The sun is shining brightly into our room this morning. The exquisite platinum ring on my left hand was glimmering in the sunlight. I couldn't stop looking at it. I was officially engaged to the most wonderful man in the world. I examine the ring even closer, seeing the two thin bands on each side of the ring lead to brackets that hold up the center three carat diamond were also lined in diamonds. I never wanted something that was too big but I wanted it to make a statement and I believe that he had found the perfect one. It was something I would wear everyday and be happy with it.

I removed the ring from my finger to see it clearly. It looked like there was something on the inner band and just as I lift it up towards the light Justin says, "Forever" I look at him and he says, "That's what it says on the inner band. Forever."

With my hand covering my mouth I start to cry. "Perfect. It's beautiful. I still can't believe it's mine."

"Well it's yours but you can't take it off again. I want the world to know that your mine." He puts on his macho face and very deeply says, "You belong to me now."

"You really think so." I jump on top of him, slide the ring back onto my finger "I think this ring means you belong to me!"

"I think I can handle that."

I lean down and kiss him. "Do you think you can handle spending the rest of your life with me?"

He was pretending like I was forcing him to do something. "You have twisted my arm... oh oh oh... Every day I promise." He kisses my chin then my neck...

"I love you." Seriously how lucky did I get in this department? He is more than I ever deserved.

            Room service brought us our breakfast. It was going to be a long day of phone calls. We had to tell everyone that would be offended if they saw pictures of me with this ring on and they didn't know already. I knew the first phone had to go to my mother then my second would be to Kia. Justin's face lights up. "So, when do you want to get married?"

I throw up my arms, "I'm the girl. Shouldn't I be asking those questions?"

"I want to marry you... I want to marry you now if I could. I just think the sooner the better..."

"Did you find out I was pregnant or something?"

The smile that creeps across his face is ridiculous. "You are!?"

"No. Not that I'm aware of. I am just trying to figure out why you want to get married right now."

"You're such a dream crusher."

"I know I am."

He swings my chair around so that I am looking directly at him, "I don't care if we get married tomorrow or next year. I just want you to be my wife."

"Right answer, Mr. Timberlake."

 I sit at the table just looking at the ring. I was actually engaged. "I want a summer wedding. I would love for us to get married right here in Cancun on the beach just because this is our spot but I know that can't happen so let's do a L.A. wedding."

"We can make anything happen. Do you want a big or small wedding?"

"I want everyone there. But I am also would love an intimate ceremony." I think it would be hard to marry someone like Justin and have a small wedding.

"No childhood fantasy of your wedding? I know all girls have those growing up."

"I have always said if I got married, it would be a big deal. I would want to shout it from the rooftops."

"Big wedding it is. We both have a lot of family and friends. I think that is best."

"I honestly never thought we would get married. I wanted to spend forever with you, I just thought you were the type to never get married. At least that's what I have always gotten from interviews you have done."

"First off, you should know firsthand now that you can't believe everything you read. Even if it is an interview you gave them. Secondly I never wanted to get married to simply get married. I knew that once I finally met that one person, I would do it. And I did."

"Gosh I love you. Oh, we are hiring a wedding planner. I am not dealing with all of the stuff that goes into a wedding."

"That's fine. I don't care how much we spend on the wedding. I will only do it once and it needs to be extravagant."

"Yea, everything has to live up to this ring... damn"

"I have been working on that ring for nearly six months. It started as an idea then I met the artist in Chicago and he made sure it was something that could be done and he made it for me."

"That's what all the secret outings with Steven were about." my jaw drops, "Steven knew this whole time?"

"He isn't just your friend you know. He knows how to keep his mouth shut."

"Does Kia know?"

"I don't believe so."

"Oh you are so in trouble... she is going to kick your ass!"

"Why?"

"She said you had to have her permission to ask me to marry you."

"Oh well... oops. I can handle her."

"I don't know about that... but at least I have someone to call and tell other than my mother."

"We have to tell everyone. Steve and Trace are the only ones that knew."

"Your mother doesn't know?"

"She knew that I was thinking about asking you but she didn't know that I had actually bought the ring and planned this whole thing."

"Wow, I am shocked. You tell your mother everything."

