Way Down We Go

Chapter Ten

Fate forced me to be an adaptor all my life. From the death of my father and the insanity of my mother, I had adapted. Through the regeneration, from Blaire all the way through to Brietta, I had adapted through all the different families and homes and states. Through the sudden change from being a small town North Carolina girl to being a multi millionairess, I had adapted. From the slightly baffled multimillionairess to the popular celebrity multimillionairess, I had adapted, but nothing could have adapted me to the mind of Catherine de Medici-Valois-Angoulême when it came to planning something.

Francis and I had rekindled our romance in August and we had made our first public appearance at the start of September. He was presented to the public on my birthday and attended award ceremonies and galas and business meetings with me. We spent my birthday in the most beautiful chalet in the mountains, after three glorious months together, returning twenty and twenty one respectively. We spent Christmas with our families but vacationed in one of the homes I owned for two weeks, spending Francis' birthday with each other.

I had my beautiful proposal in that time, all caught on video and camera, where I had been driven to the base of a mountain and had walked up the red silk and candlelit pathway at sunset. He had been at the top in a black suit and I had been in a black ballgown skirt with a matching bardot cropped top, my dark red and curled hair blowing in the gentle wind as we watched the sunset together whilst eating from a romantic picnic of some of my favourite foods. And, when it got dark and the base and rolling hills of the mountain were lit up by the candles and the lights from people's homes, he lead me to my feet and to the middle of the peak, before taking my hand and falling to a knee in front of me, pulling out a gorgeous eight carat rounded square diamond with a double halo that rested on an eternity band of platinum and tens of half carat diamonds, ten black diamonds on the inside with the words 'mon amour' in fancy French scripture. It couldn't have been more perfect. It may have sounded strange, but an engagement was one of the bigger things I was worried about during our arranged marriage. Multiple times, I had envisioned my proposal and marriage.

Our engagement was publicly announced in late January and in that time, I had discovered -again- that Catherine dominated everybody when there was a party to plan. She rushed around like a headless chicken barking orders at the wedding planners and Francis -who was the one of us who was hands on involved with wedding planning as I had released another album and was extremely busy with choreography, filming, songwriting, producing, editing, filming music videos, promoting, merch and organising my next tour- about what she wanted the wedding to be like, colour schemes, venues, location of the wedding, dresses, suits, etc.

"Are you ready?" I heard. Looking up from my book, I saw Francis standing with that bashful little smile on his face, looking as adorable as ever in his jeans and black hoodie.

"Yep," I smiled, standing up after a few moments. We were due to film a video for a new song from my new album, and I was working with an independent band to get them more exposure.

My hair and makeup artists finished the natural look with some spray and played with my elbow length wavy brown wig, straightening out my black skinny jeans, black army boots, dark red vest top and green light jacket, before I waved them away and took Francis' hand, walking out of one of the smaller buildings in the complex and over to one of the gardens. It was nighttime and the band was all set up, a bonfire burning in the middle of them, the backup actors -mainly every bodies friends and family- positioned and all the crew positioned with their cameras. I could faintly see Andrew filming from the corner of my eye for the behind the scenes for my video, and could see Henry and Catherine and my girlfriends smiling softly as Francis and I passed my them.

I fiddled with my little gold locket on a thin chain as Francis lead me over to my little chair before taking his place near his parents and one of the crew handed me my cello and bow. I positioned it and flipped my hair to one side, the director starting to talk loudly, before snapping the black and white thing and counting us in.