Chapter Twenty-Six

Talking with Nate just now just confirmed everything I may have been doubting. There is no other man I would be with and walking to right now.

Our relationship is just that crazy that it would only make sense for something like this to happen on our wedding day.

I am concerned about what happened with Drew, Nate's brother. I wanted to know more about what made Nate go to him and nearly be late for our wedding, but I did have more pressing priorities right now.

I turned to my Mum who had an emotional look on her face as she helped me with my dress. Dad was waiting for me at the door leading out to the garden of the villa. He looked very handsome in his suit, and he looked fucking nervous as hell.

"You promised you weren't going to cry Hannah," my dad says watching my mum wipe away fallen tears. One of the makeup artists rushed over and saved her from ruining the pretty eye look.

"Yes, well excuse me if my daughter is getting married, cut me some slack." My mum hastily grabs a tissue and hands it over to my dad who quickly wipes his tears. I look at them both and wonder how I managed to deal with them for so many years.

"You look, beautiful baby," dad says taking a hold of my hand. I lean into his chest and hug him. He wraps his hands around my body before letting go and grabbing my hand tightly in his.

"Shall we go?" he says smiling down at me.

I nod my head falling into place next to him as we walk out to the garden of the villa. There are two ways to get to the alter but one of them makes it easier for Nate to see me instantly, so we took the other route.

The garden was beautiful, it was a large space and was filled with the natural beauty of Italy. From a distance, I could see everyone sitting in their seats. Mum quickly took her place next to Tammy and George and I was shocked to see my grandfather who looked dashing in his grey suit.

I haven't seen him in years, and I thought he was still in Canada. Dad looks on and squeezes my hand once we are in line with the alter, I still had some walking to do. Eaton walks out and drops little petals with someone else's daughter acting as our flower girl and boy. He was too shy to do it alone apparently. I smile brightly as I watch my little brother walk ahead. Finally, I look up towards the altar and almost stop walking when my eyes meet with Nate's. it feels like I haven't seen him in forever and my heart literally pounds out of my chest when I don't take my eyes off him. And he doesn't either.

The time in which It takes to walk towards the alter felt like an eternity, but when I finally made it and dad kissed me on the cheek, I could relax a little bit more.

I frowned when Nate made no move to touch me or even hold my hand. I could tell that he was giving me space, and he probably thought I was still angry at him. But how could I be, it's not like he was hungover from being with a girl. I can be difficult but I'm not a bitch.

Instead of some random priest from the church, one of our close friends who knew mum from university and is a lifelong friend of our family is going to be leading the ceremony.

Before anything could happen, I turn around and face Nate. George looks on and smiles fully knowing that I'm not going to say my vows with this burden.

I place my hand in his and grab a hold of his neck forcing him to look at me, the silence confirms that everyone is looking on in curiosity.

Nate finally faces me, surprise evident in his eyes.

I didn't say anything, but we could understand each other. He tightened his hold on me and eventually relaxed and smiled down at me before looking forward again.

"You may proceed," he states, making everyone laugh. "She's a demanding one as you can tell."

Okay, Nate try not to insult me.

Bradley the priest started to introduce the ceremony talking about the villa we were in and its history, he then moves on to mention some important members today. He spoke about my parents and nates father and siblings with a cute mention of Ali, Nate's mother. Nate soon starts to trace his thumb against my hand giving me comfort. But I had a feeling he just needed to feel me, to give himself comfort. It can't be easy not having her here.

"Before we begin with the vows you prepared for each other, I want to hear you confirm that it is indeed your intention to be married today."

Oh, here we go.

"Loretta, do you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself to Nathaniel in marriage?"

Without any consideration, I say, "I do."

"Nathaniel, do you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself to Loretta in marriage?"

Nate has the nerve to not say anything for a few seconds. Calm down heart, calm yourself.

"I do."

A heavy sigh could be heard from my side which includes George. Nate turns his head and glares at George. He raises his hands in surrender.

"Mate, you paused. You scared me for a moment"

A few laughs can be heard from the guests.

"Nathaniel and Loretta, having heard that it is in your intention to be married to each other, I now ask to declare your marriage vows."

He motions for us to face each other. We hold each other hands and look at one another.

"I, Loretta, take you Nathaniel Tesoro to be my husband. I want to share my life with you and support you through everything and never leave your side. I promise to be loyal and give you the respect you deserve. You have made my life even more memorable and have given me so much to look forward to when I wake up. You've given me love, respect, and a crazy few months, but I love you through everything, even if you decide to leave me a few hours before this very moment."

With the last comment, a few gasps, as well as laughs, can be heard. Only a few select people knew about the panic of him disappearing and I am sure that some made the guess as to why we were running a little late.

If anyone knows Nate even the tiniest bit, they know that he is always on time.

"I promise to love you every day for as long as I live." I didn't realize it but when Nate reaches up and swiped his thumb under my eye, I realized that I had been crying as I said my vow.

It was now Nate's turn he reached up to his pocket and I was little saddened that he had to read it from...

"Just kidding," he says with a smirk on his face as he reaches down again and holds onto my hand.

Mother fucker.

"I, Nathaniel, take you Loretta Reeves to be my wife. I have shared the best moments with you and have learned so much of how truly amazing you are. I want to give you everything and more and to share my life with you. I will forever respect you and be loyal to you and take every moment I can to make you feel cherished and safe. You have been amazing to stick with me as we have faced some terrible events, but I truly believe our love will keep us together. It would give me so much pleasure for you to become my wife and I intend to keep you as my wife for as long as I shall live."

Fuck the tissues, a waterfall is currently taken over and even my mum is crying a bucket full.

