa that we ended up at was one that I had never been to, but it was obvious from the moment we stepped inside that it was the height of luxury. We were greeted by a vibrant and pretty older woman who checked us in and took us into a suite where we could change into plush robes.
Mia was bubbling with excitement as we stepped out of the room and were met by a man in a light blue uniform.
“Ladies,” he said in greeting. “Are you ready to be pampered?”
“So ready,” Mia said happily.
“We’re going to start with a deep tissue massage, then a hot stone treatment, and finally a relaxing trip to our mud baths. Do you have any questions?”
We both shook our heads and grinned at each other in excitement.
The massage was the most relaxing that I could remember having. That might be because I had so much tension to work out after everything. I had no doubt that by tomorrow I was going to be too sore to move, but I didn’t mind.
The hot stones were calming enough to neutralize any of the pain that was already present. By the time we were led to the mud baths I felt like I was ready to just melt.
I slid into the warm mud with a content sigh and let my head fall back onto the cushioned headrest.
Mia made a similar sound of enjoyment from beside me.
We sat there in comfortable silence and just let the mineral mud soak into us. I was aware that there was likely no real benefit to this treatment, but it was relaxing and that was all that it really had to be for me to be satisfied with it. I was here to relax and feel pampered after all, not because I believed in some weird new age medical treatment.
I wasn’t sure how long it was before my thoughts started to wander to less pleasant topics.
I felt myself frowning as I thought about Bianca’s little run in with Tallon. There was no way that it was an accident. She had to be finding this information out about us somehow, but I couldn’t imagine how. She was showing up at places that we didn’t plan on going to until just before arriving. How could she know where we were?
“We’re supposed to be relaxing,” Mia pointed out.
