Chapter 17 - The Eve of Tomorrow
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The night before our wedding, Sebastian and I stayed at his private coastal estate in Newport, Rhode Island, where the ceremony was set to take place the following afternoon.
Unlike the chaotic, claustrophobic Manhattan wedding I had planned years ago, this event was intimate, elegant, and peaceful. Only sixty of our closest friends, family members, and trusted colleagues had been invited.
My mother and father had arrived the afternoon before. My father was radiant with pride, and my mother had spent two hours weeping happy tears while looking at the custom ivory lace gown I had designed for myself.
At midnight, I couldn't sleep. I wrapped a warm cashmere shawl around my shoulders and walked out onto the stone terrace overlooking the dark, crashing waves of the Atlantic.
A pair of warm, strong arms wrapped around my waist from behind. Sebastian rested his chin lightly on my shoulder, his scent of cedar and rain enveloping me completely.
"Can't sleep, my love?" he murmured softly into my hair.
"Just thinking," I smiled, leaning back against his chest.
"About?"
"About how terrifying it is when your entire life changes in a single second," I admitted, looking out at the dark horizon. "If Danielle hadn't walked down that aisle... I might have married Ryan. I might have lived a quiet, compromised life, slowly shrinking myself to fit into his small world."
Sebastian turned me around in his arms, his gray eyes searching mine under the starlight.
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"Destiny has a strange way of removing what isn't meant for you, Victoria," he said softly. "You didn't lose anything that day. You just woke up."
He leaned down and kissed my lips softly, a sweet, lingering promise that carried us into the dawn of our new life.
