The priest started to sing-chant in Russian, but he stopped abruptly and twisted to stare directly at me. “You are not drunk this time, right?”
“Not at all,” I assured him.
I was devastatingly sober.
He squinted at me, like his bushy gray eyebrows were trying to roll down his face to integrate into his fluffy mustache and beard. “Hungover?”
No use lying. “A little, but I’m getting better.”
“Alexandra feed you water last night?”
What was going on with the interrogations? “Yes, and ginger ale this morning.”
He nodded solemnly. “Because she isgood girl.”
I sure as hell wasn’t going to argue with him. While I could be dense as fuck sometimes, I’d at least figured that much out. “I know.”
“Give rings to me.”
I pried the two flat wedding rings out of their respective boxes, my fingers fumbling in a way I was unaccustomed to, and I tossed the shiny black shopping bag onto the first pew while the priest prayed over the rings in Russian.
While the priest was blessing the rings, I pried the remaining engagement ring out of its box and offered it on my flat palm to Lexi. “Shall I propose again?”
Lexi didn’t even look at me. Her fingers crept over and took the engagement ring from my hand, sealing it in her fist as she watched the priest invoke the blessing over our new wedding rings. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
I caught her other hand in mine and held it while the priest prayed over our rings on the altar.
Her hesitant glance up at me, her fathomless dark eyes full of apprehension and sadness, pierced my heart.
The sun glinted off her blond hair, so at odds with her dark eyes.
I didn’t want her to be sad. I wanted her to beanythingbut sad, especially at our wedding, or ring-blessing, even though this was at best a short-term marriage of convenience.
Wasn’t it?
I lifted her hand and kissed the back of it while we waited, a quick kiss, because I wanted to console her.
When I was yelling at Kostya, I’d been shouting the absolute truth that was in my heart, that Lexi was a better human being than either one of us, and I’d been damned lucky I’d fallen down drunk atherfeet.
The priest was correct to admonish me. Lexi was a good person, better than me, better than anyone I knew.
She deserved better than my machinations.
She deserved better than me.
The priest turned back to us, holding our rings in a bright white cloth. He muttered under his breath, “Okay, I see now. These are better rings. You see that she is not to be played with.”
We exchanged them, Lexi carefully sliding the cold, dual-toned band of platinum and gold onto my ring finger, where the sunlight glinted on it like a beacon, and I placed the platinum setting paved with half-carat diamonds onto her ring finger.
I didn’t offer to repeat my vows, and she didn’t either. We’d made those last night in an alcohol-fueled blue flame of glory.
Or maybe that had just been me. She hadn’t beenbattered last night.
But I sure as hell wasn’t going to retract even one word I’d said.
She crammed the engagement ring on top of the wedding ring and stared at the bands for a moment, the diamonds dwarfing her delicate hand like my lifestyle, my wealth, and my needs overwhelming her existence.
I asked her, “Better?” Meaning the ceremony to bless the rings.
