Love Doesn't Have a Price - Chapter Thirteen

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

- Ingrid Bergman

Chapter Thirteen – A Kiss Is Just a Kiss

A creeping sense that something was going to go wrong had been with her all day. The caterer for their wedding party cancelling at the last minute had been her first warning that morning. Her second had come in the form of her brother, who proved that obstinacy was catching in a rather dramatic turn – announcing that he refused to go anywhere near her new husband.

And because all good things come in three’s, her father had managed to get a message through explaining that his flight had been delayed and that he wouldn’t be able to make it.

So it had been perfectly understandable that during her interrogation by Syaoran’s family that she would calmly stand up, walk out and barricade herself in their room.

Perhaps she had been a tad on the dramatic side, but she was still carefully maintaining that if she had been forced to listen to blatantly obvious sneer that she was after his family fortune; due to their marriage circumstances and lack of pre-nuptial agreement, then she would have done something drastic. She had promised him that he wouldn’t like to see her do something drastic.

Soon after Tomoyo had shocked all the family members – still waiting outside her room and muttering beneath their breaths – by waltzing in, knocking once while explaining who it was and receiving an instant entry.

Having poured out her frustrations on Tomoyo’s sympathetic ear whilst being treated to coffee and donuts – comfort food Tomoyo had managed to sneak in with her – she now felt a great deal better. Certainly ready enough to face the taunts and accusations of her new family members.

The wonder goddess Tomoyo had even sorted out one of her problems for her by calling a catering company and demanding that they serve for them tonight. All she’d had to do was drop her name and they came running.

Reflecting lightly that she could enjoy that sort of power Sakura feeling rather tranquil now had opened her door to the public, just in time for Mei Ling to arrive and drag Tomoyo away to get ready for the party in less than three hours.

A bath at that point had seemed like just the thing to finish the job of calming her down and she had prepared it with enthusiasm.

She had forgotten her husband’s sixth sense when it came to the issue of her bathing. No sooner had she begun to relax than he had walked in, glancing at her distractedly for a moment before opening the draws of the counter.

“Have you seen my cufflinks, the gold dragon ones I wore last time we had a party?”

She frowned, “Aren’t they in your draw, the one beside the bed?”

Slapping his forehead distractedly he muttered scornfully to himself, “Duh!” before turning to go back out of the room.

He stopped before he reached the door, fumbling in his pockets for something before extracting two small black velvet boxes.

“Here, sorry I didn’t give them to you sooner.”

She watched wide-eyed as he moved off to his next destination, before her emerald orbs drifted down to boxes he had laid on the marble bathroom counter.

Curious she pulled herself out of the warm bath, wrapping one of his towel robe’s around her tiny form and wiping her hands carefully before crossing to pick one up.

It opened to a bed of silk with a single sparkling diamond ring.

It was hard not to be impressed. It was only simple, a gold band with a circle diamond centred in a traditional claw grip. The only extravagant thing about it was that the diamond itself was an estimate of eight carats.

Shakily she put the open box down, hesitant to even touch the exquisite thing, turning to the other box she opened it with as much trepidation. It contained a gold eternity ring.

She put it down with as much care as she could before just leaning back and gazing at them. About twenty minutes later she gained enough courage to actually pull the eternity band from the box and push it onto her empty ring finger, followed by the diamond engagement ring.

They felt heavy and unusual on her finger, a weight that didn’t seem to quite fit.

She was still staring at it in something akin to amazement when one of the maids came to hurry her along. An hour later and she was somewhat closer to being ready, even if she was a little bored.

With her hair and makeup finished all she needed to do was pull on the dress. It was definitely one of her favourites – even if Tomoyo hadn’t created it herself, she had still made the executive decision that the other girl would be wearing it.

Pale pink halter neck with black glittery bits focusing on the bodice and hem while covering the dress in between randomly it was a beautiful dress. She didn’t bother with any jewellery other than her rings, the dress being more than enough.

Finishing by checking her image in the full-length mirror she prepared to move out and go head to head with his family once again.

- O -

So far the evening had been going well, Syaoran had met her at the end of the stairs giving her a rare smile of approval before wrapping an arm around her waist and taking her to meet his family and friends.

Initially they had introduced people to each other personally which had taken up a great deal of time however after an hour of meeting and greeting they agreed to split up and talk to people separately.

“So, how does it feel to be married?”

Glancing nervously at the woman who had randomly appeared beside her Sakura replied hesitantly, “Very nice, thankyou.”

Another popped up, a mischievous grin settling on her features, “And your husband? He worth it?”

Loosening up slightly in their cheerful presence she replied, “Not sure yet, ask me in a week.”

“Yeah, the family’s such a drag to be around.” The first murmured again grinning carelessly even though heads turned their way due to her loud voice.

“Oi, Fanren, Fuutie, stop interrogating her!”

Sakura could have kissed Mei Ling then.

Grinning Mei Ling waved a careless hand in the girls direction explaining, “These are Syaoran’s two youngest older sisters. Li Fanren and Li Fuutie.”

Blushing at her rudeness Sakura murmured a quick hello. She didn’t warm up too much however, fully remembering the way her arrival into the family had been met earlier.

The two girls – while exuberant – turned out to be alright however and after half an hour in their presence she began to feel as if she had just been adopted. This sentiment seemed to be echoed by their loud exclamations of “She’s so cute!” and “You have to visit us!”

After they wandered off to talk to the intimidating family members she found herself alone for a minute, Mei Ling having been called away by her mother and Tomoyo was busy in conversation with some potential buyers, Eriol never far from her talking away with a stern woman.

Taking this chance to grab a glass of champagne and some finger food as they passed she watched her surroundings, trying to gain an understanding of how these people worked.

“So how’s married life treating ya?”

She groaned. Pasting on a falsely bright smile she said contrived, “Jason, my how are you?”

Offering her a mock hurt look he echoed the sentiment by saying, “I’m hurt by your lack of happiness at my appearance!”

Rolling her eyes was pointless but it made her feel better.

“So, finally come back to risk Mei Ling’s wrath again?” she asked companionably, “You seemed to disappear relatively quickly after you insulted her last time. In fact I think it’s been two weeks since I last saw you.”

He grinned, “Well you know, I like to keep my options open.”

“I’m sure. Would it be too obvious if I asked why you couldn’t just stay away?”

Smug bastard was still grinning, “You’d miss me too much of course.”

In a rather condescending move after that he tweaked her nose and disappeared into the crowd.

She was beginning to think that everyone was disappearing into the crowd. The crowd officially ate up every person she knew in a ruthless attempt to alienate her from every person in the room. She didn’t even want to think about where Touya was lurking.

She hadn’t seen her brother since the beginning of the night, and as far as she was concerned that was a good thing. If she hadn’t seen him it meant he wasn’t causing trouble anywhere. Not yet at least.

Resigning herself to alienation she drifted through the crowd searching for one of the waiters. The crowd seemed to have eaten them up too.

- O -

Two hours, a hundred and thirty six inane chats and four interrogations later and Sakura was officially sick of this party. The urge to leave it was a constant ache in the back of her neck contributed too by her extremely high heels – good fashion statement, but they murdered everything for the sake of it.

Stifling a yawn as another old woman went on about how cute Syaoran was when he was younger she let her mind wander to where her husband was currently standing.

He was looked very handsome tonight.

She retracted that thought mentally as soon as it entered her mind, there was no way she could think that Syaoran was hot, or sexy, or looking kinda sweet. He had put her through hell and she was not going to forget it simply because when he was with his family he looked calmer than she had ever seen him.

A scowl flitted across her face for a second, coming to rest there as she realised that she was justifying her dislike of him to herself. She shouldn’t have to justify it; it should just be there!

“I understand dear,” the kind old woman remarked watching her expression, “It must be hard to be separated even this much so early into the marriage.”

Her head snapped round so fast it was a miracle she didn’t break her neck, “Oh, yes,”

A hand settled against her waist causing her poor abused head to snap back around. It was a relief to find that it was only Syaoran, she wasn’t sure she could have dealt with Jason or Eriol at that particular moment.

“How are you holding up?”

The voice was kind and warm and the eyes gazing down into her own held an emotion that made her feel like running as far away from him as possible while also making her feel as if she never wanted to leave.

