Extra Bonus #89: Night Before Jane's Wedding (Patreon)

IMPORTANT: Please do not screenshot and post any part of this bonus scene to other sites or share with non-patrons. All of the Patreon content is exclusive to Patreon and for current patron's eyes only.  Thank you!! xoxo Krista & Becca

RESOURCES:  Check out this narrative timeline graphic to visually see when this bonus scene takes place.

MUSIC: We listened to "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke while writing this bonus.  

MINUTES UPON MINUTES. Gone. Dwindling. Slipping. Like sand syphoning through an hourglass, and I can’t turn it over. It’s beyond me. Beyond even one of the richest, most powerful men in Philadelphia—my soon-to-be father-in-law. Not even Connor Cobalt can stop the sands of time.

I scrape a hand across my unshaven jaw that hasn’t untensed. I refresh the flight tracker on my phone for the umpteenth fucking time.

I can’t unfuck it.

Can’t do anything here but watch and wait, and I’m watching and waiting in the darkness of the penthouse library. I know well and fucking good what’s happening, and still, I don’t want to accept it. I want to pack this outcome up and shoot it back to whatever hell it came from.

Go to bed.

You’re getting married tomorrow.

Forget about it.

I almost hear my Uncle Joe. Fuhgeddabout it. Family.

Family.

Family.

My throat tries to fucking close. I hear my strained breath in the near silence. My ears are attuned to every squeak and creak and pitter-patter of paws. So when I hear the gentle whine of the door hinges, I’m already looking up as Jane Cobalt enters.

“Thatcher?” she calls out in a breezy but worried whisper.

My eyes have adjusted to the darkness, but hers haven’t.

“Back here, honey.” My voice sounds constricted and too deep. To the point where I wonder if she hears me. But she slips farther into the library and locates a switch on the wall.

Flames suddenly roar in the gas fireplace.

The library illuminates in fierce orange hues, and the towering, ornate bookcases—something belonging in Beauty and the Beast—remind me that I’m not in a cramped one-bedroom apartment racking out on a pull-out in South Philly. Haven’t been that little boy in a long time.

But tonight, it’s been on my mind.

Family. Childhood. Brothers. Brother.

Twin.

I’d glance at the flight tracker, but for the first time, something else captures my attention.

Jane.

Her blue eyes are locked on mine. I might be shadowed in the corner, but the fireplace glows against her fair cheeks, her committed, confident stance, and her soft five-foot-seven figure.

Unholy hell…she is beautiful. It’s a gut-punch. Seeing just how stunning Jane is in this light, on this night, with tomorrow looming.

 A silk blue eye mask is perched on her forehead and pushes her wavy brown hair out of her gorgeous face. She’s in a white lacy thin-strapped nightgown that I’ve never seen her wear, and the short hem stops at her thighs.

My pulse thuds deeper.

“Jane,” I breathe out her name from my core. “You should be asleep.” It’s not what I wanted to say.

“As should you,” she volleys, her voice light and airy. I could die happy inside the sound. She rubs at her arms. “It’s freezing in here.”

I didn’t notice the cold. I reach to take off my shirt for her—to give to her—except, I’m shirtless. Fucking…my hands fall to my thighs. I’m only wearing gray sweatpants, and I stand up from the leather chair. Trying to get my head on straight. I glance around the furniture and bookcases.

“What are you looking for?” Jane asks, warming her hands at the fire.

“A blanket for you.”

Her lips barely tic up. Concern steals her smile. “I’m perfectly fine, Thatcher. Really. See.” She glides closer to the fireplace and uncrosses her arms and twirls around, her back to the flames. The fire frames her body. For as sweet as Jane is, she has the fierceness of a Cobalt, and fire and ferocity glimmer her blue eyes.

It draws me toward her.

“On the other hand,” Jane says with more apprehension, “you must be frozen solid. How long have you been in here?” 

“Hours,” I admit, my phone in my fist. “What are you doing awake?” I bridge the distance between us, inches depleting, despite the separation we’d agreed to.

She arches a brow. “I was going to ask the same thing of you.” She tilts her chin upward just to meet my eyes now—I’m only a foot away. “I checked the guest room, and you weren’t there.”

I stare down at her. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“I couldn’t either. Possibly, this was the worst idea I’ve had.”

“It wasn’t your idea. It was ours.”

“I appreciate you going down with this very poorly planned idea because I would do the same for you a hundred times over, but it was undoubtably my idea to sleep in separate rooms the night before our wedding. And when I posed its potential—that it could possibly make our wedding night more special and spectacular—you simply said, anything you want, honey. Which…” She smiles a little, and air reenters my lungs. “…is what every girl longs to hear.”

