AN: Hello. I just got back yesterday from the province. Here's the second chapter of What Love Can Do. Hope you'll like it. And thanks for those who reviewed the last chapter namely:
your bigest fan – Thanks. Hope you'll also find this great.
ac4cherryz – Thanks. Please review this chapter also.
Green-Crystal – Sorry for the late update.
Azi – Thanks for finding this story interesting. Hope you'll review this chapter also.
Megami No Hikari – Thanks for your review.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. All the characters belong to someone else except for Sakura's twin sister Cattleya. ; This story is a mere adaptation of the Once Upon A Wedding. So please don't file a suit.
On with the story:
Chapter 1: To Marry Or Not To Marry
"It's the perfect solution, Sak."
Cat's ethereal voice drifted down from the Sakura tree. "I don't want to marry him."
Sakura ignored her concentrating on the cross-stitch she was sewing of an angel with a harp on her hands. She couldn't see her right now, but she knew her sister had her skirts hiked up in an unladylike manner. No doubt she was sitting in an Indian sit style, munching an apple as she spoke of senseless things. Why did Cat always wish for adventure? Why could she not simply settle down with Syaoran and children of her own? Sakura brushed away the petals that had landed on the piece of cloth she was working on and sighed.
Cattleya moved sharply when Sakura did not respond, making more cherry blossoms fall over the ground. "I won't marry him," she took a deep breath and began "even if you don't agree to replace me. I will be the poor man's runaway bride and I'll do it in the most humiliating way I knew" she threatened.
Sakura could imagine the scene. Knowing her brother, he would be furious of the scandal. His wife, their sister-in-law Mei Lin, would do her best to calm the ruined dignity of the family and the bewildered guests. "Maybe, it's for the best. He is one of the worst of its kind. No doubt it will only add to his reputation, to be jilted." Sakura tried to picture Syaoran Li sad or angry, she just can't conjure the image without laughing. Syaoran would surely have some wicked trick off his sleeve to offer the embarrassed guests – of course at both his and Cat's expense.
"He is a good man, Sak, no matter what the people think about him. Maybe his a little bit in the wild side."
"Wild as a WOLF. Even you had not planned to suppress him, Cat. You'll just leave him to his own evil doings while you'd pursued your own." Sakura let herself imagine Syaoran across the breakfast table. Weird. The man, certainly, did not wake up until… well… afternoon?
"I've known him to be harmless to everyone."
"He fought many duels." Over cards and over women. Married women to be exact.
"It's all gossips."
Sakura resisted the urge to scream. "You followed at second, Cat. Do you think I'm that naïve?"
"Sometimes a man with his reputation ends up in situation he would rather not be involved. He just needs to. A man got to do, what a man's got to do as one of the saying goes."
"How valiant."
Cat's patients in convincing her sister snapped. "He's willing to marry you, knowing why you'd even consider trading places with me."
Sakura went still, and cold fear seized her body. "You wouldn't tell him? Would you?"
"Of course I did. How else could I convince him that you would accept his offer?" Cat was silent for a moment when Sakura did not answer, and then she spoke slowly, "He didn't seem to be bothered a bit."
"Oh sure! How reassuring." Sakura replied sarcastically. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that her sister was going to jilt the man. Facing him again, knowing that he was informed of her darkest secret…
"Considering your circumstances, I can't believe you would throw stones."
Sakura was hurt by her sister's words. "You speak as though my fate will be disastrous if I do not marry your EX-fiancée. Are you the same person who encouraged me of not being too decent?"
Cat threw a withered apple down, which bounced of Sakura's lap and rolled down to rest in the ground. "Are you saying that you do not fear of any scandal or humiliation? And I told you, if you just give him the opportunity to talk to you – not lift your skirts."
Sakura knew she had made a fool of herself; she didn't need Cat to remind her. Her only hope had been to keep the knowledge from anyone else. And now Cat had told her ex-fiancée, who might gamble the secret away for his own drunken amusement. "You should not have told him. Maybe no one would ever know. And you know for a fact that I'm not yet sure if I will have a child."
