He doesn’t laugh, but a tiny, wicked smile turns his lips. “Easily rectified,” he says. “I have new paperwork, and a judge—a personal friend of mine—lined up to perform the ceremony tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” My brows pinch together, panic rising in my throat. “After everything that’s happened, we can’t possibly have a replay of our wedding tomorrow. Having a new dress designed and fitted will take weeks, and then there’s renting the venue, the flowers, and the guest list. It can’t be done.”Not to mention I have no intention of marrying you.
“No wedding will be necessary. We’ll just formalize the marriage and put this entire thing behind us.” He raises his glass of wine to me in a silent toast and then drinks.
I draw a shaky breath. “You don’t want a wedding anymore?”
“No.”
“But a wedding like the one we planned has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl.”
“And you had it, before you were abducted. It doesn’t matter anyway. What matters is that we are legally wed as soon as possible.”
I tilt my head and giggle lightly to diffuse the growing tension I can feel coming from his side of the table. “But why? It’s not as if we’ve had a lengthy engagement. What’s the rush?”
He taps his thumb on the table again, and the staff rushes in as if they’ve been hovering on starting blocks just out of sight. They take our salad plates and replace them with a main course of rare leg of lamb on a bed of vegetables and couscous. “Because I wish to be married to you.” He says it like no other explanation is needed. “I’ve waited long enough.”
The fire in me starts to rise again. Iknow it now for what it is—a part of me that I squashed after the accident. I was so beaten down and defeated I would have gone along with anything to ease the pain, and I did before. When I met Roman, I was an empty husk of a person, moving through the world like a robot. Roman loved that about me, loved having a Barbie he could dress up and control. And I didn’t see how sick it actually was until Connor healed me. Not just of my writer’s block, but of the remnants of my grief. Connor reignited that part of my soul I’d put out after Marion died. I don’t ever want that fire extinguished again.
“Marriage is supposed to be about what both people want, and I want it to be special, Roman. Besides, I need the time to recover from everything that’s happened. Maybe I should talk to a psychotherapist first. I don’t want the trauma of my experience to come between us in our marriage.”Another excellent reason to delay until my mate can get me out of here.
“It will be special. How could it not be?” He meticulously cuts off a perfect square of lamb and brings it to his mouth. “And as for your... trauma...” He scoffs as if he doesn’t believe in the word. “I’ll make certain you are safe from this day forward. The best thing for you is to fall into a regular routine. Our marriage will give you a purpose. You won’t have time to wallow in those feelings.”
Jesus, he’s a psychopath. My palms start to sweat, and my pulse pounds as every door to freedom is slammed in my face. I rack my brain. There must be something I can use to stall this thing, some card I haven’t played. I take a deep breath and it comes to me. “If we’re getting married tomorrow, I’ll want Vivian there.” He scowls across the table at me. “It’s nonnegotiable. You have to allow me to see her tonight so I can ask her to witness for us again.”
He sighs in annoyance but takes in the determined set of my jaw. “Very well. After dinner, I will take you to Vivian.”
A bit of tension eases from my shoulders. If he’s promising to take me to Vivian, she must be close and unharmed. I pick up my fork, and this time I take a bite of the lamb, proving myself to be the appreciative fiancée. It’s flavorless compared to the meals Connor made me this month. But I chew and swallow.
“Now I have some questions for you, Fiona.”
My stomach clenches, threatening to expel the small amount of food I’ve put in it. “Yes?”
“How many dragons did you meet during your captivity?”
“Just one,” I answer immediately. “And his servant and his dog.”
“What was his name?”
“He called himself Valentine.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dark hair, thin. He changed his appearance though. It was never the same.”
We continue like this, him asking and me saying the exact opposite of the truth.
When he finishes his questions, I say, “He told me a bunch of things about the Saint’s Order, but I didn’t know what to believe. Can you explain its purpose, Roman?”
His voice is soft but lethal when he answers. “The Order is the antidote to those secret societies you write about in your thrillers. That thing that took you, if we had our way, we’d end them all.”
“You’d kill all the dragons? Sorry, this is all so new to me. The dragon who held me told me the basics but it was so confusing. Why do you want them dead?”
His brow lifts. “After being his prisoner for so long, I’m surprised you’d need to ask. They’re brutish and wild, adhering to no rules or propriety. A world ruled by dragons would be a world of chaos with ever-shifting axes of power. The Saint’s Order maintains stability. Our members have maintained a level of wealth that transcends generations. People like you—ordinary people—you play the game. You work your way from pawn to knight to rook to queen, and you think if you have enough of the things you desire that you’ve won, but the members of the Saint’s Order have been ordained by God to own the board and all its pieces. No one makes a move we didn’t decide for them to make. Dragons, if they have their way, would have each person designing their own set of rules, or perhaps not playing at all, simply existing and being happy about it. It’s ludicrous. They are the creation of the devil.”
God, he’s sick. What a twisted way to look at the world. I nod, because I sense that’s what he expects me to do, but my mind keeps circling back to the fact that he pursued me. He was going to marry me. And I can’t stop myself from asking the obvious question. “You’ve always known then, that I’m just a pawn. Why did you pursue me? Why ask me to marry you?”
He takes a sip of his wine. “You are no pawn, Fiona. You are a queen. A stunning beauty. You are exactly what I deserve.”
