I pick up a swatch and run it between my fingers. Silk. Cool and smooth. "I thought about it."
"What changed?"
Rafferty. I want to say.Everything changed because of Rafferty.
I've seen him every day this week. He meets me after my shifts at Rosa's and we drive back to the Orlov estate, or sometimes just park somewhere and talk. He took me to the grounds two days ago and walked me through the garden where the ceremony will be held. He showed me the library, and the kitchen where Saoirse holds court every morning over coffee and scones. He introduced me to Iris, who hugged me like she'd known me her whole life and immediately started asking what flowers I was planning for the wedding.
He doesn't push me or crowd me. He exists beside me like a wall I can lean against or walk past, and either option is fine with him. When I talk, he listens with his whole body. When I don't talk, he lets the silence sit without trying to fill it.
We haven't slept together again since that morning. We've come close. In his car, his hand on my thigh, my fingers in his hair. On the estate, in a hallway, pressed against a wall with his mouth on my neck and his hands gripping my hips until I gasped. But each time, he pulls back and asks me if I'm sure, and each time I say yes, and each time he says, "After the wedding. Properly. In our bed."
Our bed. The words do something to me I can't explain.
"He's a good man," I tell Darya. "I got lucky."
She raises an eyebrow. "An arranged marriage to a Bratva enforcer and you're calling it lucky?"
"I am."
She watches me for a moment. Then she smiles. A real one. "Good. You deserve lucky, Nad. It's been a long time coming."
I don't trust myself to answer that, so I pick up another fabric swatch and hold it against my wrist and pretend to care about the difference between cream and eggshell.
My mother looks up from her catalog. "You're eating better," she says. It's not a question. It's an observation delivered with the quiet satisfaction of a woman who's been worrying for years and is finally seeing evidence that the worry might be easing.
She's right. I am eating better. Not a lot, but more than I have in months. Rafferty makes sure of it. He shows up with food he's brought from the estate, containers of whatever Saoirse cooked that morning, and watches me eat with an expression that's somewhere between gentle and immovable. It feels good that in the last week I've started wanting to take care of myself again.
I've gained back a few pounds. My hands have stopped shaking. I slept seven hours last night without waking up once.
For the first time in three years, I feel like I might be okay.
"I'm good," I tell my mother. "I'm really good."
She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. Her eyes are bright. She doesn't say anything else. She doesn't need to.
I do the lunch shift at Rosa's. It's busy, which is good. The rhythm of it grounds me, taking orders, running plates, refilling coffees. My body knows this work so well it could do it without my brain, which used to be the point. Now it's just comfortable. A familiar thing in a life that's changing fast.
Rosa watches me from behind the line the way she always does. Quiet assessment. Maternal concern disguised as professional oversight.
"You look better, honey," she says when I pass through the kitchen to pick up an order. "Whatever's going on, keep doing it."
"I will." I smile, a genuine smile because Rosa has been a pillar in my life for the last three years though I don’t think I knew it until now.
"That man of yours came in yesterday asking for a container of my chicken soup. Said you liked it."
I stop. "Rafferty came here?"
"Big guy. Dark hair. Very polite, very intense. Tipped forty percent." She grins. "I like him."
I carry the plates out with a smile I can't quite control. Rafferty Orlov, Bratva enforcer, youngest brother of the most feared family in the territory, came to my restaurant and asked for takeout soup because I mentioned once that I liked it.
The shift ends at six. I cash out my tips and hang up my apron, saying goodnight to Rosa as I grab the last trash bag to take to the bins. The parking lot is quiet. Late autumn dark, the kind that comes early and settles heavy. There are only two cars in the parking lot, neither of them mine as Darya dropped me off so Rafferty could pick me up.
I toss the trash into the bin beside the diner, then dig my phone from my bag as I walk to the lamp that’s buzzing and flickering to wait for Rafferty. My mind is on the wedding. Six days. My mother wants to go to the bridal shop tomorrow morning. Iris texted me about cake. I decide not to text back since I’ll see her in an hour or so anyway at dinner.
I'm thinking about all of this when I hear footsteps behind me.
I turn, expecting Rafferty, and instead come face to face with Kyle.
