Chapter 16

It was a beautiful balmy June day at the chic, perfectly tended, very social Paris Polo Club.

It was where all the polo games were held, and Olivier's son Guillaume played there often when he was in Paris.

The boys had grown up there, and it held warm memories for them.

Their mother had carefully chosen the location.

There were eighty places set in the clubhouse restaurant, which had been taken over for the private event.

Women in elegant hats arrived, mostly from Stephanie's riding club.

Her parents would have approved of the choice of venue, or their chateau outside Paris, but the Polo Club was chic and fun, and very exclusive.

A makeshift altar had been set up with a lavish arch of white flowers, mostly orchids and lilies and white roses, with sprays of lily of the valley, and the arrangements on each table matched it.

The crystal and silver gleamed, and the polo field was quiet.

The officiant was a minister from the American Church in Paris.

Stephanie had had a Catholic church wedding the first time, and was divorced, not annulled, so they needed a Protestant minister this time, and one who was comfortable marrying them.

Guillaume and Edouard were their witnesses and were honored to be asked.

They stood tall in dark gray suits, their hair a little longer than their father would have liked, but looking neat and proper with shined shoes, new white shirts, and blue ties from Hermès.

Olivier walked the brides down the aisle, with one on either arm.

The brides were both wearing white Chanel dresses.

Stephanie's was a very simple white lace suit with an ankle-length skirt, and matching shoes, and Lizzie's was a short white satin jacket with a white tulle skirt that made her look very young and like a Degas ballerina.

She had toned down her usual stilettoes for white satin ballerina flats in honor of the grass in the ceremony area.

Olivier led them to the waiting minister and left them with him under the white floral arch.

Both women were wearing short white veils and carrying bouquets of lily of the valley.

It was a very proper wedding, with traditional vows.

Everything about it respected time-honored customs familiar to all.

The only thing missing was a groom, but no one seemed to mind.

And once he had left the brides at the altar, Olivier took his place in the front row next to his wife, Amanda, who was three months pregnant, a surprise baby having been conceived on their wedding night.

It didn't show yet, and they were hoping for a girl, due in December.

They had gotten married as soon as the divorce was final.

Stephanie and Lizzie had waited a little longer, to fit the wedding into their show schedule.

The ceremony was solemn and respectful, the text only slightly adjusted for the circumstances and the homily a serious one.

The brides walked down the grassy aisle after the ceremony, beaming, holding hands, wearing narrow gold wedding rings from Cartier.

There had been no engagement rings.

Their engagement had lasted twenty years and had already withstood the test of time.

The reception was jubilant, the champagne flowed, the music was joyous, there was dancing, and Olivier led his wife onto the dance floor with their baby between them.

She had worn a pale blue dress with a matching hat and coat from Dior, and she looked radiant.

They danced a slow waltz halfway through the afternoon and smiled.

"Happy?"

he asked her.

"Perfectly.

Exquisitely."

And then she whispered to him.

"Our wedding was more fun."

They had been married at the American Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity on the Avenue George V in Paris, by the same minister.

Their reception for a hundred and fifty with a black-tie dinner was held at her gallery, and the guests danced all night to a band flown in from London, and a DJ that followed them.

The wedding had been more formal and very elegant, and it suited them.

Pascal had been best man, and did double duty and walked Amanda down the aisle.

Stephanie's was more serious, to balance the social shockwaves caused by the fact that she was marrying a woman.

Edouard and Guillaume were at both weddings, and were happy for their parents.

Olivier smiled as he looked at Amanda.

"If anyone had told me twenty-six years ago that I'd be dancing at this wedding today, I'd have laughed at them."

"It's a pretty wedding, though, the girls did a nice job."

Veronique and Valerie were the matrons of honor and had guided the caterer with an iron hand.

Each of the two weddings was perfect for the people getting married.

"And now a new baby,"

he reminded her, and she blushed.

Amanda was still embarrassed about being pregnant at forty.

"People will think I'm her grandmother,"

and she could have been, but in her heart she was still a young mother, and a bride three months earlier.

"It shows how unexpected life is.

You never know what's going to happen, or who it will happen with.

When I met you at that boring dinner party with the accordion that we both hated, who knew that I would marry you, or that I'd be standing here at my ex-wife's wedding to a woman.

It's what makes life interesting,"

Olivier said.

And no one who saw any of them would guess what they'd been through, the changes, the terrors, the heartbreaks, the disappointments, the joys, the things that seemed so important when they happened and were forgotten a few years later.

All that mattered was what was happening in that moment, that one shining instant when two people were joined in a private union shared with close friends who were there to support them, whether two women were marrying, or a man and a woman.

They were two hearts fluttering through the stormy skies of real life, looking for the rainbow at the other end.

Stephanie and Lizzie and Olivier and Amanda had found it.

It was everything one could ask or hope for.

They had found the right path for them, and the right person.

And what anyone else thought of it didn't matter at all.