I nod, like we’ve just settled something simple. Like she didn’t just get a preview of the kind of man she’s about to marry.
“Then there’s nothing stopping you from signing, is there?”
Her throat moves as she swallows.
I watch her hesitate. Just for a second. Just long enough to wonder if she’s going to say something else—ask for some other condition, try to assert some control over this.
But she doesn’t. She just nods.
Good girl.
I stand, buttoning my jacket with slow precision. “Then you should get ready.”
Her brows pull together slightly. “For what?”
I tilt my head. “For our wedding, wife.”
29
Bella
A week and some days later
I’m huddled between a floor-length Oscar de la Renta and what appears to be Vera Wang’s entire spring collection, trying to remember how to breathe like a normal human being. The closet is bigger than my first apartment, which somehow makes this hiding attempt even more pathetic.
“Why are you whispering?” Elena’s voice crackles through my phone speaker.
“Because,” I hiss, pressing myself deeper into the silks and chiffons, “if Natasha finds me, she’ll force me into another dress that makes me look like I’m auditioning for ‘Russian Oligarch’s Trophy Wife: The Musical.’”
“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing, though?” Elena laughs, the sound tinny through the international connection.
“Oh my God, how can you be in Japan when I need you the most?” I groan, sliding down until I’m sitting on the floor, surrounded by designer shoes with mind-numbing price-tags.
“Because Japan needs me more,” she says dramatically. “And by that, I mean my team is incompetent, and I’ve been knee-deep in contracts all week. Also, have I told you about the weirdest sex museum I just walked past? Vibrators from the Edo period, Bella. Carved out of wood. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“That someone, somewhere, got splinters in places no one should ever get splinters?”
Elena cackles, but I don’t have time to enjoy it because—THWACK.
My elbow knocks into a row of beaded bodices, sending a ripple effect of satin and lace swaying violently around me. I suck in a sharp breath, panic clawing up my throat.
“Shit—shit—shit!” I hiss through my teeth, as if I can physically shove the sound back into my mouth.
“Okay, that was genuinely terrifying,” Elena says, not at all concerned. “I thought someone found you and was about to drag you out by your hair.”
“One day, Elena.” My voice drops to a frantic whisper, my hand clamping over my mouth like Natasha might hear me through the walls. “One. Day. Until I legally bind myself to a man who communicates primarily through grunts and wire transfers.”
Elena lets out a low whistle. “Damn. You know, when you put it like that, it almost sounds romantic.”
I bury my face in my hands. “This is bad. This is so bad.”
“Listen, I know what this is—pre-wedding cold feet. Happens to the best of us. Like that time I almost married a guy in Ibiza because he made me a really good mojito.”
I frown. “You’ve never been engaged.”
“Exactly. Because I recognized it for what it was—fleeting panic. And possibly mild alcohol poisoning. But you? This is different. This isstrategic panic.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Oh, do enlighten me, Dr. Phil.”
