While Quentin tried on platinum bands—watching his face as he slid them on and off, trying to read what he was thinking—I kept staring at my hand. At the diamond that kept catching the light, winking at me like it was in on some cosmic joke I hadn't been told yet.
I'm married. To Quentin Vanetti. The man I was sent to kill. Who I married yesterday in a courthouse because of legal loopholes and death threats. While possibly accidentally falling in love with him. This is fine. Everything is fine.
"This one," Quentin said, holding up a simple platinum band. Classic, understated, somehow very him.
"You're sure?" I asked.
"Are you questioning my taste in jewelry, Mrs. Vanetti?"
Mrs. Vanetti.There it was again. That flutter of something I wasn't ready to name.
"I'm questioning everything right now," I admitted.
"Fair enough." He looked at the jeweler. "We'll take all three. The set for her, and this band for me."
While he handled payment—and I tried real hard not to think about how much rings like this cost, or what they symbolized,or how yesterday's ceremony had lasted about ten minutes but had somehow changed everything—the jeweler motioned to the elegant boxes.
"Will you be wearing them out?" he asked.
Quentin looked at me. "Julia?"
I looked down at my left hand. Yesterday at the courthouse, we'd signed papers. Made it legal. Protected ourselves with spousal privilege. But this? This made it look real to everyone else.
"Yes," I said quietly. "I'll wear them."
Quentin took the wedding band from the jeweler. Right there in the store, in front of the security guards in their expensive suits and the jeweler with his knowing smile, he slid it next to the diamond ring on my finger.
"There," he said softly. "Now you look properly married."
"Is that what we're going for? Proper?"
"Among other things."
The jeweler handed Quentin his band, but Quentin gave it to me. "Your turn."
My hands were shaking slightly as I took his left hand. This felt more significant than the courthouse somehow. More real. Moreus.
I slid the platinum band onto his finger.
"How does it feel?" I asked, echoing his earlier question.
"Like I'm in trouble," he said, but he was smiling. "The best kind of trouble."
We walked out of that store wearing our rings, our hands clasped together, legally married as of yesterday and nowlookingmarried too.
"That was surreal," I said once we were on the sidewalk.
"Which part? The marriage or the rings?"
"All of it. Yesterday was paperwork and a judge who looked bored. This felt..."
"More like a wedding?"
"More like a commitment." I looked down at my hand again. At the way the sunlight caught the diamond. "We really did this."
"Having second thoughts?"
Only about a thousand.But when I looked at him—at the way he was watching me, patient and careful and somehow convinced this was all going to work out—I surprised myself by saying:
