I ran out of the conference room to answer my phone when Caroline called for the fourth time in a row.

"Hello?" I said, quickly, thinking she was in some sort of trouble.

"Where have you been, Aiden?" she practically barked from the other end of the line.

"I'm in a meeting, Caroline. Is there something wrong?" I asked.

"Do you know that it's been two weeks since our last wedding planning meeting?" she exclaimed.

I rolled my eyes. "Really? Has it? What an outrage," I said, sarcastically.

Caroline didn't notice my sarcasm and replied, "It is! I don't know how we will get anything ready by next June if we don't keep to a schedule."

"Caroline," I said, patiently, "It's September. You still have eight whole months."

"There's so much to do, Aiden!" she shrieked.

"Isn't that why we hired a wedding planner?" I asked, genuinely baffled as to what the hurry was.

"Rosalie can only tell me what I need to do and where I need to go! She can't pick out things for me. God, Aiden, you can be so infuriating sometimes!" Caroline huffed.

I rolled my eyes again. That makes the two of us.

"Okay, okay," I said, trying to calm her down, "What do you need me to do? Why did you call me?"

"Well, Aiden, I called Rosalie today and she and I both agreed that a planning meeting is long overdue. So, she agreed to meet with us this evening. I told her that we would do a session over dinner," Caroline calmly told me.

"What do I need to do?" I asked.

"Well, it's going to be at your apartment, Aiden," she said, like it was so obvious.

"Why does it have to be at my place? Why can't we do it at yours?" I asked.

"We can't have the paparazzi follow her to my apartment," Caroline said, outraged.

I raised an eyebrow. "And it's okay if they find my apartment?"

Caroline tittered. "Oh, darling, you're a boy. No one cares where you live."

"Fine," I agreed, letting her win, again, because I had to get back to my meeting, "Anything else?"

"Well, we need dinner, of course," she said, more to herself than to me, "And I told Rosalie to come at seven."

"I'll be there," I promised.

"Did you hear me properly, Aiden? Seven. Sharp. It's your house so you need to be there to let us in."

"Yes, dear, I know. I'll be there," I said, tired.

"No working late today," she said.

"No working late," I repeated.

"Seven o'clock sharp. See you then, darling," she said, and hung up.

Even though I rolled my eyes again as I walked back towards the conference room, I couldn't help feel strangely enthused by the idea of wedding planning.

Inside the conference room, everyone was milling around, drinking coffee and discussing paperwork. I scanned the room and walked over to the man who Arthur Hammond had introduced to me a few weeks ago.

"Ian Jeffries, right?" I said.

"Yes, Mr. Carlisle," he said, smiling, "Anything I can do."

"Yes, can you give me the liquidation proposal you were talking about?" I asked.

He handed me a file. "Congratulations on the engagement, sir," he said.

"Aiden," I prompted, "And thank you."

"Well, you know, my girlfriend is actually planning your wedding," he told me, conversationally.

I looked up from the file, my eyebrows raising. I looked him up and down. "Rosalie?" I asked.

He nodded. "That's her."

"Oh, well, she's wonderful. She's very good at her job. She loves it," I told him.

He shrugged. "Yeah, well she doesn't talk about it much with me, what with it all being so secretive."

I surveyed his face. Rosalie spoke about wedding planning with the sort of enthusiasm that would make you think that when she started talking about it, it would be hard to get her to stop. The fact that Ian didn't hear much about it seemed strange.

"Yes, well," I trailed off, "Thanks for the file."

I nodded to him and walked away, wondering what was so off-putting about him.

As I had promised Caroline, I was left work on time to be ready for the planning session that was going to take place. I had placed an order for some Chinese food from one of my favourite restaurants and was having my driver bring it over around seven-thirty.

I had had time to shower and change into a Polo t-shirt and a pair of jeans. I was sitting in the living room, watching the news when the doorbell rang.

I looked at the clock. It was seven o'clock sharp. I guessed that Caroline really was quite particular about being on time. I had given her name along with Rosalie's to the front desk so that they could be sent up straight away.

I straightened my t-shirt before going to the door to open it, knowing Caroline would make a comment about it if not.

When I opened the door, however, it wasn't a tall, strawberry-blonde haired model that stood at my doorstep. Instead, it was a light brown-haired wedding planner, with a bright smile on her face and her arms laden with binders.

"Hello," she said, softly.

"Hey," I replied, "Come on in. Can I help you with those?"

"No, that's fine, I've got it," she said, shaking her head.

I stepped aside, letting her walk into the entryway. She stood a few feet away from me, waiting for further instructions. I closed the door and led her into the living area.

She looked around. "This is beautiful," she commented.

"Thanks," I said, grinning, sheepishly.

When she looked around a little more, she quickly turned to look at me. "I'm sorry. Am I early?"

I shook my head. "You're right on time, actually. Caroline isn't here yet, though, so we can just wait for her. You can put those down on this table."

She followed me over to the coffee table and carefully placed all her binders in a corner.

"Can I get you a drink?" I offered, moving over to the bar.

Rosalie shook her head. "No, thank you. I prefer not to when I'm working." She gave me a sheepish smile.

"How about a soda?" I asked.

"Sure, thanks."

I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a soda and a platter of snacks and went back into the living room. I handed Rosalie the soda and put the platter down on the table, before taking a seat myself.

"I met your boyfriend today," I told her.

She snapped her head in my direction. "Ian?" she asked and I nodded, "Oh. How did you meet him?"

"I met him a few weeks ago, actually. He's a part of a big merger we're doing. When I saw him today, he congratulated me and told me that you're his girlfriend," I explained.

"Oh, yeah, he told me he was in the middle of a merger," she said.

"How long have the two of you been together?" I could hear myself ask, but I didn't even know why I did.

"It'll be two years very soon," she said, nodding.

"How did the two of you meet?" It's like my brain had ceased to be able to function normally.

"It was at a wedding, actually. He was one of the groom's cousins and came looking for the wedding planner to solve a crisis and at the end of the day, he asked me out," she shrugged. There wasn't much of reminiscent happiness on her face.

"Are those yours?" she asked, nodding to a shelf of trophies on the bookshelf behind the couch.

"Yeah," I let my words trail off, as she got up to go over to look at them. I walked over to her, standing behind her, reading the plaques over her shoulder.

There were awards that I had won for business and entrepreneurship, which were the ones that everyone loved to comment on or hear about.

"Congratulations on Entrepreneur of the Year," she said.

I sighed. "Thank you."

"Oh, what's this? Excellence in piano study?" she turned her head to me, with a playful smile on her face. She nodded to my piano that sat in the corner of the room. "Then I guess that's not just for decoration."

I laughed, as I perched myself on the backrest of the couch. "I guess not, but not much in my apartment is for decoration. And I can't lie. I haven't played in a while," I confessed.

She turned her body to face me. "That's a shame. Judging by the numerous awards that you do have, you must be so good at it. And this place is quite well put-together, even without any decoration."

I looked around. "I guess you think it needs a woman's touch?"

She shrugged. "It needs a touch of the personality of the people living here."

"Person," I corrected, "I live alone." Her eyebrows raised in question. "Caroline doesn't live with me. Yet."

Rosalie nodded.

"I'm assuming you think that's strange," I said, as she turned back to look at my trophies.

"Not at all," she said, looking over the whole shelf, "Ian and I have been together for almost two years and we don't live together."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I think it's because I just really love having my house to myself. You played basketball in college?" she asked, pointing to a trophy in the back.

"Nah, I just stole it to show athletic prowess," I said, sarcastically.

She threw her head back and laughed and I realized at that moment, that I had never seen her hair down before, cascading down her back in soft curls. She was dressed a little less formally than usual, as well.

She had on a light blue blouse, tucked into beige wide-legged pants and a pair of wedge heels. Her hair was held out of her face with a light blue clip that matched her blouse. It was a lot more colourful than the attire she usually wore during an event, and it did well in highlighting her eyes.

She walked past the piano and towards the glass panes that looked out on to the city. You could see twinkling lights from buildings and planes and when you looked down, you could see people on the street and the blinking of lights from all the vehicles on the road.

"Your view is spectacular," she commented, "You can see almost the whole city from up here."

I got up and followed her, to look out the into the city. "I do enjoy it after a particularly hard day," I admitted.

"I'm sure you do," she said, wistfully, "The world seems so small from up here. It must be like any problems you have are practically nothing."

I looked at Rosalie sideways, and she was watching the world with a small smile on her face. I wondered if Caroline ever stopped to watch the world.

Thinking of Caroline, I checked my watch. "I do apologize, Rosalie. Caroline usually isn't late."

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I have all the time in the world."

"How long more do we need to plan this wedding?" I asked, "Caroline seems to think that any moment we're not doing something wedding related is a moment lost."

Rosalie turned away from the view, with a smile. "There will always be things to do when it comes to a wedding. Especially such a high-profile wedding like yours. A lot of planning and care at exactly the right time goes into pulling off a perfect wedding, the way Caroline would like."

"Kind of like a business deal," I pitched.

She chuckled a little and agreed. "I guess you could say that. Both parties need to be on the same page, in agreement and plans need to be executed properly."

"What got you into wedding planning?" I asked, motioning her back to the couch.

"I've always loved weddings, but I think it was when I was about eight and my cousin, Heather, got married. She married this big businessman's son, so she had a big wedding. I remember watching people set everything up and there was this one lady who was in black, standing in the sidelines, watching everything that was happening," she told me, taking a seat, but looking like she was far away, "I watched her. She seemed to notice things that no one else did. When my uncle, Heather's Dad was standing near the entrance, practically in tears, she spoke to him comfortingly so that he was ready to walk her down the aisle."

Inadvertently, I leaned in to listen to her.

"When one of the bridesmaids popped a button, she was right there with a needle and thread, ready to sew it back on. When there was a flower on Heather's head that looked like it was about to fall out right before she walked down the aisle, this lady pushed it back into place. All day she put out fires before they even happened and Heather had her dream wedding, without a care in the world. She was so happy at the end. I guess I wanted to do that for everyone that I could, so I got into the wedding planning business."

She finished with a light chuckle. I looked at her, her eyes shining.

I opened my mouth to reply, but the doorbell rang, cutting me off.

Rosalie and I got up and walked to the entryway. I opened the door and there was Caroline, dressed to the nines.

"Aiden, darling!" she said, coming in and kissing me on the cheek. She walked past me into the house, surveying her surroundings. "Ah, Rosalie, you're here. Great. We can get started. Aiden, did you order dinner?"

"Yes," I replied, "From that Chinese place –"

"Well, I brought along a little salad for myself because I'm trying to look nice for my photoshoot next week," Caroline said, airily, tittering, "Can I put it in your refrigerator?"

She walked in, like she owned the place, finding the kitchen. I followed her in, as Rosalie stayed in the hall.

As I walked in, Caroline was giving my kitchen a once over as she put her salad in the refrigerator. "You're late," I told her, "You said seven and it's seven thirty."

She walked over to me, with a laugh. "Oh, Aiden. I'm not ­late. I'm fashionably late. Perfectly acceptable."

She patted me on the shoulder and walked out. "Shall we start the planning?"