After I recovered and Nate even shared a tear which I gladly wiped away. Bradley continued and followed with the final part of the ceremony.

After the exchange of rings, the priest carries on.

"Now by the power vested in me, it is my honor and delight to declare you husband and wife, you may seal this marriage with a kiss" Nate was already ahead of him as he grabs my waist and pulls me towards him and places his lips on mine. His lips felt different this time and I enjoyed it.

All the guests erupted in applause as we kissed passionately in front of them.

Nate grabbed my hand after shaking hands with my father and kissing my mum on the cheek. We walked down the aisle towards the back, and I don't think I could keep up with his long strides. Nate noticed this and quickly lifted me into his arms.

"Nate put me down I can walk fine," I say trying to get down but his tight hold on me gives me no success.

"As your husband, I suggest you keep that pretty little mouth shut "he won't be saying that later. Believe that.

Reluctantly I don't say another word and just let him take me to wherever he wants to take me.

Nate pushed open the double doors and when I looked inside, I noticed that it was a large room that had multiple tables surrounding it. The room was empty and before I could say anything. Nate had walked in and locked the door.

His intentions were clear. He didn't want anyone disturbing us right now. And frankly neither did I.

"We can't do this now Nate, we have a reception we need to go to, "I say to Nate as he removes his blazer from his broad shoulders and advances towards me.

His mouth quirks up into a smirk "Loretta we agreed that all guests would have the chance to rest for a while and change for the reception that gives us plenty of time. "

For what, is he joking right now I'm in my bloody wedding dress for Pete’s sake.

"Calm down. I only want to talk there's plenty of time for that later" he decides to tell me after me freaking out a little bit.

He meets me in the middle of the room and places his hands around my waist he doesn't waste time in kissing me holding me tight against his chest.

"You looked so fucking beautiful walking down the aisle, Loretta, and this dress was worth all the money." He leans back twirling me around before pulling me tight against him again.

"It's all for you," I say as I kiss him again. He definitely likes it for sure. Nothing worse than having your husband, not like the dress.

"Are you going to tell me what happened with Drew then?" I cut right to the chase as we pull apart. With a slight nod, he leads me over to the large seating area of the room and he pulls me to sit on his lap.

"Drew called me early this morning. Well actually the prison did. They said it was urgent, so I took a flight.” He pauses for a moment, bringing his hand to move hair away from my face.

"I thought about calling you to leave a message, but I didn't want to burden you with the wedding stress. So, I didn't and even though I knew of the consequences I still didn't tell anyone."

I guess that was the best thing to do because if I knew I'd probably fly out as well and then where would that leave us in terms of the wedding.

"Thank you, you were right. What happened though Nate? I don't care about why you didn't tell me anymore." He looks at me with a grateful smile.

"What did I do to deserve you?" He brings his fingers to cradle my face. Don't go second-guessing now, I don't have the effort to deal with that right now.

"Drew was taken to hospital; he tried to kill himself." Nate’s voice cracks as he tells me this. I gasp and nearly get up from my seat.

"He's dead?" I asked fearing the worst.

"No, no. He's pretty bad, but not dead. He believed that there was no use in living considering no one from his family had bothered to see him or call him in months."

Guilt washes over me as I know it's partly my fault. As much as I hate him, I never once wanted him hurt.

"I had to put everything aside Loretta, just so my brother didn't give up on life" I don't think Nate realized this, but I had to wipe a tear from his cheek. Even though Nate wanted his brother to suffer this wasn't the way he wanted. Being dead is different from suffering in jail.

"Seeing him in that state was like seeing him dead, I thought I lost him forever." He buries his face into my chest and I can hear the deep breathing and the silent sobs as he cries for his brother.

I was lost for words, and I wanted nothing but to remove the pain he was feeling.

"Nate look at me" I whisper to him lifting his head "he's okay He's alive you had no idea that he was going to do that. We're going to need to put it behind us and be there for Drew" as much as it pains me to say that that's what needs to be done.

Regardless of the pain, we suffered recently. Drew is Nate's brother. They grew up together with what I could tell was a loving family. I couldn't take that away from him.

" I really love you, Loretta, I may talk about how much I love your body but fuck, your heart is just beautiful," he says as he places his hand against my chest. I couldn't ask for more.

With a little time to ourselves, we managed to recover, and it was like we were even closer if that was even possible. As soon as we finally opened the door. Nate's father was standing with Kyle and her sister. Michael had tears in his eyes, and he walked fast towards Nate.

They embraced each other and I quickly sped over to where Kyle was and gave her a hug she so desperately needed.

"If you guys need to go, go, "I say looking at them. All I know is that Drew is in a hospital in Italy so if they wanted, they could go and come back before the main reception starts.

"Loretta that's not" Nate starts, but I quickly shut him up. "No Nate He's family, He's a brother to me now so I suggest you guys go, "I say seriously. Michael smiles before gathering me into his arms.

"Yes, you are family, Nate will stay here with you and your family, and we will be back with plenty of time" they all place kisses on my cheek before leaving in a big black jeep.

I managed to fill in my family as they were wondering why people were leaving when we hadn't even started yet.

"My god, he's okay though," my mum says hugging Nate and we tell my parents of the news.

"he's fine I think he may need some medical help both physically and mentally" mum's eyes widen, she's taken aback by the sudden news. As we all are.

"Well, you two need to do some legal stuff, so why don’t you run along and we will meet you at the reception later?" Mum practically pushes us in the opposite direction.

What's the hurry?

"C'mon then Mrs. Tesoro time to legally call you my beautiful wife," Nate says pulling me against his side and leading us to another room.

Fuck my life that sounds amazing.

That's Mrs. to you.