I’m lost in the brightness of her eyes. “Woman.”

“Oui.” She glows more. “What every woman longs to hear. I am a woman. Your woman, in fact.” She holds her hands behind her spine, her posture straight and collarbones tight. Her breath comes shallow. I want to reach out and scoop her in my arms, but I struggle to move my joints. I’m stuck between my brother and my fiancée. Wedged firmly between pain and love. “…and to be quite frank, I was going to seduce you, Mr. Moretti.”

I almost…almost smile. I stare deeper into her, being carted away from torment for a moment. “Had I been in the guest bedroom, had you walked in like that, rest assured, you wouldn’t have had time to seduce me, Jane.”

Curiosity sparkles her eyes. “And why’s that?”

“I’d already be fucking you.”

Her lips part in an aching breath that I’d like to capture with my mouth, but her voice is caught with confusion. “But you’re here.”

“I’m here,” I echo, tension lining my muscles.

She sees. “What happened, Thatcher?”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on his plane, and…” Words abruptly knot in the back of my throat, and my expression darkens. 

Her face falls. “It hasn’t taken off yet?”

“Delayed. Storms haven’t let up in Minnesota. All planes have been grounded for hours.” Banks, Akara, and Sulli are stuck miles away, and I can’t get them here. I can’t get my brother here. I’ve been trying. We’ve been trying to find alternatives.

Jane was on the phone all day with pilots who could charter a private plane. No one was available this last minute in Minnesota, so my brother was stuck with commercial. We didn’t suggest a car rental. It’s a twenty-hour drive to Philly. The only way they’re making the wedding is by air.

“Merde,” Jane breathes, prying off her eye mask. Her hair sticks up a little.

I flatten the strands for her. I keep a hand against her face, wanting to hold a part of her. My thumb caresses her freckled cheek.

“It was fine,” she thinks out loud. “They booked the flight. Everything was fine. I wouldn’t have gone to sleep if I thought it’d all implode.” She looks horror-stricken in realization. “You’ve been here all night alone.”

“Ophelia came in.”

“As terribly as I love our cat, she does not entirely count. She can’t hold a computer. She can’t search for other flights. She can’t give you a charger if your phone dies.”

“She’s not you,” I agree, my voice a husky, cavernous whisper. It hurts to speak, but I’m trying.

 Her eyes soften on me like pillows, and she places a consoling hand on my chest. “I wish you would’ve woken me.”

I encase the top of her hand with mine, not moving her palm off me. “One of us needs to get sleep, honey.” She’s supposed to be walking down the aisle at oh-nine-hundred. Morning. In less than seven hours. “You’re the bride.”

“You’re the groom,” she counters. “And I’d much rather be sleep deprived with you on our wedding day, in solidarity.”

I could argue with Jane. This is my brother. My burden. Like hell does she need to be dragged down in this before what should be the happiest day of our lives, but I fell in love with a woman who will never leave my side.

I love Jane because she’ll fight to stay next to me when it gets hard—even when all instinct screams at me to pick her up and bring her to safety.

Her blue eyes stay resolute on mine, and very softly, she tells me, “If you’re going to wait it out here, then here is where I’ll be.”

I adore her. Beyond reason.

Devotion is so easy for her and me, but to give myself so completely to someone and have them return the favor in kind is an all-consuming love. I can’t fathom losing it. To drive her away out of some noble cause—like protecting her from my pain—would be a fucking mistake. One I’m not making.

The real noble thing, I’ve known, is for her to remain at my side.

Words are trapped again, I just nod, but I think she can see the affection in my eyes.

She makes good on her promise. Bringing in a white comforter and pillows, Jane creates a bed on the floor near the fire, but I can’t sit.

I’m at a rigid stance. Refreshing the flight tracker. Watching and waiting.

She’s on her phone on the ground, and the slip of her nightgown almost, almost distracts me. The lacy hem rises up her thigh as she shifts her legs. She strokes Toodles, the tuxedo cat lounging near the hearth. LJ, Lady Macbeth, and Ophelia have also sought after the warmth of the fire and likely the warmth of Jane.

I understand the calling. I feel beckoned towards her.

But I’m not letting myself go. I’m not letting myself escape the storm that should be miles and miles away from me. I’m not letting myself crawl out of this fucking purgatory, and I hear my brother in my head.

Calling me a fucking gabbadost’. Telling me to forget him. To be with her. To enjoy this last unmarried night.

I can’t. How do I leave him behind?

How can I? He’s been with me my entire fucking life. Twenty-nine years of living—with him, beside him, around him. I cannot forget him.

I will not forget my brother.

I’ve already lost one…

“Thatcher,” Jane consoles, seeing my torn-up face.

And this time, I go to her—because the pain is so deep, I want her to pull out a piece of the shrapnel. I need her to. Sinking down beside Jane on the comforter, I’m about to haul her on my lap when my phone rings.

Her eyes brighten at the name on the screen.

It’s Banks. I answer quickly and put the phone on speaker, popping up the web browser. “I’m looking at the flight tracker right now,” I say in one strict breath, and I’m staring at the word delayed. I’m staring at no estimated times of departure. No rescheduled flights. No possibilities of him making it here in enough time.

It crashes back against me. Nearly drags me under its finality. 

“What’s it say?” Banks asks, sounding like a fist is in his esophagus.

It chokes me too. “It might not be delayed for long.” I refresh again. The storm will clear up. “It could pass through in enough time.” 

“Thatcher.” His voice fractures.

A fissure runs through me, but I’m unblinking, staring off at the heavy curtains shielding the windowpanes for a moment. My throat burns raw. He’s not going to make it. He’s not going to make it. Truth is, if I were to cut the guest list by 99%, the only person I would’ve kept on it…would’ve been him.

I close the web browser. Taking it off speaker, I press the phone to my ear just as Banks breathes out from his whole chest, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I sniff loudly and swallow sandpaper.

Jane slides her hand on my leg. She’s knelt beside me, and I meet the comfort inside her eyes. “I’m here,” she says, and weight tries to release off my sternum. My ribs try to untighten. I try to breathe.

I shift my phone to my other ear, my biceps taut.

“I’m sorry,” Banks whispers. “I’m so sorry.” He’s broken up as much as I am—probably more. Banks loves so hard, and hurting me is eviscerating him. It’s going to destroy him. This is fucking destroying my brother.

I feel it destroying me. “No, I’m sorry,” I choke out, my nose flaring as I fight the burning swell of water in my eyes.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” he questions. “Huh? You’re not the one missing…” He takes a staggered breath.

I rub a hand over my mouth. Then swallow hard again, but the knot won’t go down. “It’s out of your control,” I say deeply, a tremor in my voice. “And I’m sorry if you think I’m pissed at you—I’m not. You know I can’t be, not for more than a second.”

I hear his sharp breath again. “I want to be there.”

It hurts to breathe. “I want you here.” More than anything.

He pulls the next words out, like they’re knives plunged in his chest. “I physically can’t make it.”

I smear a hand over my eyes, then pinch them. “I know. It’s okay.” I can’t say it’s just a day. I can’t say it means nothing to not have him there. He’s my best man. He’s my twin. We grew up together. We went to war together. We joined security together. I only imagined death would prevent Banks from being here.

I hear his voice shake. “It’ll never be okay,” he says.

Jane is mouthing to me, postpone. And I’m not thinking it through as I say, “I can postpone the wedding.”  

“You aren’t doing that Thatcher Alessio Moretti,” Banks says in a heated whisper. “You can’t.” He goes on about how our family will give me shit. How too many people have booked hotels in Newtown Square. How it’ll disrupt all the work Jane did and for what?

For him.

“I’d never want you to change everything just for me,” Banks says.

“I’d change my world for you,” I whisper strongly. He’s one of the few people I would do absolutely anything for.

“You shouldn’t have to.” His voice carries a greater tremor. “I’ll be alright.” He is scraping through this, and I’m trying to claw beside him. “You’ll be alright. Sky will be with you.”

I bow forward, and my hand flies to my face as a sob tries to rip through me. We don’t talk about Sky. We rarely bring up Sky out loud. It hurts almost every time we do.

Jane rubs my back, and I only pry my hand off my wet eyes to curve my arm around her.

“I’ll see you and Janie when I can,” Banks says. “I love you.”

I intake deeper breaths, gathering my emotion and stuffing it back in my chest. “I love you too. Be safe.”

He exhales. “Tell Ma and grandma I’m fine. And tell your future brother-in-laws to record everything. Every angle.”

Jane must hear this because her lips inch up in the smallest of smiles.

“I’ll tell my future sister-in-law,” I say quietly. “Audrey will do a better job.”

He sniffs. “Good.”

Good.

We don’t say much else, but we share the pained silence and stay on the line. It’ll be alright. It’ll be okay. Because he’s not dead. He didn’t die.

