Never a Bride-Epilogue: "No Comment"
“I told you we could pull this off,” Dinah said smugly, running her thumb along the corner of Chloe’s mouth to fix her lipstick.
“I have to give you credit, Dinah. This may well be the most clever thing you’ve ever done.”
Dinah smirked. “I know. I love you, too. There,” she added, stepping back. “Now you’re perfect. He won’t know what hit him.”
Resisting an urge to bite her lip in anticipation, Chloe stood, turning to face the mirrors. She inhaled. My God, she thought quietly. This is finally happening. This is the real thing.
“So this is the infamous Vera Wang dress,” Dinah commented, eyeing Chloe’s beautiful gown, the one that had caused Chloe to snap all those months ago and break off her fake engagement to Oliver. “You look beautiful in it.”
She did. Chloe felt like she was wearing a cloud, the delicate chiffon skirt full and wide, sweeping around her like a cloud of smoke. Vera had had the thin straps and bodice with its sweetheart neckline altered to fit Chloe exactly, and-upon learning the color scheme for Chloe’s wedding-had added sparkling gold detailing to the skirt, making it appear almost gilded in the correct lighting.
Chloe smoothed her hands over it, letting the shimmering gold and ivory fabric run through her fingers like water. She remembered being terrified of this dress when she first saw it. She’d envisioned the tight bodice suffocating her, the flowing skirts tripping and drowning her, as if the very fabric had been spun from all her lies. But now…now that she and Oliver had worked things out, now that they each knew where they stood with one another, Chloe had realized that she couldn’t imagine herself getting married in any other dress. Somehow, the fact that it had scared her at first felt like the perfect representation of her relationship with Oliver. It had frightened her and she’d run away from it, but in the end it was perfect for her. Just like Oliver. Chloe smiled to herself.
“You look beautiful, too, Dinah,” she added for her bridesmaid’s benefit. Dinah’s lovely golden hair was pulled back, soft curls dripping like a waterfall down her back. She wore a simple gold chiffon dress, a perfect accent to Chloe’s wedding dress, and designed by-to everyone’s surprise-Mia.
“Who knew your intern had it in her?” Dinah commented, spinning around so Chloe could appreciate the view.
“She’s not an intern anymore, remember,” Chloe grinned. “Edward’s trained her well.” She swallowed some flutters starting to burst in her chest, nerves starting to make her tremble. “What time is it? Where’s Lois?”
“I just got a text, she and the others are en route from the restaurant. The press swallowed the false trail.” She smirked, eyes dancing with the fun of being in on a secret.
Chloe met Dinah’s answer with an expression of relief. “Good. It’s working.”
“Chloe?” a male voice joined them, and Chloe and Dinah turned to see Edward poking his head in the dressing room, wearing a gray suit with a gold tie, vest, and boutonniere. “The other girls are starting to arrive. Hair and makeup is ready to go. They just have to change shoes and dresses and they’ll be ready to go. The men all arrived ten minutes ago and are just about dressed. The families will get here in ten. Are you all set, gorgeous?”
“She’s ready,” Dinah assured Edward, taking Chloe’s hand reassuringly before Chloe could get nervous.
Edward grinned. “Good. You look fabulous as usual, darling.”
“I just want to do this,” Chloe groaned, tipping her head back and trying to breathe normally so her body would stop shaking. She could feel adrenaline tingling right down to her fingertips and toes.
“That’s what I like to hear,” Lois announced, moving past Edward into the room with a garment bag over her shoulder. “C’mere cuz,” she added, hugging Chloe tightly and kissing her cousin’s cheek. “You look amazing. Quit freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out, I just want everything to be perfect.”
“It will be. And at the end of the day, all that’s really going to matter is that you and Oliver are together, right?”
Chloe smiled. “Right.”
“Stop rumpling her dress,” Edward chastised, pulling Lois away from Chloe. “Guests are arriving, which means we’ll need to start lining up outside the ballroom doors in the next ten minutes.”
“Do you have everything?” Diana asked, walking in, accompanied by Barbara, Courtney, and Mia.
“All her bags are packed and waiting in a private car parked outside. The driver will be here to take Chloe and Oliver away in exactly one hour,” Mia confirmed, checking her messages on her blackberry while the other girls started slipping out of their cocktail dresses and into their bridesmaids’ gowns.
“What about tradition?” Courtney demanded. “Do you have your something old, new, borrowed, and blue?”
Chloe laughed, “Well, my ring is something old, and my dress is new.”
“What about blue and borrowed?” Barbara asked.
