Mother’s gaze follows mine, and she finally sits down. “I know,” she says softly. “You wish he could be here for the big day.”
I didn’t plan to laugh, but the bitterness that’s been sitting in my chest since last night comes out in a series of stuttering chuckles. “I don’t know ifhewould like to see this.”
“I know you and Dad had your differences, but he would have come around.” She says it with such confidence I almost believe it. Not that it matters anymore.
She makes a small, cheery noise and springs to her feet.
“Wait,” she says, as if I came all the way here just to leave after five minutes.
I glance through the huge windows, surveying snow-dusted Manhattan, but she’s back soon and places a gold ring with a large diamond embedded in the band, in the middle of my palm.
“It was your father’s, remember? Dalton still doesn’t have a ring—”
Her words disappear in the frantic thudding in my ears, and when I see my fingers tremble, I close them around the precious trinket, suddenly sick to my stomach. My father would not consider me worthy of this ring.
“No.”
“No?” She blinks, long lashes moving like butterfly wings. “Corvus, please… am I being overbearing? After so many years holding back such a secret, I just want you to be happy. I’m sorry honey, but you’ve been so cheerful since Dalton moved in with you, and I want you two to have everything you might want on your special day—”
No point dragging any of this foolishness out any further.
“Dalton moved out,” I say quickly, because there’s a pressure rising inside me, and even the diffuser attached to the wall sickens me.
Mother cocks her head at me. “I don’t understand…”
I take a deep breath and meet her gaze, because I’m not a coward.
“The wedding is not happening. I fucked up, and he’s gone. I’m sorry I wasted so much of your time.”
Mom gets up and starts pacing in front of the window. I hate causing her so much distress I can literally smell it in the air, but it can’t be helped. “No, Corvus. What could you have possibly done? Dalton’s crazy about you. I’m sure it can be fixed.” She stops and pinsme to the seat. “You didn’t cheat on him, did you? I know it can be hard to be faithful for a man as handsome as—”
“No! I—” My mouth feels bitter, as if I’ve just had a whole package of liquorice, but there’s no point keeping up the charade that kept Dalton from drowning. Not in front of Mother. “I lied. I met him just before the hunt, and I decided to keep him, all right? So we’ve only been together three weeks, and here he was, confessing his love, and I figured it must be either a matter of money, or him acting on someone’s behalf, so they can get to me.”
She sucks in her lips as she processes that in silence, and I feel like a bug under a microscope. “And you told him that when he confessed his feelings,” she fills in slowly, then sighs. “You’re just like your father, Corvus. You know, at the beginning of our relationship, he was so paranoid, he got it in his head that I was unfaithful to him. I wasn’t, of course, I was head over heels in love with him. He was so intense, and I fell so fast. But I couldn’t take the suspicion anymore. It can wear you down. When I moved out, he finally took his head out of his ass and saw what he did to our marriage.”
I groan. “And what’s the moral of this story?”
She spreads her arms. “The moral is you can’t have love without trust, Corvus! If you don’t want the wedding, if you don’t love him, by all means, let’s call it off, but if you’re standing in the way of your own happiness, you must fight it.” Mother walks over to an open cardboard box in the corner and rips up some paper to pull out a few postcards. “Look at these,” she pushes what I realize are wedding menus into my hand. “Does a man secretly scheming to kill you fight me about the menu design so that it references your favorite black and white movies? You wouldn’t believe how stubborn he was being!”
White ink stands out on black paper. Inside frames reminiscent of the dialogue displays from old movies I’ve shown him is a list of dishes and beverages.
My heart is so damn heavy as I look at it, recognizing one of the starters as the same dish we had the first time we ate out together. It’s cute… like something from one of those cheesy rom-coms I refused to watch until Dalton beat me at a game of cards. And while the idiot part of me that would rather stay cold and alone forever than risk having my heart broken reminds me that this is exactly what someone might do to manipulate me, Mother is right—there are far easier methods of achieving such goals.
Dalton’s was to… simply make me happy and show me how he feels. And I shoved the knife I used to kill one of the men who attacked us against his throat.
With a deep exhale, I hide my face in my hands, drowning in the ever-growing flood of memories. He’s so kind and thoughtful in each one, and I… I’ve kept him at a distance, so he doesn’t touch the part of me I hide deep inside.
“I drove him away,” I choke out, so ashamed I can’t stand it. So maybe he was quick to confess his love, but why am I judging him for it and looking for tricks? He’s not some love-bombing psycho, Dalton’s just excited about me and wears his heart on his sleeve.
Mother slaps the menus out of my hand, because she always has to be dramatic. “Then get him back!”
Unbelievable.
“Easy for you to say. You didn’t see his eyes when he was leaving. The best I can do for him now is to stay away,” I say, my voice getting ever raspier as I remember my father’s final words, spoken to me whilehe was choking on his own blood. “Maybe it’s for the best. Father wouldn’t have approved of this.”
She crosses her arms on her chest and looks out of the window. “Your father didn’t approve of mixing shrimp and chicken.”
“Be serious, Mom. You know he would have hated it. It’s not what he wanted for me.”
