Chapter 12

**Xavier Black**

"Your hair looks good like that." I tell her even though I fucken hate it. I preferred her dark curls running down her back and now it's all straight and short and even though she looks good it's just strange. I'm just glad she didn't colour it because then I don't know if I could lie to her to her face. It's just hair, it'll grow back or so she says.

"Thanks, what are you doing in here?" She asks, wringing her fingers together and looking highly uncomfortable to be in here, alone with me. I wonder if it's about what happened this weekend and if it is she should know better to think I would ever physically hurt her. I can't say anything about mentally though. I might leave scars there, but it's not something I can control.

"My mother thought I should check on you, you know, like a sort of practice for when were married." I say with a slight grin but I can see she doesn't find it funny. I wonder if it's because she thought I was here on my own free will and now she knows differently, not likely though because if these past six weeks has thought me anything is that she doesn't really care if I care about her or not.

"Well, I'm fine so you can leave now." She says before clearing her throat and walking towards her bed and digs around for something in her purse. A few seconds later she pulls out a tube of chap stick and puts some on her lips and I realize her face is clear of any makeup. I now find myself wondering why she puts that stuff on her face if she doesn't need it.

"If we don't go down there together then I'm going to hear about it from my mother, I would rather avoid that." I tell her and she rolls her eyes at me.

"Would you rather I walk down there, holding you hand and acting like the perfect couple? Should I smile to? Just for a bit of dramatics?" She asks giving me a sarcastic smile.

"Oh, could you?" I ask with fake happiness before my face goes blank again.

"Not even if you were the president." She says before walking out of the room. I silently follow her down the stairs appreciating her wide hips and ample ass. It's going to be fun getting her to give in to me and the reward will be sweet.

We walk into the dining room and the only empty places are next to her mother. I give my mother a sideways look because I'm sure she had Candice sit next to her. Why she can't just leave me to do things my own way is beyond me. The longer she resist the quicker she'll fall into my waiting arms, does my mother not know this? I allow her to take the seat across from Candice and sit next to her mother, not that I mind where I sit.

"Have you thought about colours for the wedding?" My mother asks and to my surprise Skyler nods.

"Yeah, I want different shades of blue and silver." She says and Candice frowns.

"Is it because you're sad?" She asks and I almost want to laugh.

"No, honey. I'm not sad." She tell her and if I didn't know any better I would believe her to.

"So why aren't you wearing the ring?" Candice asks and I must say I love my sister.

"Well, because no one asked me to marry them, I was told I was going to marry someone so I didn't think it would matter if I wore on or not." She says and I look at her in shock.

"You want me to ask you?" I ask and she looks over at me with a bored look on her face.

"No, I want you to dive of a cliff." Candice laughs along with the rest of the table, making me feel stupid for asking but at least now I know what I'm going to have to do to get her to wear the ring. The rest of dinner goes by with the four girls at the table talking table settings and different shades of blue. "I want people to look at each other so I want the centre's to be small and I don't want round tables." Skyler says making me frown.

"What's the difference between round tables and square tables?" I ask and she looks at me like she can't believe I just asked her that.

"Well, one of them has corners and the other doesn't. I want the tables to frame the dance floor and it just won't look right if their round." She explains and I roll my eyes.

"Round tables fit more people." I tell her causing her to glare at me.
"I'm having tables with corners to frame the dance floor and that's it." Her tone tells me to shut up and agree so I just nod along. "That's what I thought. Can we get roses died a very light blue, I want some of the tables to have those and others to have hydrangeas." She says and my mother nods.

"We'll figure it out." She says and I can see Skyler doesn't like her response. They've had very different ideas all night long, starting with my mother constantly suggesting other colours for the wedding. "I was thinking we can go dress shopping early so we have enough time to get everything altered and ready. Oh, you're going to look like a dream in white." She says and Skyler shakes her head.

"I'm not wearing a white dress." She says and I can practically see my mother burst a vain.

"You have to wear white. Every bride wears white." She says and Skyler rolls her eyes.

"Well, I'm not going to be wearing white. I want my guest to wear white." She says and now I'm intrigued by this.

"You want your guest to wear white?" Her mother asks and she nods.

"Every last one of them."

"And what's Xavier going to wear?" My mother asks not even trying to hide her displeasure of Skyler's idea.

"Anything but white." Skyler says and I have to say I agree. I despise white clothing.

"You don't want to wear white and Xavier can't wear white but you want your guest to wear white?" My mother asks and Skyler nods. "Why on earth would you want that?" She asks and Skyler sighs.

"It's my wedding, I'm going to stand out but it's not going to be in a white dress. I've had this day all planned out since I was thirteen and I'm not changing a single detail." She says, giving my mother a firm stare and I can't help but feel proud. I don't think anyone has stood up against my mother like she just has.

"I'm just not sure about this whole blue thing. What's wrong with rose gold?" My mother asks and I know if she wasn't my mother Skyler would have lost her patience long ago.

"What's wrong with it is that I don't want it in my wedding. I'm done talking about this." She says and I can tell she means it.

"I just have one more question." Her mother says and Skyler nods. "How many bridesmaids do you want? I know Natalie and Jane is there but do you want anyone else?" She asks and Skyler shakes her head.

"Jane won't be there, she thinks I've lost my mind so it's just going to be Nat and I don't really want a lot of brides maids so it works out." She says causing her mother to sigh.

"You don't think Lydia would want to be a bride's made?" She asks and Skyler shrugs.

"I guess she can be but then Lauren and Kate would want to be one too and if Jenna and Margot finds out they're going to want to be too and it's just to many people." She says and I roll my eyes.

"It's six people, it's not that much." I say and it's kind of funny to me that I'm so involved in this.

"Six people and six different taste and six different opinions. I'm not dealing with that." She says and her mother sighs.

"They're family, Sky." She begs and Skyler clenches her jaw and close her eyes.

"Fine, but you tell them to keep their mouths shut and Nat's my maid of honour and that's final." She agrees and her mother beams. By the end of dinner it's been agreed that there's going to be six bride's maids and Candice is going to be the flower girl. I'm told to gather six of my best men to play grooms men and Skyler gets to sign of on them. Then her mother gets the crazy idea to have us do a dance for the people and Skyler agrees much to my dismay. It's a lot of back and forth and by the end of it all I can tell my mother doesn't like Skyler as much as she did at the start of the night and that's more than okay with me.