“Does the lining of my clutch count? It’s blue.”
“Nope. That’s for your getaway outfit,” Lois shook her head while Dinah rummaged in her purse.
“I have something,” Dinah said with a mischievous look on her face. After another moment of fishing she produced a garter with blue ribbon trim.
“Oh my God,” Chloe said, recognizing it immediately and laughing. “Is that-”
“The garter from my wedding? Why yes, yes it is.”
“I can’t believe you held onto this!” Chloe laughed, taking it from Dinah and finding tears starting to well in her eyes. “You’re nuts.”
“I had the strangest feeling you might want it as a keepsake one day.”
Chloe snorted. “Uh huh. Can you-”
“On it,” Dinah said, pulling a chair over so Chloe could rest her foot on it, and Dinah could help slide the garter up Chloe’s leg.
“And I have something you can borrow,” Diana said as she zipped up the back of her dress. She pulled a handkerchief out of her own purse and Chloe really did start crying.
“No way.”
“Oliver gave this to me earlier yesterday. Said you’d need it. You’ll have to give it back to him later.” Diana winked, handing Chloe the handkerchief.
“Oh, don’t start crying now, you’ll ruin your makeup,” Courtney sighed, a dreamy expression on her face while Mia zipped her dress for her.
“I can’t help it!” Chloe sobbed, blotting the corners of her eyes with the handkerchief as delicately as she could.
“Here,” Lois said, once she was done. She took the handkerchief from Chloe and grabbed Chloe’s bouquet from its vase on a nearby table. Carefully adjusting the pin holding the ribbon wrapped around the stems, Lois successfully pinned the handkerchief to it in a way that would allow Chloe access to it when she needed it.
“Brilliant,” Edward said, eyeing Lois’s handiwork in approval. “I’m going to go check where we’re at,” he said, disappearing from the room.
“Which means he’s going to rendezvous with Darren,” Mia snickered once he was gone, and all the girls laughed as they rushed to get ready.
When Chloe was finally standing at the end of the aisle, she knew she’d made all the right decisions in her life if they’d led to this moment, right down to the simple gold tapers and shimmering gold cloth beckoning her down the aisle.
There was only one camera flashing in the room, and it belonged to Jimmy Olsen, whose grinning wife was standing behind him, off to the side and sneaking little peaks at the view window of his camera. She gave Chloe a small excited wave when she entered the room, and Chloe winked at her. She was so glad that she and Jimmy and Kara had found a really good place of friendship after all these years. And when Jimmy offered his services to document Chloe and Oliver’s wedding, Chloe knew she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
The groomsmen standing at Oliver’s side were beaming, most looking at her, one or two catching the expression on Oliver’s face. Edward and the rest of Chloe’s bridal party were grinning at her excitedly, and Chloe caught her breath when she met Oliver’s eyes. She’d never felt so sure about anything in her life.
“Ready?” her dad whispered to her, and she shook her head. She slipped Oliver’s handkerchief off the bouquet and dabbed at the tears in her eyes, before clutching it in her hand aside the bouquet stems.
“Okay,” she breathed, knowing without looking that Oliver was chuckling at her. “Now I’m ready,” she grinned.
Gabe walked her down the aisle and kissed her on the cheek before passing her to Oliver and allowing the small, intimate ceremony to begin.
Moira Sullivan and Laura Queen were reduced to happy weeping, as was Martha Kent. Their respective husbands just wrapped an arm around their wives and hugged them to their sides, Robert Queen kissing the top of his wife’s head. No one caught the small tear of pride that streaked down General Lane’s face. Lucy Lane, in an unprecedented moment of affection, leaned her head on the General’s shoulder, while squeezing her date’s hand. Edward’s husband, Darren, was beaming from the audience, unaware that his tie was crooked from the ‘rendezvous’ Mia had teased Edward about. Jimmy’s camera silently flashed away, catching each moment for them all to remember for the rest of their lives.
12 Hours Later
“My name is Linda Lake, columnist for the Star City Register, and I’m here at the site of the biggest social event of the season. We’re waiting for the bridal party to arrive any moment now, ready to witness the long-awaited nuptials of notorious playboy Oliver Queen and alleged ‘Ice Queen’ Chloe Sullivan, Star City’s own Golden Couple. You’ll catch it all here first, Star City, just like I was the first to break the news of the couple’s secret and scandalous relationship, as well as their eventual engagement. We’ll be keeping you all in the loop step by step, and-oh wait! There’s someone coming out of the building! It looks to be Miss Sullivan’s Matron of Honor, Lola Kent, as well as an unidentified man. Neither of whom looked dressed for a wedding! Could there be a wrench in the works? Are they coming to announce that the wedding’s been called off-perhaps for the same mysterious reason as the recent break off of Queen and Sullivan’s engag-”
Lois grabbed the mic from Linda Lake’s hand. “My name’s Lois Lane-Kent,” Lois corrected Linda’s earlier gaff. “Cousin to the bride. I’m here to announce that you’ve missed it.”
