As soon as the tear is fixed and my fitting is done, I’m stripped out of the dress like I stole the damn thing. Then Isabella is wheeled in.
She grins at me and points at something wrapped in clear plastic hooked onto the back of her chair. “Adrik got me a white dress, too, Mama! I’m the flower girl.”
I help her put the dress on. It’s been designed exactly like the purple dress she had on for lunch yesterday. The skirt is large and poofy—every little girl’s dream—but the back is smooth so it sits comfortably beneath her and fits inside the wheelchair.
As before, I grit my teeth and pretend that this says nothing about Adrik. His concern for my daughter’s comfort is meaningless.
“I just need to make a few minor adjustments,” the tailor says as she scans Isabella with an appraising eye. “It will only take ten or fifteen minutes.”
Isabella nods and hums along to the tune in her head, lost in her thoughts. I stand by and watch the tailor pick up and drop the hem of her flower girl dress over and over again.
It doesn’t even look like she’s doing anything.
Finally, after watching her thread a needle and then set it aside for the second time, I’m too curious to resist.
“Is everything okay?” I blurt. “With the dress, I mean?”
The woman looks up at me, eyes wide. “Oh? Yeah. Yes. It’s all fine.”
“Okay. It’s just… you haven’t done anything yet.”
“I am!” the tailor insists. “I’m just checking stitches. It’s a tedious process. You’ll have to be patient.”
She glances worriedly from me to Isabella, and a knot forms in my stomach. Call it mother’s intuition or gut instincts or what have you, but suddenly, I know something is up.
“You know what?” I snap, grabbing Isabella’s chair and pulling it back. “We’re leaving. I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but I’m not sticking around to find out.”
“Wait, no!” the woman cries. “Please stay. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
She sighs. “I was… I was told to distract you until…”
“Until what?” I growl.
The door behind me opens. “Until I could show up.”
I recognize Adrik’s voice immediately, but that doesn’t keep my heart from lurching into my throat. In fact, knowing it’s him only puts me more on edge.
Then I wheel around and see what’s in his arms.
Isabella does the same. She gasps at the same time I do. “My doggy!”
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Adrik explains as my daughter screeches with delight. “I picked him up this morning. He’s all yours.”
Isabella wheels over as Adrik sets the dog on its paws. The dog’s tail wags, but he waits patiently in place until Isabella pats her knee. Only then does he rush forward and licks her until she giggles.
Isabella nuzzles her face against the dog’s fuzzy muzzle. “He’s perfect.”
I kneel down next to her and stroke the puppy’s soft head. He leans his head into my palm and then drags up one of his chunky puppy paws to lay on Isabella’s lap.
“I think he likes you already,” I say.
She lays her hand over his paw. “I love him, too.”
My heart squeezes. All those nights of sitting next to her at the table, helping her clip pictures of dogs out of magazines and brainstorming names. All those times she begged and pleaded for me to get her a dog, and I had to break her heart again and again. Those moments all seem so far away.
Because now, she has something she has always wanted.
Something I never would have been able to do on my own.
And I have the man who’s ruining my life to thank for it.
He’s still hanging back by the door, watching Isabella and the dog get to know one another. I stand and walk over to him.
“Hey, um… thanks for this.”
“You’ve already thanked me for it,” he says coolly.
“I know. But I’m thanking you again.” I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “This is supposed to be a pleasant conversation.”
“I’m not sure we have those.”
“Not historically, no,” I admit. “But maybe, since it’s the eve of our wedding…” I shrug. “Maybe we could give pleasant a try? Just this once?”
Adrik’s eyes are bluer today than usual. Probably because his long-sleeved shirt is a royal blue. It brings out the color in his eyes. But there’s something else, too…
He’s looking down at me, and for the first time, I allow myself to hope that things could actually be pleasant between us. That maybe this marriage, however long it lasts, could be amicable, like he said.
And I think I see that same hope in his eyes.
He inhales like he’s about to say something, but then the seamstress crosses the room to stand with us.
I’m annoyed by the intrusion, but I turn to her with a polite smile. “Thanks for your work today. And I’m sorry about tearing the dress. And about accusing you of… well, about the weirdness there. Thanks for helping with the surprise.”
Her face is pale, her red lips standing out even more vividly against her white skin. “No, I’m sorry,” she says.
I frown. “About what?”
“This.” She holds out her phone to Adrik. “I left my phone in here earlier when I ran to the van. I just looked at it and… well…”
I inhale sharply.
Bitch.
I watch in slow motion as Adrik takes the phone from the woman and studies the screen.
I watch as the serene blue in his eyes turns gray and stormy.
As the sensual fullness of his lips flattens into hard, angry lines.
When he looks up at me, any sign of the kind man who orders specialized dresses for disabled little girls or jumps through hoops to get a service dog is gone.
In his place is the Bratva don.
He’s looming and threatening and violent, and I want to shrink away from him and hide.
I actually try to do exactly that. But he sees it coming before the impulse is even fully-formed in my head. He clasps my arm in his iron grip and hands the woman’s phone back to her.
“Stay with the girl,” he orders the trembling woman. “I need to talk to my fiancée.”
Then, before I can come up with any kind of argument or excuse, Adrik yanks me into the hallway.
The door closes with a hard thump. It feels like Isabella might as well be a million miles away.
I take a deep breath. “Listen, Adrik, I just—”
“I know everything,” he says, cutting me off. “Everyone who comes into this house is loyal to me. You can’t so much as wipe your nose without one of my maids knowing how many fucking tissues you used.”
“I know that,” I snap. “But you didn’t give me any other option. You told everyone in the house not to talk to me!”
“Because you haven’t earned the right to information.”
All the hope I felt just on the other side of the bedroom door has turned to dust. That was a desperate woman’s fantasy. Now the cold, hard, six-and-a-half-foot-tall reality is standing in front of me, and every cell in him vibrates with the obvious truth: Adrik Tasarov and I will never be at peace.
My face hardens. “Information like how your last fiancée actually ended up smeared across a cement wall?”
Adrik’s eyes narrow. “Exactly like that.”
“Should I be expecting a similar accident, now that I’ve figured out the truth?”
I’m doing my best to match his energy, to not back down, but my hands are trembling. Adrik has the control here. All the power. All the resources.
If he wanted to smear me along a desolate stretch of highway, he could.
And no one but Isabella would ask any questions.
Tears brim in my eyes at the thought of my daughter crying over my grave, but I blink them back quickly.
“No,” Adrik says, shaking his head and stepping forward. “No, I wouldn’t do that to you, kiska. Your fate is going to be much, much worse.”