Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 580 -

*Natalia*

I was in the sitting room making myself a drink. I didn't really need it, but I wasn't sure what else to do with myself right now. I was far more worked up than I should have been.

I tried not to let the dress issue ruin the rest of my day out with Mia, but it had weighed on my mind the entire time we'd been out. Eventually we agreed to make an appointment at a different bridal shop to look for bridesmaid dresses. I knew what color and fabric I wanted now, but that was it.

I wanted to look at more gowns, too.

The perfect dress was still out there somewhere, and no I had no idea what it might look like.

I didn't want a dress that looked anything like what Bianca was going to wear. That might have been petty, but it made me angry to even think about the smug look on her face when she bought that dress. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of thinking she stole something from me.

I didn't hear Tallon when he entered the room, so when his hands landed on my waist I jumped and shouted.

When I whirled around, ready to hit someone, he was standing with his hands up defensively.

"I'm sorry," he said with amusement clear in his voice. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"I didn't hear you come in," I said. I pressed my hand to my chest and took a deep breath. "You're going to scare me to death," I muttered.

"What has you so jumpy?" he asked with concern.

I sighed and shrugged helplessly. I abandoned my drink and turned to give him my full attention. "It's nothing important, I was just distracted. Mia and I went to look at dresses and I found out that Bianca definitely bought the dress that I wanted...."

I trailed off. I didn't really want to get into this topic again. Tallon had been so skeptical of me before and I didn't want to fight with him.

"I know," he said.

I stared at him in shock. "You do?"

A sour look came over his face as he replied, "I ran into Bianca. She told me outright that she took your dress."

"I knew it," I said angrily. "Why is she doing this? What the hell is she trying to accomplish?"

"I don't know," he said. "But I think that you're right. She clearly has some scheme in the works, and her goal seems to be to ruin our wedding."

I was torn between relief and anger. Tallon believed me, he didn't think that I was imagining things or being oversensitive.

On the other hand, I was furious. The fact that Bianca had approached Tallon was infuriating, even more than the fact that she was trying to mess with the wedding.

After the snotty comment she had made to me about his arrest, I could only imagine what she said to him. We'd been through enough already. Dealing with her crap was just too much.

"She's going to fail," Tallon assured me. "There's nothing that she can acquire that we can't and nothing that she can take from us that we can't replace a better version of."

"I know," I said with a sigh. "It's the audacity that she had to try to rub it in our faces," I said angrily. "That's what really gets to me. It's not enough for her to take the dress, she has to brag about it too. What does she think she's going to accomplish by doing this? I just can't understand the goal here."

"I don't understand it either," he said. "But it's nothing that we can't handle. She's an inconvenience, that's all."

I smiled a little. She would be so furious to hear him say that.

I found it incredibly comforting that Tallon was finally on the same page as me when it came to Bianca. He had mentioned before that he could look into her, but then everything with the police had happened and Bianca just wasn't important anymore. I wasn't sure if I wanted to ask him to follow through on that offer, but it was an option and knowing that was comforting too.

"My offer to have a dress made for you is still on the table," he pointed out. "I know that you still aren't sure what you want, but consulting a fashion designer will help you replace the perfect dress."

I was tempted to accept the offer. It would take a little bit of the pressure off because I wouldn't have to keep searching, but ultimately it would be even more stressful. I would have to make choices about every aspect of the dress from the fabric to the type of closure. I had enough on my plate. I didn't need to be thinking about those details.

"I appreciate the offer," I said with a shake of my head. "There are enough decisions to be made without trying to approve custom designs."

He nodded thoughtfully. "That's fair enough. We do have a lot of other details to iron out."

He was right. We'd barely begun planning and we were already running out of time. If we wanted our chosen date to work out, we had to start getting things scheduled.

"We need to book a venue," I said.

Tallon nodded his agreement, but a look of unease passed across his face. I did my best not to grin or laugh at him. I could tell by his reaction that he had forgotten all about the venue. I couldn't blame him entirely for the lapse. He had a lot of other things on his mind recently.

"Have you put any thought into what you want?" he asked.

I shrugged. "A bit, but I don't have my heart set on anything. I would like a place that's in a quiet location where we don't have to worry about making too much noise. I think that I would like for us to have use of the entire venue, too, not just a dance hall or something like that."

"That all sounds good to me," he said. "Some venues have a lot of restrictions on caterers and such, so we'll want a place that will let us have our chosen vendors and not raise a fuss about it."

"I hadn't thought of that," I said.

Tallon walked to the couch and sat down. I joined him and watched curiously as he pulled out his phone and started searching for wedding venues in the countryside.

I was amazed by how many options there were. As we scrolled through the options and looked at pictures of many of them, I began to realize that my desire for privacy was outweighed by how much I really didn't like the rustic wedding look. "I think that I'm changing my mind," I said softly.

"Why is that?" Tallon asked.

"I just don't like the country feel," I answered. "I don't think it's really right for us."

He smiled broadly at that. "I'm so glad you said that. I wasn't sure how to tell you that I hated all of these."

We both laughed and I leaned heavily into his side. "I wish you'd said something right away," I said. "We're doing this together, right? That means that we both need to state what we want so we can replace a good middle ground." "That's true," he conceded. "I just feel a little strange joining in on the planning this late. I didn't want you to feel like I was trying to take over."

"I don't think that at all," I said in surprise. "Tallon, I am so excited that you want to be part of the planning. It takes a lot of the pressure off. I've been trying this whole time to take into account what you might want, and I've felt like this was some kind of test... like I was going to screw it all up if I accidentally made a choice that you really didn't like."

He looked surprised by that. "I wouldn't try to test you," he said. "I just wanted to make the day perfect for you, that's why I wanted you to choose whatever you wanted."

We both laughed again. It felt like a ton of weight had been taken off both of us.

For the next few hours, we looked at dozens of wedding venues and picked them apart thoroughly. We wanted something big, with a bridal suite and a wet bar. Those were the must haves. We also wanted something with plenty of parking that was a standalone building, not part of a bigger complex.

We ended up with a short list of promising options. We wrote down the contact information for each and Tallon promised to call and set up tours of the venues so that we could see them in person and see which felt right to us.

It would also give us an opportunity to get a feel for the management of the venues and see which would be the best fit for us. It didn't matter how perfect the venue was, if we hated the manager then it was going to make things difficult. Tallon had a few business calls that he had to make anyway. He kissed me lightly, then excused himself to go up to his office.

I watched him go with a fond smile on my face. I couldn't help but feel optimistic about how things were going.

We were finally on the same page about Bianca, which meant that Tallon would deal with her and get that headache out of our way.

Even better, we were working on the wedding planning together. I felt so close to Tallon while we went through the venue options and discussed what we liked and disliked about each. We had our differences, of course. I wanted a garden in place of expensive floral arrangements, and he wasn't really interested in the flowers at all. He wanted to ensure that there was an expansive wet bar that could cater to our large guest list, while the alcohol wasn't a big consideration for me. The differences didn't really matter, though, because we had so much in common. We both wanted the venue to be large and open so that everyone could congregate together. We wanted on-site security to be available, even though we would have our private details as well. We both wanted suites for the bridal party so that everyone could get into their dresses at the venue and not try to travel in formal wear. We also agreed that the dining room and dance floor should be separate, rather than transitioning the dining hall into a dance space after dinner.

It felt like everything was finally coming together for us. It might have been tempting fate, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking that things were finally going to start going smoothly for us from now on.