“What’ll you give me for this?”
His breath caught as he took and looked it over with a jeweler’s glass.
How can you do this to me? cried Aunt Tatiana. How can you throw away my jewels?
I’m not throwing them away, I told her. This is important. This is for the future.
A future with a human!
A future with the woman I love, I responded. I love you, Aunt Tatiana, but you’re gone. Sydney is here, and my place is with her. These cufflinks do no one any good just lying around.
Phantom Aunt Tatiana was still outraged. You’re betraying me!
I felt a little sick inside but still resolved. Once, I’d taken a ruby from these cufflinks to a pawnshop, with the intent of buying it back. I had gotten it back—barely—and that experience had been more than a little traumatic. Now, there was no going back. Not only was I giving up an entire cufflink, I was giving it up for good. With our time constraints, I wouldn’t be able to win enough and come back here to buy it out. This was my sacrifice for Sydney’s dream.
The amount he named was low, of course, and we haggled our way around various numbers. We’d almost settled at a price (though it was still less than the cufflink’s worth) when I played my next move and took out the second cufflink. “Give me that amount,” I said. “And I’ll cut you this deal. I want these stones set into an engagement ring—white gold’s fine. Then I need two plain wedding bands. You keep the platinum as payment. It’s worth a hell of a lot more than what you’ll be giving me in return. Oh, and I need it done in an hour.”
We haggled some more details, but he knew he was getting a good deal out of all this and wanted it. We finally settled, and he showed me an assortment of rings. I didn’t have much time and chose a simple engagement style that would hold the rectangular diamond with smaller rectangular rubies on each side. I’d planned on just getting plain bands, but he showed me a set of matching white gold rings with tiny rubies scattered throughout them that appealed to me. They seemed like a tribute to the cufflink that had been sacrificed on behalf of this crazy scheme. I signed off on everything, took my cash, and reminded him he had an hour.
From there, it was a trip to the nearest casino with a high-stakes poker room—with a very important phone call made along the way. Playing with that kind of money was a bit daunting, especially knowing I had such little time and that so much was riding on it. If I lost it, there’d be no time to win it back, and a lot of plans would fall through. I stayed calm and refused to panic, treating this as a casual game and relying on my usual trick of reading auras. The players here were no different than the others I’d played against, I told myself. They were just throwing around much bigger bets.
An hour later, I left the table with enough to cover all the wedding expenses I racked up, as well as a way out of Las Vegas. I headed back up to the jeweler, who’d come through with what he promised. I pocketed the rings and placed another phone call as I made two stops: one at drugstore and one at a wine store. With a sigh of relief, I realized I’d completed the last of my tasks, short of the wedding itself. I headed back to the bridal shop, amazed to find that I was right on schedule.
The last two hours had been so frenetic, so anxiety-producing, that I felt as though my world had been put on fast forward, with everything needing to be done now now now. And so, it was more than a little surreal when I stepped into the store and saw Sydney …
… and time as I knew it suddenly froze.
I’d meant it when I’d told her to get whatever she wanted. I didn’t care. She really could’ve shown up at the altar in a teal T-shirt, and I would’ve married her with my heart full of love. That being said, I’d had a few ideas of what kind of dress she’d go with. Something modest, say with long lace sleeves, was my biggest guess. Or maybe one of those simple kinds with a short-sleeved top that had no extra embellishment. She was Sydney, after all. I expected pragmatism from her.
What I didn’t expect was old Hollywood glamor. The dress wrapped around her snuggly, showing a body that in no way looked too skinny, with folds of organza and crystal beaded embellishment. Just below her hips, it flared out mermaid style in a burst of tulle that was also decorated with scattered embellishment. Only one delicate lace-and-crystal strap rested on her shoulder; the other shoulder was bare. Her hair, with its new extra length, had been swept into a simple updo with a crystal comb holding it into place at the back of her head, with a long, sheer veil trailing from it. Sparkling, dangling earrings were her only jewelry, and some masterful makeup artist had covered up all signs of her recent fatigue—and her golden lily—without making it look excessive. It was perfect.
She was perfect. Radiant. Glorious. A vision.
“I feel like I should be on my knees again,” I said in a small voice.
She gave me a nervous smile and ran a hand over the glittering dress. “Just tell me you can afford all this, because I might take back what I said about going with the T-shirt.”
“I can afford it,” I said, still awestruck by her beauty.
She gave me a small nudge. “Then you’d better get dressed.”
The consultant was happy to show me to a dressing room, happier still when she saw my money. The tux they’d picked out was classic and elegant, double-breasted and black. The consultant made sure I wanted to buy it, rather than rent it, and I reassured her I did. Renting would’ve required a credit card, and I wanted to use mine as little as possible, since that provided a trail. The more I could do in cash, the better.
Sydney’s eyes shone when I stepped out of the dressing room. I felt paltry next to her brilliance, but she assured me I looked amazing. The consultant helped pin a white peony to my jacket, and I noticed Sydney was carrying a small bouquet of pink ones in one hand. In her other hand, she held the two bags we’d been juggling since coming to Nevada, and now I had more to add to the collection. We managed to consolidate them all into one bag before leaving the store, and she gave the wine-store bag a puzzled glance.
“What’s that for?”
“Our honeymoon,” I said.
“I figured that’s what the drugstore bag was for,” she remarked.
“That too,” I promised.
We finished up the last of our payment and then walked out hand in hand, completing the last bit of our journey by foot. Our destination was the Firenze, a new hotel with an Italian theme that this shopping complex connected to. I could tell Sydney was a little self-conscious walking through the crowds in her wedding finery, but that was by no means an uncommon sight in Las Vegas. People smiled as we passed, and many congratulated us. It did, perhaps, attract more attention than we wanted, but I kind of liked pretending all the people we passed were guests attending our wedding. That, and I was more than a little proud to show off the gorgeous bride at my side.
Just as we reached the Firenze’s entrance, a new text came in from Jill. I read it and found a big smile spreading over my face. “What is it?” asked Sydney.
“Wait and see,” I said. “We just got a major wedding present.”
The Firenze, like most big Las Vegas resorts, had a section of wedding chapels, and I led Sydney to them through the casino. A nervous-looking man in a hotel uniform paced the wing and came to a halt when he saw us.