With These Four Rings: Wedding Bonus

With These Four Rings - Chapter 3

Kaya backtracked to Elaine's desk, hoping to engage in small talk to keep her mind off the impending conversation with her husband. But Elaine was busy on the phone scheduling meetings and arranging travel plans for Bryce—both domestic and foreign—for the next few months.

She strolled back to the commodious waiting area outside Bryce's office. It was classically decorated with black and white leather sofas and chairs, arranged around glass and marble coffee tables that were topped with the latest issues of the leading newspapers and business-related magazines in the country.

A variety of life size trees in terracotta pots were scattered strategically about, blending nicely with the sky-blue interior and the natural landscapes of the White Mountains and Crystal Lake made visible through the walls of glass.

Since it was erected fifteen years ago, Fontaine Enterprises had been voted the most architecturally aesthetic building in Granite Falls. Yet no one but Bryce knew the identity of the young architect, who preferred to remain anonymous. Bryce hadn't even confided in her, not because he didn't trust her, but because he'd signed a contract of confidentiality. Business was business.

Kaya began sorting idly through a stack of magazines on one of the tables, and her eyes popped when she saw the heading of an article sprawled across the top of the latest issue of Granite Falls People News. "Love and Marriage – Granite Falls Billionaire Husbands Tell All." An elegant photo of the four couples embracing and staring into each other's eyes took up the entire cover. Kaya remembered the husbands insisting on posing for that photo last July during the private family party at Mountainview Café—the party where the wives had made their husbands kneel and propose to them properly. Philippe had taken several photos of them.

Kaya immediately called the other wives—conference style. Like her, they weren't aware that their husbands had done the interview with Lester Cobbs.

After hanging up, she flopped down on a sofa that gave her full view of Bryce's office door, and flipped open the magazine to page four. They'd gone public with the news of their renewal of vows midway between Thanksgiving and Christmas, hoping that people would be too busy with holiday planning to pay them much attention. They couldn't have been more wrong.

Just hours after the news broke, Granite Falls had become a beehive of activity with paparazzi from every corner of the globe buzzing around. Their phones had been ringing nonstop and the streets close to their individual estates had been lined with photographers and news reporters, trying to snap pictures and procure interviews. It wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't have children to protect. Michelle, who'd just given birth to Fiona, and Tashi, who was six months pregnant with Alex, were in greater danger than the rest of them.

Escaping Granite Falls was the only solution. Since they had an in-house OB/GYN, they'd all given their household staff and nannies a long paid vacation, packed up their immediate and extended families, and jetted off to Michelle in the Seychelles for Christmas. They'd enjoyed the peace and quiet so much that they'd decided to make it an annual ritual, spending the holidays on each private island in turn. After Christmas, the parents had left their ten children in the capable care of seven grandparents and two uncles in the Seychelles, and flown to the newly acquired island of Tashi off the Amalfi Coast to ring in the New Year in naughty, grownup style.

By the time they all returned home to Granite Falls, the buzz had died down.

Kaya smiled as she began reading the men's versions of how they met their wives, how they knew right away that each woman was the one and when they first knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were hopelessly in love.

Erik spoke about his instant attraction for Michelle when she came sashaying up his driveway hauling a suitcase behind her to interview for a nanny position, and that he fell in love with her when she made the most horrible pig face that made Precious laugh. He also talked about his mistakes and how he almost lost her forever. "When I found out that the man who raised her—the man she thought was her father—was the one who'd killed my first wife, like a blind idiot, I took out my hurt on Michelle. That was the biggest mistake of my life." He attributed the reason they made it back to each other to Michelle's big heart and forgiving spirit. "She proved to me that even idiots deserve to be loved. Even after five years of marriage, every single day I wake up thinking of ways to make it up to her." Grins widely. "I'm the happiest idiot in the universe. I love Michelle more than life itself."