"Not everything."

He grabs me and pulls me back on top of him.

****

            Calling my mother and telling her that I was officially getting married was a moment that I wish was videotaped. I want to remember that moment forever. Having my mother not only approve of the guy I am choosing to marry but is ecstatic about him is overwhelming. I thought it would be hard to find that guy but I am glad that I didn't have to look that hard. I just had to sit in my seat.

            Kia on the other hand was a complete mess. Not because she had problems with Justin, just the simple fact that I was actually going to get married. "I'm engaged. I trust this man, I believe in this man, I love this man. How the hell did that happen?"

"You followed your heart."

            I couldn't have hung up the phone from her more than ten minutes and she called me back. "You are so lucky you called me when you did."

"Why, what's up?"

"I got online to check my email and there was an email from someone saying, ‘So I hear Justin proposed, can you confirm or deny those rumors?'"

"That's just chatter."

"Did he have candles in the sand that said, ‘I love you Melissa Roberts' last night?"

I was confused, how did she know? "Yes, how do you know? I was just going to send you pictures."

"Don't worry about it. I am looking at them right now."

"You're kidding me right?"

"There are pictures of the candles and the roses all over the sand."

            So the idea of even attempting to have a wedding in Cancun was never going to work. As much as I had always said growing up that I would shout it from the rooftops about getting married, I don't want the entire world to know every detail about my wedding. You are supposed to be surprised at a wedding by the way it looks, the dresses, the flowers, the tables, and of course the brides dress. I wasn't going to get that option. And I have a feeling that even JC had more privacy at his wedding that Justin and I will.

            We opted to kind of stay in a lot after we got engaged. I didn't want to take the ring off or hide it and we wanted to have a tiny level of normalcy that we had before we walked off that plane at LAX and had everyone see that ring. Funny how one simple little ring changes your life so dramatically.

I was sitting at the beautiful white grand piano. This one was gorgeous, but not as gorgeous as the one Justin had at home. Justin went to pick up dinner, so I was sitting there thinking about everything that happened last night. Our short weekend getaway turned into this major event in our lives. All the lyrics that I kept writing down weren't really about me or anything that I had gone through personally. It was almost as if I had tapped into Justin's thoughts and was writing something from his perspective. Scary, I know right? Who would want to be inside that mans brain?

            "I've got a picture of you in my heart... And a vision of you in my arms... And I just can't deny what's going on in my soul and I... I can't let u walk away... Till you hear what I got to say... I love u more, more... More than the air I breathe..."

            Justin is now standing next to the piano, listening. This is something he hasn't heard before.

"Take me back to the start... When you captured my heart... You became my closest friend... Said you'll be there till the end... And I know that I was wrong... When I told you everything... But there is one thing I kept... In the deepest part of me... I don't know what you're feeling... Cuz I know my ship is sinking... Got me singing my, my, my, my... Please be mine... Please be mine, yeah..."

            I had seriously tapped into his thoughts because this is something I could hear him saying. Or maybe, just maybe his song writing ability was rubbing off on me slightly. He looks at me with those giant baby blues, "Are you writing a song for me?"

"You're going to think I am crazy, but I seriously was just thinking this is something you would sing. This is something I can hear you saying."

"Well I'm not going to touch the crazy comment but... haha yea those lyrics fit perfectly with me. I couldn't let you walk away but I did screw up and believe the cheating rumors. I felt like my ship was sinking when I didn't talk to you at all that week or so."

"I honestly don't know where all that came from, it just kind of spilled out on to paper after I sat down at this piano." I made a funny face at him "I think we should take it home with us?"

"You want this, $30,000 piano? The one I have isn't good enough for you."

"No, I like this one. It has magical powers." I put on the cheesy smile for him but it doesn't seem to be working."

"Well now, let's go back to that crazy comment."

"Hey now."

"Hey now what? You already agreed to marry me. I don't have to swoon over you anymore."

"Oh really, I can call this off just as quickly as I said yes."

He bobs his head and snaps his fingers back and forth, "You wouldn't give this up! Plus you said yes like twenty times, not just once."