I didn’t lose another brother. I get to see Banks beyond tomorrow, and that’s what matters the most to me.

After some goodbyes, we hang up.

Jane is already on her phone, typing away. She tucks a wavy strand of hair out of her face, then resumes course. My love for her has grown into something unimaginable. Protect Jane. It means more each new night, each new morning. Her beauty isn’t just on the surface—it’s entrenched deep within, and I’d die a thousand times to see it, to be near it, to uphold and defend it.

To safeguard her.

She would put her whole life on pause for someone she loves. She would sacrifice and dedicate and give.

And I’m in it with her. I’d do it with her. I’d be there with her, as someone who sacrifices and dedicates and gives. But I also have to protect her.

I put a hand over the screen. “Jane.”

“It won’t be unreasonably difficult,” she says but stress lines her forehead.

It’ll be unreasonably difficult. It’ll be worse than that—because my family isn’t easy when dealing with change, especially one this last minute.

“I can contact the vendors first thing in the morning…” She trails off, trying to make sense of my expression. “You don’t want to postpone?”

I kneel in front of her. On one knee. While she’s knelt on two.

“Thatcher?”

I cup her cheeks and skim her soft features. “Ma che bell’,” I whisper huskily. How beautiful.

Her eyes well up. She tries to speak, but her voice catches. For once, the words come easy for me.

 “Jane…Eleanor…Cobalt.” I say her name gently, as if to guard each letter, each syllable. “You are the first person in my life. You are my first priority. My first thought. My first emotion. My first and only love. And you can try to put yourself second, but I’m not gonna always let you. I promise, that for your sake, I won’t.”

Her tears gather, her collarbone jutting out with deeper breath. “What happens if I fight you on it?”

“I don’t cower easily. You better fight hard.”

Her smile peeks through.

I gaze into her bright blues. “If there’s one thing I’ll always do, Jane, it’s take care of you.” I promise her that, too.

Overwhelmed tears squeeze out of her eyes and slide down my hands on her cheeks. “But your brother,” she whispers. 

“We can do it without him. He’ll make it when he can make it.” My chest tightens. “Marrying me, you need to be prepared…” My voice goes hoarse. “You need to be prepared for this to keep happening—things that devastate. Suffering. I’ve never been dealt an easy hand, Jane. I can’t promise you a life without pain. I can promise that I won’t harm you. I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe—because I couldn’t live knowing I did anything less.”

Her hands tighten on my arms.

I dip my head closer to hers and profess, “The absolute best part of my life has been you. It will always be you.”

Her glassy eyes dance around my hard features. “You will always be the best part of mine, Thatcher. A life absent of you is the real pain. I’d choose to weather every devastating storm together. Always, together.”

I swear, “Always, together.”

She intakes a deeper breath. “True love withstands all, and I promise to be by your side just as you’ve sworn to be by mine.” Her fingers slip up my arm, warmth spreading through me. “For better or for worse.”

I skate my hand into her hair. “For richer or for poorer.” Our lips skim in a heady breath.

The fire crackles beside us. Cats purring, and I bring her down to the comforter, as she whispers, “In sickness and in health.” Beneath my body, her head gently meets a pillow.

My lips descend to hers. “To love and to cherish.” And I kiss her with slow-burning ferocity, a hunger for her that I’ll never fully satiate. Because I’ll always crave her. Always chase after her. Always need her.

Always, always, always.

We’re molten, melting, and she shudders under me. “Thatcher.” Her need matches mine, and while I kiss the holy hell out of her, I thread her legs with mine and split her knees apart.

I slide a faithful hand along her thigh, up her nightgown, prying off her panties. Her lips break from mine in a moan. “For as long…” She tries to say the words, her palms slipping down my abs. Then they curve around my back. She’s holding on to me. “For as long as we both shall live.”

I clutch her face, gazing into her before I enter her in all ways. Before I make carnal, passionate, everlasting love to Jane the night before we marry.

And I whisper against her ear, “I will love and honor you all the days of my life.”

Thanks so much for reading this month's extra bonus! This is just the start to Jane & Thatcher's nuptials. You will be seeing LOTS more, including the wedding. And yes, we realize Thatcher just broke a "house rule" and had sex in a communal area. Rest assured, this will be brought back up!

That's all for the promised content this month, but September is just around the corner and we have more in store! Stay tuned <3

xoxo Krista & Becca

 “Night Before Jane's Wedding," Copyright © 2024 by K.B. Ritchie