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“Yeah.”

“That’s not a lot of time, Cardez,” she said.

“We can make it work.”

“This is prime wedding season. I’m supposed to be scrambling around planning some shit

I don’t even want to do?”

I leaned against the counter across from her. “I got people and pull for everything. Just tell me what you want.”

“What I want is to not be getting married.”

I ignored the feeling in my chest. “I’m serious, Belle. Whatever you want. Big, small, here, somewhere else. Whoever you want there. I don’t care about any of that.”

She cocked her head. “What exactly do you care about?”

I let the question hang.

“What matters is that it happens,” I said.

“I get to plan my own forced wedding. What a dream come true,” she grumbled, picking at the crust of her toast.

“It doesn’t have to be like that.”

She looked at me. “You can give me a planner with an unlimited budget, but at the end of the day it’s gonna be me standing in front of people saying yes to something I never had a choice in.”

“I’ll put you in contact with my assistant. She’ll put some options together for you.”

“Whatever.”

I sighed, knowing it was gonna be like this until the wedding. “For what it’s worth. I don’t want this to be something you hate.”

I couldn’t read the expression on her face. It wasn’t anger or frustration. Closer to tired than anything else.

She left her half-eaten food where it was and headed back toward her room. She paused in the doorway like she wanted to say something but changed her mind.

The door closed behind her and I stood in the kitchen, thinking about what I wanted out of this.

I’d been telling myself it just needed to happen, that was the part that mattered.

That wasn’t the whole truth though.

I wanted her to want it too. I just didn’t know how to get us from where we were to there, and I wasn’t sure if ninety days was enough time to figure it out.

I looked up at a knock to see Tariq letting himself into my office.

“You busy?”

“Always.” I closed my laptop. “‘Sup, Riq?”

He dropped into the chair across from me. “When were you gonna tell me you were engaged?”

“How’d you find out?”

“You know my mother can’t hold water. She heard it from somebody who was at Luther’s party.” He spread his hands. “Why am I finding out about my big cousin getting married through the damn grapevine like you not my nigga?”

“With the shit happening with my pops, it just happened fast.”