“Why would I do that?”
“Everyone else does.”
“Not to grab these kinds of rings.”
“Especially for these kinds of rings.”
Shit. “Why?”
“Because she knows best.”
“Well, so does my wife.” I grab my folded image from my pocket. “That’s my wife.” I note the pride in my voice, even nod, all grins like a college boy who scored his first lay.
“Congratulations.” He places a hand over his heart. “Lovely match. Rough and sophisticated. Rwarr.” He makes a gesture with his fingers. I think it’s a claw. I’m unsure, never seen this gesture before.
“Bill me?”
He smiles and grabs his calculator, punches in numbers, gives me a discount, which I appreciate, then thrusts the calculator in front of my face. I almost stroke out at the sequence of figures. “Jesus. All that for a rock?”
His eyes widen, and I have a feeling his inner lion is about to come out, so I wave my hand.
“Here.” I thrust a bundle of cash at him. “Just take my fucking money.”
My wife has great taste. She married me, didn’t she? Mm-hm.
10
There’s a ton of cars parked haphazardly all over the road, and I park the truck a bit away so I can walk up unnoticed and surprise my wife at work.
Okay, so I also wanna check out her coworkers, the places she goes during the day, who might she hang out with, you know, the stuff a possessive, obsessive stalker husband comes up with. Nothing wrong with that, I tell myself as I lower my ball cap and weave between the cars toward a rocky road right before a mountain terrain.
There’s a massive rock out here, if I remember correctly from that one night Nikola and I came here to dump my father’s body. The man who recently betrayed me dumped my brother elsewhere, don’t know where. It’s best when I don’t know. The less I know, the less the feds can pin on me. I wonder how many people Nikola dumped here or made disappear from the cliff not half a mile from here.
As I reminisce on the past, I come to a clearing crawling with people. There’re white trucks and tents and all kinds of shit. It looks like a Hollywood campground, and I’m wondering if mywife is in a movie. Hope it’s not a romance. The thought of it being a romance sets my teeth on edge.
My man walks toward me and nods, then gets lost back in the parking ’cause I don’t need him if I’m around. An older woman approaches and strains to look up at me ’cause she’s under five feet. She’s decked out in a black suit and a light blue tie, and her hair is short and streaked with pink highlights. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Kaya Boriskova.” I love attaching my last name to her. It makes me all the more possessive. Do I own her? Hell yes, but she owns me too, so we’re even.
“Are you a friend?” The woman doesn’t look me up and down the way most do to judge, label, or form opinions, but I know first impressions matter and people can’t help their instincts. When she steps back a bit, I know her instincts told her to tread carefully, and that’s fine. I want to intimidate enemies and protect the friends. She’s not my friend, though she could be. Entirely up to her.
“I’m her husband.”
The woman’s eyes widen, and she sticks out her hand. “Gabriella Sanders. Editor in chief. A pleasure to meet you. Kaya is over there.” The woman points toward the rock, and I squint my eyes when the sun hits them, putting my hand up so I can see better. Wha…what the fuck? “Is that my wife on top of the fifty-foot rock?”
“Yes. It’s sixty-two feet.”
“How did she get up there?”
“We dropped her.”
“You fucking dropped my wife on top of the rock? What? Why?”
The woman steps back, and I know I have to calm my shit. “Bridal shoot.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” No, no calm. It’s storming up in my brain. “What bride is gonna get married at the top ofthe rock? Hm? Tell me, because I’d love to know how this image will relate to the…you know, most people.”
“Our audience enjoys pushing limits.”
