Captain Swan - Wild at Heart

Prologue

"With him you can have the fairytale life you've always wanted."

Emma expelled an exhausted sigh as she pulled the handle of her suitcase behind her, rolling it through the airport, her mother's words doing constant loops through her mind. She made her way toward the airport check-in, the overhead announcement intruding her thoughts as she watched people hustle along to their next destinations. After a week of conferences and various meetings, she had to admit she still wasn't ready to get back home. Sleeping in her own bed, yes, but walking down the aisle and making a commitment to spend the rest of her life with someone she wasn't even in love with, not so much.

Still dressed in her business attire from the early morning conference, that consisted of a black pencil skirt, high heels and suit jacket under her red wool peacoat, she stepped into the ticket line and rested her suitcase upright on the floor. While gripping onto the handle, the carry-on bag strapped to her shoulder, she lifted her free hand and leered at the ugly yellow stone on her finger. She tried to be excited for the future, to be optimistic, but who was she kidding? Fairytale life. Really?

What her dear mother had really meant to say was 'the fairytale life she always wanted for Emma'. Going to an Ivy League school and becoming a lawyer was what both of her parents always wanted for her. But they really had no clue what their daughter really wanted in life; to go to an art school and become an artist, maybe a painter. Her dreams were only that though; a dream; an illusion. Every time Emma had expressed her real interests, her parents had always shut her down and shoved their own wishes upon her. Okay, granted, they've always been loving parents and provided her with clothes on her back, food in her belly and a nice roof over her head, but Emma was not hesitant to admit that they were a bit overbearing sometimes. Okay, they were a lot overbearing most of the time.

As a result of their never-ending relentlessness when it came to wanting to control every aspect of her life, Emma was at the Logan International Airport, about to check in her bags and get on the plane to Storybrooke, South Carolina where she would be helped into a very uncomfortably tight, puffy-sleeved, wedding ballgown that looked like it belonged to freaking Cinderella, while eating a castle-shaped cake that was overly sweet and she would be dancing to cheesy music she didn't pick out and oh yeah, marrying a man who was practically forced upon her - Oz Walsh, the son of the fortunate family who got rich by winning the lottery and got along famously with the Nolan family. Her name would soon be Emma Elizabeth Walsh and her husband would be the owner of a high-end furniture shop and their dinner conversations would consist of the latest new couches that arrived at the store or what's the best type of wood for a dresser. Seriously, who cares? But this was her fate and this was the rest of her life.

The long line moved forward and Emma rolled her suitcase along with her before stopping and releasing her grip on the handle and checking her bag once more to make sure she didn't leave her flight information, wallet or any other valuable items back at the hotel room she had stayed in. Her phone had been buzzing in the pocket of her coat just moments ago, so she knew that was still in place. She had refused to answer it, knowing that it was either her parents, the wedding planner they had hired or her fiancé and neither of them she cared to talk to right now. If the caterer was late, the flowers were all wrong or if the priest didn't even show up, hell if the whole wedding chapel burst into flames she wouldn't shed a single tear... well unless they were tears of joy.

With all of the items accounted for, she zipped up her bag and let it rest against her hip as she waited impatiently for the line to move again. Or maybe she was wishing the line would never move at all and she would miss her flight, or better yet, that it was canceled altogether. She smirked a little deviously at the thought. Having to miss her wedding because of a flight delay would be quite a shame. Then the line moved again and reality hit her.

Damn, this was going to be a really short flight to hell.