The wedding hummed around her. People streamed into the church upstairs, their footfalls simmering on the ceiling above their heads.
A text popped up on her phone that Wulfie and Mrs. Keller were finally leaving the damned hotel anden routeto the church.
Late.
Flicka glanced over at Dieter, who was sitting in a chair against the far wall, watching the door.
As they’d come back to the church, he’d mentioned thathis teamswere in position around the church and ready along the route back to the hotel. Over a hundred people, he said. Snipers, spotters, surveillance, plain clothes, motorcyclists, drivers, and shotguns. A wire curled from his collar to his ear, and he tilted his head, listening to them. The tension never left his body, like he was always ready to leap, grapple, and protect her.
Flicka relaxed.
Whenever she saw Dieter’s broad shoulders and strong body out of the corner of her eye, when she caught a glimmer of sunlight on his ash blond hair, when she saw his storm-cloud gray eyes restlessly scanning, watching, those were the only times Flicka felt safe.
She didn’t let herself think back to two years ago. Back then, when she’d been in his bed with his arms around her, that was the only time she’d felt loved.
Wulfie had made her feel loved as a father loves his daughter, of course, but those moments had been so fleeting. They’d had a few years together as a family, and then he’d been conscripted into the Swiss army when she was eleven. She’d gone back to the dorms at Le Rosey boarding school.
But Dieter, she’d had everything with him: the knowledge that he loved her, lying in his arms at night, and feeling perfectly safe with his huge form shadowing her. In the evenings, they’d been together. On weekends, they’d gone to the theater or museums or movies.
But it had been only for a year, and then it was over.
And then Pierre had been there, and she’d been so starved for love that she’d believed everything he’d told her.
She couldnotthink about Pierre just then.
Shiny shell, snap shut.
Shut it all away.
Flicka shook her head and went back to texting the damn napkin supplier, promising hellfire and damnation if he didn’t come up with the cloth goods.
She liked Rae’s Western colloquialisms. They were sodescriptive.Andthreatening.
Rae Stone was standing in front of a full-length mirror, not sitting so that she wouldn’t wrinkle her pale ivory wedding gown. She held her arms stiffly out from her sides, and her eyes were a little too big on her face.
The von Hannover wedding tiara had been woven into her rich, auburn hair, and Flicka particularly liked how it looked. The stylists she had been training for months had done a spectacular job. She should give them a bonus payment.
As Rae turned slightly to view the dress in the mirror, one couldn’t particularly tell that Rae was four months’ pregnant, which was excellent. Flicka had conferred with the designer and tailor to construct an optical illusion that made her look slim and curvy, though there was just no disguising her great boobs.
Flicka wished she had great boobs, but every body is different.
“Is he here yet?” Rae asked Flicka.
She grunted and held up one finger while she finished the text with her other thumb. “There. I can’t believe that asshole kidnapped me for three whole hours. I am going to cut off someone’s head. The reception napkins are white.White.Andpolyester.We specifiedivory, unbleached, raw silkmonths ago. I’ve been battling this guy for days.”
Rae’s college friend Lizzy had been fussing over Rae all afternoon, evidently taking over for Flicka in that department when Flicka had been kidnapped, but she was taking a break. Lizzy was tucked up into a tiny, blond ball in one corner of a loveseat, clicking on her phone.
Rae asked, “Is Wulf here yet?”
Flicka shook her head. “Julian pinged that Wulfie and Mrs. Keller just left the hotel for the church, and he still isn’t dressed. His clothes are here. We’re already delayed by fifteen minutes. It’s going to be an hour. The delay is going to bean hour.”
Rae smiled. “It’ll be okay. We have four hours built in before we’re supposed to make the entrance at the reception. It’ll be fine. I wish Georgie were here.”
Flicka glanced up at Rae, paused, and then reached up and stroked Rae’s arm. As crazed as Flicka was about this wedding, she wasn’t the one getting married. Of course, Rae wanted her other bestie here. “If she can come, I’m sure she will.”
“You haven’t gotten any more texts?”
“Not since the exceedingly tardy RSVP yesterday,” Flicka told her.