Cat came down from the tree in a shower of leaves. Her hand came to rest comforting, strong and steady on Sakura's shoulder. "There's always abor – "
Sakura shook her head furiously. "No. If I was that stupid to believe in Robert and end up pregnant, then I deserve the embarrassment." She closed her eyes. "I can't believe I thought he would marry me."
"He told you so, with his promise. How could you guess he would lie?"
Sakura looked into her sister's emerald eyes, the mirror of her own. How could they be so different inside? "You would have known."
"I don't fantasize the same dreams you do, Sakura. I don't want a husband, babies, a house to call your own, a home to manage, a family." She pressed, "All these things you can have if you marry Syaoran."
"But not love. Not a husband who will treasure me, or who will make me proud." She imagined an evening in a social gathering with Syaoran: Would he dance with me before he head to the cards – or would he favor some other woman? His mistress, perhaps. One of his many mistresses.
"He will give you your freedom, Sakura. Once you've given up on your fairy-tale princes, you will see that you made the best bargain possible. Just think – you will be able to sew and you can do anything you want. You can even spend your years abroad, any country, you just have to choose. And Syaoran will not play the part of disapproving husband. He'll urge you to enhance your skills."
"Don't try to persuade me with your own fairy tale. If I agree to this marriage, I will be much too busy producing and raising his heir to have much freedom to travel around."
Cattleya wrinkled her nose. "That is one of the reason that I much prefer to went to America than to marry Syaoran, with or without freedom. But Sakura, you're not me. You want children."
"I do want to have children. But I don't want to live a life full of deceit and lies. And if the worst is to come, I'll be expecting an early child which I would have to explain who will be no doubt be Robert's. And I'll have to worry if Syaoran would keep his mouth shut if the time comes." Or worse, that he would be so cold as to not acknowledge her child as his.
"I hope all these thoughts of yours do not happen. And if the worst is to happen, I'm sure Syaoran would not mind." Cattleya tightened her hold on Sakura's shoulder as she added determined, "I will make him swear it. I will not make you or your child hurt. And I promise to you both that he will answer to me if he did not keep his word."
It was possibly not until then that Sakura realized that Cat was determined on this marriage. Not only that she could go to America but also for her safety from her own foolish actions.
There was truly one question left to ponder about: Would marrying Syaoran be for the best, save her – or condemned her to a life of misery?
Sakura shook off her sister's soothing hand.
"Oh, why did I have to be such a fool, Cat? Why couldn't I have been like you? What had come to my mind when I thought being alone with him was so romantic? To let him…"
"I don't know, Sak. It was a mistake. A horrible mistake. But you can mend it. Marry Syaoran. He'll be happy to accept your child, if you'll have one. And if your not, you'll only have to bear his company till you two make a child together. Rest assured that he'd let you live your life as you wish."
Sakura wanted to cry. The offer was too tempting, and all because of one mistake. "One foolish mistake – "
"Two actually." Cat snapped her mouth shut, as if she realized that she should not have spoken.
Sometimes Sakura wished that she didn't always confide with her sister. "He told me that he would speak to... her that very day. I did not know what to do – "
"A simple and firm NO should have do, I'm sure of it."
"I'm afraid you inherited all the spirit for the both of us, right from the womb."
"You have enough spirit, Sak; you're just afraid to use it. You'd rather prefer not to face the consequences such as marrying Syaoran. I don't mind them, as long as the purpose is sensible enough."
"Why can't you just stay here? You know I'll miss you." Cat had always been there for her either for a talk, for help, or for support.
"I've made my mind, Sak. There's no use in arguing about it. After you've had the baby, you can always visit." Cat smiled. "I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you'd quite become submissive to your husband by then."
"Your ex-fiancée?" Sakura frowned, forcing away a picture of Syaoran's lips descending to meet her own. She curled her knees up. "Would he truly not mind if I were to come to him already carrying another man's child?"
"Believe me, he would count it as a blessing."
"What kind of man does not care? I must first speak to him. This matter can't be assured by only your word. I must look into his eyes and see that you are right about this"
Her sister smiled widely. "good, I told him that you would meet him tonight, instead of me."
Tonight.
AN: What do you think? Please keep on reviewing.