The CEO's Regret: You made me your lie, I become your Loss-Chapter 90: Wedding Plans

The word came out a little too fast, a little too full, like it had been waiting at the edge of him for longer than he realized. Julian let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh, shaking his head slightly as if he needed a second to catch up with his own happiness.

"I would love that. I really would." His grip on her tightened, not enough to hurt, just enough to hold on. To make sure this wasn’t something that would slip through his fingers.

"But..."

The word softened the moment, not breaking it, just reshaping it. "Our mothers would kill us."

A quiet, breathless laugh escaped him, warmer now, threaded with disbelief and something dangerously close to joy.

"Married in secret? No ceremony? No warning?" He exhaled, his eyes flickering over her face like he was memorizing every inch of it all over again. "I don’t want to hide you, Amara."

His voice lowered, not quieter, but deeper. Steadier.

"I want the world to know." The night seemed to lean in closer around them.

"So I guess..." he continued, a small, amused smile pulling at his lips, "I’ll have to tell our mothers."

A beat. Then a short, triumphant laugh broke free, unrestrained this time.

"They’ll be happier than we are... if that’s even possible." His eyes softened, a hint of fond resignation settling in. "Madam Pedro has probably had a guest list hidden in her desk for three years."

Amara let out a soft breath, something warm and light blooming in her chest at the image. Julian stepped closer. Slowly. Deliberately. Like every movement mattered.

Then, with a gentleness that contrasted everything sharp and controlled about him, he lifted her just slightly, just enough to bring her closer, to close whatever distance still lingered between them. When he set her down again, it was carefully. Almost reverent.

His hands rose to her face. Cupping. Holding. As if she were something rare. Something fragile. Something made of light itself.

"Thank you, Amara." His voice softened, the edges of it worn down by everything he felt but couldn’t quite put into words.

"Thank you... for choosing me." A pause. His thumb brushed lightly against her cheek.

"Every single day." And then he leaned in. The kiss wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t desperate. It was deeply anchored in something far beyond the moment.

A quiet promise. A beginning. It lingered, unfolding slowly, like time itself had decided to stretch just for them.

And in that kiss was everything he couldn’t say. Every morning he hadn’t lived yet. Every quiet moment, they would share. Every ordinary day would become extraordinary simply because they chose each other in it.

The news didn’t travel. It struck.

One moment, it was their quiet, fragile, sacred in the way only something deeply chosen could be.

The next. It exploded.

The Pedro and Vale households didn’t receive the news. They reacted to it like a storm breaking open the sky. Doors flew open. Voices rose. Phones lit up in rapid succession, messages firing like sparks in dry air.

A wedding. Not just any wedding. A Pedro and Vale wedding.

What Julian and Amara had imagined something soft, something intimate, something that belonged only to them barely had time to breathe before it was seized, reshaped, claimed.

Because the moment those words reached them. The matriarchs moved. Not slowly. Not cautiously. Decisively. Like queens stepping onto a battlefield, they had long been waiting for.

Plans began before permission could even be asked. Names were already being pulled from memory, lists forming in minds that had been preparing for this moment far longer than anyone had realized.

A quiet union? That idea vanished in an instant.

Hijacked. Overtaken by something far grander, far louder, something that carried the full weight of legacy, power, and expectation.

Because in their world, love was never just love. It was a statement. And the two most powerful women in the city had no intention of letting that statement be whispered.

The countdown didn’t begin quietly. It roared to life. Three months.

Ninety days that should have felt long, spacious, forgiving, but instead collapsed into something fast, electric, and utterly unstoppable.

What started as a promise between two people was now something else entirely. Something alive. Growing. Expanding beyond their control.

The Wedding of the Century had begun. And with it. Chaos. Beautiful, glittering chaos.

Designers flooded in with sketches that changed by the hour. Fabrics were draped, rejected, chosen, then chosen again. Tables were mapped out like battle strategies, guest lists expanding and contracting in heated debates that carried late into the night. Voices overlapped. Phones rang endlessly.

Decisions were made, overturned, and remade before the ink could even dry. Every detail mattered. Every second counted. And at the center of it all. Amara and Julian. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Sometimes swept up in it, sometimes pulled apart by it, sometimes just... watching it unfold like a storm they had unknowingly summoned.

Yet beneath the frenzy, beneath the noise, the pressure, the endless movement

There was something steady. Something untouched. Because every stolen glance, every quiet moment they managed to carve out in the middle of the madness, carried the same quiet truth.

Madam Pedro and Madam Vale (Julian’s mother) have converted the sun parlor into a War Room, filled with floor-to-ceiling mood boards, swatches of rare Italian silk, and mountains of florist catalogs.

"Amara, darling, look," Madam Pedro chirped, thrusting a tray of embossed cardstock under her daughter’s nose. "Do we prefer the ’Champagne Mist’ or the ’Pearl Oyster’ for the inner lining of the envelopes? The Mist is subtle, but the Oyster screams legacy."

Amara, slumped in a velvet chair and rubbing her temples, let out a long sigh. "Mama, they’re envelopes. People are going to tear them open in three seconds."

"Sacrilege!" Madam Vale gasped, fanning herself with a sample of Chantilly lace. "An envelope is the handshake of the soul, Amara. Julian, tell her."

Julian, caught between his mother’s intensity and his fiancée’s exhaustion, just held Amara’s hand under the table. "I think the Oyster is fine, Mother. As long as Amara is at the end of the aisle, you can send the invitations on napkins for all I care."