Curves Couture-Completed

Chapter 16

Chapter16

"Don't you think it's a little too much?" I asked Erin, doubtfully.

"Why are you asking him? He shouldn't even be here!" exclaimed Rafael fretfully. I winced at the immediate unwarranted poke to my scalp.

"It's just the registration. I don't think that don't see the bride 'til the wedding rule applies to the wedding registration," I said amicably then winced some more at the few more unnecessary jabs.

Seriously! Did I really need a foot-high bun on my head for something that was clearly just administrative in purposes? What was wrong with Rafael? And what was wrong with Tracy, for that matter? I grimaced at the floor-length gown with an elaborate train in tulle that Tracy was bringing over.

"We've explained this to you like a million times already. If you weren't so busy making googly eyes at Erin, you would have heard at least something of what we were saying," complained Tracy heatedly.

I grimaced at that. She was right. I had been mostly to blame, or more like Erin was mostly to be blamed. He kept distracting me this whole week since we got back from Paris. He couldn't seem to let go of the fact that honeymoon time was over. We spent every waking hour and not much of the sleeping ones together. And that, only because there were not much sleeping hours at all. The bags beneath my eyes clearly said so.

And looking at the hollowed-out cheeks reflected in the mirror before me I had to say that food hadn't been a priority with us either. We were just too busy. Too busy doing... you know.

I allowed Tracy to slip the delicate material over my chemise and corset-clad figure. The effect was instantaneous. The gasps that rasped out across the unusually busy room was not all my own.

I had been literally transformed. Out the window went my doubts about overdoing it. My preference for au natural look plummeted to a sudden death. This vision... this was really something to behold.

But wasn't this more suited for the wedding day?

"If you think this is something, you should see what we got you for your wedding day," Tracy murmured with an uncharacteristic excitement.

I turned slightly and caught Erin's eyes staring right at me. I waited for them to rise my length and catch my own burning gaze in the mirror.

That he looked beautiful was without question. That I looked incomparable was something I never dreamed possible. I was suddenly fiercely glad he got to see me like this. That he would always remember me on my wedding day—albeit registered wedding day—as someone exotic enough to be paired with him and not found wanting.

We bustled about in the next half hour, doing last minute preparations and then photoshoots.

It was at that first snap that conversations of the days passed between Tracy, Rafael, Erin and myself became clear—crystal clear.

Our wedding was being sponsored by several magazines, designers, and advertisers. It was to be the splashiest wedding of the year. The wedding that would sell thousands of bridal magazines, thousands of related merchandise, and attract thousands more in audience and fan sites.

It was to be, in short, a circus of massive proportions with Erin and me being the main entertainment.

I shook away that horrendous thought then scoured about my head for that same fuzzy oblivion that had served well to hold reality at bay while immersing me in the non-existent romance of the moment.

"Don't shake your head, you idiot!" snarled Rafael, instantly drawing out a vicious glare from Erin on my behalf. I beamed up at him over that, but then, Rafael was backtracking. "I simply meant she would undo the pins."