***

            "I'm sorry did you say you wanted to get married this August? In the middle of your tour?" The wedding planner looks as if I just gave her the worst task of her life.

"It's actually towards the end of the tour, is that a problem? We want to throw off the press as much as possible."

"I have done a lot of high profile weddings and events. We are good at hiding most of the details. They biggest challenge is the guests. Of course they are planning their lives around you big day, and they don't have to tell someone hey I am going to the Timberlake/Roberts wedding. People put things together."

            I guess I never thought about it that way. I thought if all the details were kept under wraps then things would be fine. I forgot the whole guest's part. We have thought about the guest list, and it seems to be getting bigger and bigger. At some point we have to cut it off because I personally think it is already too big. When you are topping out at 400, there is too many, even if I am marrying Justin Timberlake.

            My phone has been blowing up all morning. We had only been home from Cancun for two weeks. We hadn't told everyone. But they all seemed pretty upset that they didn't get a personal phone call. It's not like we even made an official announcement yet, it was just something that I guess everyone assumed by the ring on my left hand, ring finger that we were engaged.

So when my PR firm calls for the seventh time, I finally answer it. She informs me that there has been an article taken out in my local paper at home, my mother was announcing my engagement and they wanted an official statement from us before they printed it. I immediately hang up the phone with her and call my mother. The phone rings maybe one time and she answers it.

"Hey how's everything going?"

"Well it was fine until about thirty seconds ago when my PR firm calls to inform me that my engagement was being published in the local news paper, in OHIO!" I was a little angry. I was not happy to say the least.

"Melissa, that's what parents do for their children when they get engaged, they announce it."

"Mom, that can't happen. We don't want anyone to officially know yet."

She got quiet. "Are you mad?"

"Well, actually yes I am. This was something we should have talked about first. This isn't easy for us to keep a secret for long. And now when that paper prints in the morning... everyone will know."

"I'm sorry. I just thought. I wanted everyone to know that my daughter had found her other half. I wanted everyone to know that she was getting married... I'm sorry."

"It's ok. Really it is. It's just not how we wanted to do things. We will have to make an official announcement now, that's all. Now the drama really begins."

"I didn't give them any details. I mean I don't even know any details yet so I can't really tell them something I don't know..."

"Thankfully only Justin, myself, and our wedding planner knows that wedding date right now." I was glad we only had those details at this very moment.

"So there is a date set?"

"Yes, mother there is a date set. And as soon as that is set in stone, I will fly home and tell you."

"You can't tell me over the phone, I want to know when my daughter is getting married."

"I want to tell you and everyone in person. I want to come home for a couple days before the tour starts anyways."

"Fine. I guess I will have to live with that."

"Yes you are. After the little stunt you just pulled you should feel lucky that you will even know the date."

"My mouth is shut from here on out. Zip. Nothing."

"Keep it that way. I got to go fix this issue now. I love you."

Only my mother would do something like that. I understood that this is something that you do when you live in a small town. You announce your children's engagements, but it doesn't happen like this when your daughter is marrying the biggest celebrity in the world. I was marrying Justin freaking Timberlake. I can only imagine what the backlash is going to feel like when I step foot back into that town. I was already someone that they liked to talk about and now, now I was the person that had to bring more attention to myself and announce that I was getting married.

I am laughing at my own thoughts when Justin walks into the office. "What is so funny?"

‘Nothing. It's really not funny at all." I can't stop laughing. "My mother, she announced our engagement to the world."

"WHAT?"

"Oh you haven't heard the rest of it. She announced it to the local paper, in Ohio."

"When does it release?"

"Tomorrow. They only print the lifestyles page on Sundays." This isn't how I wanted things handled. "I guess we have to make a statement now."

"She isn't going to be allowed to have the wedding date. Forget that."

"I already told her that."

            Instead of addressing the public about this we just made a statement through the PR firm. This isn't what we wanted to do but it was our only option at this point. So as we proof read and go through a hundred different ways to say it, we simply decide to make a joint short and simple statement.

            "We are thrilled to share that we are happily engaged. Thank you for all of your support and well wishes- it means the world to us. We consider this to be a private matter and it will remain private."

                                                            Justin Timberlake and Melissa Roberts.