The Bride (The Boss 3)

“One hundred and fifteen thousand dollars,” Debra answered without hesitation.

I had to buy it, Neil. I barfed on it. That was not a conversation I wanted to have, so I fought back the wave of nausea that gripped me at the dollar figure.

“Wow, so, kind of out of anyone’s price range, huh?” Holli laughed.

This was the part where I was supposed to politely decline the bag and slink off, I assume. Maybe later I would run into Neighbor and Anastasia the Yorkie, who probably had her own Birkin, and they would both look at me in judgment as I stood there, a poor girl from Michigan pretending to be a billionaire’s trophy wife.

A brief “Barkin” pun burbled up to the surface of my mind at the thought of a dog with a purse, and I laughed, a little crazily.

“Sorry, I just remembered something funny.” I opened my own purse—a Madison East/West Coach bag in purple leather that had cost a measly two-hundred and looked like a Target clearance buy in comparison to the magnificent ex-alligator before me—and pulled out the scariest weapon in my arsenal.

I had an AmEx Centurion card. The fabled “black” card, which Neil had been graciously invited to secure for me after he’d made a few calls. His knighthood ceremony probably had less pomp and procedure than getting the damn black AmEx did. They’d sent the card to me in a friggin’ black leather box.

When I pulled the card from my wallet, Holli made a sort-of strangled, squeaking noise. Debra didn’t even twitch. She took the card, swiped it, and it was done.

I’d just bought a purse that cost more than the house I’d grown up in. More than my college education.

Debra packed the Birkin away in a dust sleeve, and then inside a large orange box before slipping that into a carrier bag. “Thank you very much, Ms. Scaife. And if you need service in the future, here’s my card.”

I took it from her. I guessed she must work on commission.

The moment we left the store, clutching our bags to our chest in the biting New York cold, Holli turned to me with wide eyes. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“I can’t, either.” My shivering had nothing to do with the icy temps. My knees wobbled. I thought I might pass out. “Should I take it back? Do you think I can?”

“Um, probably not,” Holli said with a raised eyebrow. “Unless you’re willing to never shop at Hermés again.”

At the moment, that didn’t sound too bad. I clearly could not be trusted to make rational decisions in that store.

What was Neil going to say?

CHAPTER TEN

On Saturday afternoon, I paced in front of the fireplace in the living room, my phone in my hand.

“You look like you’re waiting to get in trouble,” Emma snorted, flicking the screen of her iPad without glancing up. “Has he found out about your murder bag?”

From the moment I’d walked into the apartment with the Birkin, Emma had been trying out different names for it. Of all of them, “murder bag” was the one that had stuck.

I glared at her, but she was too lost in Candy Crush to care. Though I was concerned about how Neil would take me dropping a hundred-thousand on a purse, I was more concerned with how his evening with Emir was going. Of course, I couldn’t tell her that.

“No,” I said with forced cheerfulness. “I’m just missing him. We haven’t been apart since, you know. Hospitals.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think—” she began, and she looked so concerned, I felt guilty.

It wasn’t as though I’d lied; it was the first time Neil and I had been apart since he’d come home from the hospital, and I really was nervous about it. But nothing like the anxiety I’d been feeling since I’d spoken to him a few hours ago.

Neil had called me when Emir had arrived and told him about the text conversation we’d had. Emir had left it to me to break the concept down: that I thought Neil should try submission again, this time with a better partner.

It wasn’t that I needed Neil to switch. I would always want him to be my Dom, and I couldn’t see myself seriously calling the shots in the bedroom, beyond the occasional playful occurrence. But something he’d said on therapy night had shocked me. I’ve been powerless for a long time. And I didn’t like it.

Neil hated when I tried to make any link between his sexual need for control and his micromanaging in every other facet of his life, probably because it was too close to the truth for him. I had a suspicion that if he let himself be dominated sexually, he might see the link he denied. I didn’t expect it to change those aspects of his personality—I wouldn’t want it to—but I suspected that one of the reasons he was still so shaken by the cancer and his scary hospital experience was that his need for control was so total. If he felt powerless in one area of his life, then he felt powerless in all of them.

I really hated the thought of Neil feeling so bad.

“You know, if you guys want me to take off for a few days and give you some space when he gets back, I could always stay at Michael’s place,” she offered.

As far as I was aware, Neil hadn’t spoken to Emma yet about the living, and possibly moving, situation. But sometimes, when you see an in, you have to take it. I dropped into the armchair. “About that… We had something we wanted to talk to you about.”