She realised too late that she had been staring into his eyes for too long. Offering a nervous cough she answered his question with a superficies before turning the question back on him.

“I’m alright.”

Wonderful, whatever else he may have become that night – and she was seriously considering searching for the pumpkin carriage before midnight struck – talkative was not one of his qualities.

Stifling another yawn she leant into his weight, letting him take the bulk of her own, head resting comfortably against his chest.

“Tired?”

“Mmhmm.”

“It’s only one more hour. Think you can hold out till then.”

The thought didn’t cross her mind for one second that he was being unusually nice to her. Really it didn’t. Ok, maybe one second…

Giving him a small tired grin she responded, “Find me some chocolate and you won’t be able to get me to bed in another hour.”

She was surprised when he laughed, a warm carefree sound that only served to heighten his appeal.

“I’ll see what I can do to find you some.”

She watched him move off with surprise and just a little bit of attraction before catching herself. Now why couldn’t he have one of those horribly annoying laughs that simply grated on your nerves until you wanted to throttle the person laughing. Instead he had to have one of those I’m really deep and masculine and sexy laughs.

It was at that point that his more aggressive family members managed to find her again.

Life was laughing at her, really.

- O -

It was the second happiest moment of her life when she was able to shut the door on the last unwanted guest. The first had been when she was five and had managed to finally stand up to the class bully who had had it in for her; of course she had been beaten up afterwards... So she had a few cracks in her childhood.

It was well past the finish line – somewhere between three thirty and four – and her she was too sober to keep the false pretences up for much longer.

Syaoran had been true to his word though, somehow, she had serious suspicions that he had stolen cooking chocolate from the caterers, he had managed to find and feed her some chocolate.

While the chocolate had helped for a while the only serious thought she had in her head at that moment was the impulse to throw away her shoes and crawling into bed and going to sleep.

Since they were expensive shoes and she didn’t really want to throw them away she decided that the sleep idea was a more practical and logical idea.

A half naked and practically asleep Syaoran occupied the bed, when she got there. Giving a small shrug she took the extra few painstaking minutes to hang up her beloved dress before crawling into bed beside him.

Neither of them had problems with sleeping in the same bed anymore, although it had been give and take there for a few days.

“Tell me again why this had to be rescheduled?”

“Because mother thought in retrospect that two weeks was too long to wait for the formal reception,” his muffled response did well to come through the pillow he was facing.

Nodding even though he couldn’t see it she snuggled down into the warm covers.

An arm flung itself across her waist and pulled her closer to his sleepy form. “You did well Sakura.”

Perhaps he was sick. Not only had he smiled at her tonight but also he had laughed and given her a compliment. She was undeniably going to catch something laying next to him.

Funny, as her body began to grown heavy from sleep and her eyelids drooped she snuggled closer, because she couldn’t seem to care.

- O -

“Do you think it went well?”

“Do you?”

“I think he’s going to have to work much harder to keep her.”

The hand tracing delicate circles on her stomach stopped as dark eyes looked into her own.

“He’s already changed a lot Tomoyo, you can’t expect miracles overnight.”

A perfectly crafted black brow raised, “Oh but I can. She means a great deal to me Eriol,”

He smiled; the act did nothing to sooth her slightly frazzled nerves.

“And me, do I mean a great deal to you?”

She was beginning to sweat now.

“What do you mean?”

It was pure skill that kept her voice from cracking as she said it.

He regarded her with dark eyes for a minute before rolling over and flippantly replying, “Never mind.”

Now why did it feel as if she’d just lost something?

- O -

It was still fairly early into the morning when he woke up and for once he was annoyed at the rigid body clock mechanism which managed to wake him even after the latest – or earliest depending on your perception of time – of nights.

Going back to sleep seemed to be his best option at the moment – or at least it was the only option he was willing to pay attention too. His attention soon drifted to the young woman sleeping in his arms.

Even with her make up smudged and hair stuck in odd angles due to hair spray, bobby pins stuck out of it randomly, she was still stunning.

Smiling faintly he reached down and let his hand caress her cheek gently.

Frowning delicately in her sleep she mellowed and moved closer to the source of heat.

Leaning down he placed a careful kiss against her lips before pulling her closer again and closing his eyes to go back to sleep.