I watch her throat as she swallows heavily. “I don’t expect anything from you, except silence. So, just be quiet then.”
I nod in response and try not to smirk at her, but when she looks away my expression falls and I just continue walking. Every step feels like someone else is taking it.
The next time I’m completely aware, we’re dropping Rosalie off at her apartment, and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Damian’s car while he drives me back to my family’s estate.
“Today went by so quickly,” I say slowly.
Damian doesn’t say anything in response. It shouldn’t be strange. After all, he’s just the bodyguard driving me home. At the insistence of my brother of all people. As though we can’t afford to hire my own guard.
I suppose he thinks that Damian has a vested interest because of his position with Eivor. I personally think that he just wants to find more ways to push Rosalie and I together.
It doesn’t matter. It’s been done.
“I’m married,” I mumble.
“Yes, you are,” Damian finally replies.
I look out the window and wonder if my mother felt like this on her wedding day. Better yet, my father. How did they feel when they got married?
“I remember my mother telling me her wedding day was a day she would never forget,” I say slowly, not taking my gaze away from the dreary outside. “How beautiful and emotional it was.”
“You still have your ceremony, don’t you?” Damian asks.
I blink. “Ah, yes,” I say with remembrance. “In that church.”
It’s quiet for a long moment before I finally speak again. “This isn’t the same.”
“Why not?” Damian looks over at me. I may not be looking at him, but I can feel the way his eyes land on the side of my face.
When I look over at him, though, he’s looking back at the road. His expression is hard and his jaw is set.
“As if you don’t know,” I challenge him. “You’re a smart man. Eivor wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t.”
“You and Rosalie seem good together,” he insists. “I can guess your marriage isn’t only about romance, though. In our world, they never are.”
I chuckle lowly. “You sound like you have first-hand experience.”
Damian shakes his head. “No. The life you live isn’t for me,” he tells me.
“The life I live?” I ask him, tilting my head to the side.
We turn down another road.
“You have some power in your family. I imagine that’s why you were chosen,” Damian says quietly. His voice a low rumble in the dim car. “My family couldn’t care less about me…and I prefer it that way. I prefer moving from one job to the next. Never getting attached.”
“Never?” I ask as my eyes scan his face. He doesn’t look at me, but I watch as he shifts in the driver’s seat slightly.
“I’ve never gotten attached. Just like you didn’t just marry a woman you don’t really love,” Damian replies.
I smirk at him and then look in front of us as we approach the estate. It’s quiet. Neither of us speaking.
The silence makes it difficult not to think about what happened today. That I’m now tied to a woman I never saw myself being tied to in any way. What will happen next? Beyond the ceremony and reception. Beyond the contract giving Eivor more power in our domain.
What will be expected of me?
Before I can get very far down those lines of thought, Damian pulls the car up to the front door of my family’s estate.
“You’re here,” he says when I don’t get out immediately.