“Missed what?” Lake looked utterly abashed.
“The wedding,” Edward smiled happily, waving at the camera. “Hi, Darren,” he grinned.
“What?” Lake gawked.
“It’s over,” Lois explained. “It took place last night. And as of right now,” Lois checked the time on her phone, “Mr. and Mrs. Queen should be arriving at their undisclosed honeymoon destination.”
“I-I don’t understand,” Linda Lake stammered.
“It’s simple, really,” Edward said calmly.
“Chloe and Oliver have had it with you and the press sticking your noses in their every intimate moment. They didn’t want you ruining the wedding, so they led everyone to believe the wedding was today. But we had it last night. Celebrated. And put the happy couple on the plane. Oh, and I have a message from the future Mrs. Queen that should answer all of your questions for her,” Lois smirked.
Linda Lake leaned forward eagerly. “And that is?” she prompted.
“No goddamn comment,” Lois said. “Wow,” she added to herself in amusement, “I’ve always wanted to be the person saying that for once; it was really fun.” She handed the mic off to Edward, who took it cheerfully while Lois headed for her car, leaving the press too stunned to say anything to her.
“Hi, I’m Edward, Mrs. Sullivan-Queen’s Executive Assistant at Whistle. For those interested in the Queens’ wedding, their will be a small spread in the upcoming issue of Whistle, photos by James Olson and story by Lois Lane. We’ll be naming all of the designers used, including a brief comment from both Oliver and Chloe, and the rest, as they say, will be nobody’s-” he cleared his throat, attempting to impersonate Lois’s intimidating tone, “goddamn business.”
Somewhere in the Cayman Islands
“I’m supposed to give this back to you, by the way,” Chloe told Oliver with a smile, stretching across him and grabbing a handkerchief where it was poking out of her purse on their nightstand.
Oliver snorted. “I can’t believe you cried at your own wedding,” he teased, his hand sliding up her back as she curled her leg around his and he plucked the handkerchief from her hand and tossed it aside.
“I couldn’t help it,” she rolled her eyes. “I was thinking about how I’m going to be stuck with you forever now.”
“Stuck with me, huh?” he asked, hand sliding back down and grasping her ass firmly. She gasped slightly, pressing closer to him.
“Yup. Big mistake. Horrible,” she said unconvincingly, shuddering as Oliver’s fingers dipped dangerously close to her core.
“Probably the worst decision you’ve ever made,” Oliver agreed, nipping at her collar bone. His fingers delved between her legs and skimmed over her dripping wet heat.
Chloe’s head dropped forward as she groaned. “Definitely.”
“I mean, you’re going to have to put up with so much,” he said calmly, fingers ghosting just faintly over her clit, gone just as quickly. Her back arched greedily and her legs opened a little more. “My incredible good looks.” She buried her face in his neck, groaning while he continued to tease her. “My sparkling wit.” Her fingertips dug into his arms as she grasped hold of him. “My insatiable appetite.”
“Mmm, Oliver,” she whined, body starting to shake a little. She was almost completely spent from the previous three rounds. He brought his free hand around to her lower back and pressed her into him, her swollen core grinding against his thigh. She groaned against his neck.
“I just don’t know how you’re going to cope, Mrs. Queen,” Oliver grinned, slipping a finger inside her at long last.
Chloe bit the side of his neck as she cried out, hips bucking in encouragement. “It’s going to be a real trial, Mr. Queen,” she bit out tightly before another cry escaped her in response to a change in direction from his fingers.
In a sudden, swift movement, Oliver pinned her beneath him, pushing her legs apart with his knees, meeting her eyes with a grin. “I guess we’ll both just have to soldier through it,” he said, leaning down to brush his lips tantalizingly against hers in a whisper of a kiss that had her leaning toward him for more before dropping her head back, mouth open in a loud moan when Oliver pushed inside of her. Her legs curled around his waist, ankles hooking together as she encouraged him.
“I’m willing if you are,” she told him.
“Definitely,” he groaned breathily, drawing back and thrusting inside of her again. “Definitely forever.”
After which statement, they both became far too busy for words for the next several hours.