Parsons didn’t try to make conversation.I appreciated that.He had been witness to enough of my humiliation over the past months that small talk would have been obscene.
The courthouse was a modest building, simple brick and stonework, nothing like the grand venues where Hughes family weddings had taken place for generations.My mother had married my father at the Cathedral of St.John, with five hundred guests and a reception that made the society pages.My grandmother’s wedding had been featured in a magazine.
I was getting married in a government office with two witnesses and a man I despised.
I saw his car first.Black, sleek, armored.Then I saw him.
Raphael stood on the courthouse steps, hands clasped behind his back, watching my approach with an expression I couldn’t read.He wore a dark tailored suit, his hair perfectly styled, his posture impeccable.
But he was holding himself strangely, too stiff, too careful.
Parsons opened my door and I stepped out into the spring sunshine.The stiffness in Raphael’s shoulders was unmistakable.The careful way he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.The slight hesitation before he moved to meet me, his jaw tight as he fought to hide whatever pain he was in.
My first instinct was curiosity.My second was fury at myself for caring.
He destroyed your family.He took your virginity and threw you away.Whatever’s wrong with him, he deserves it.
I buried the observation and let my expression go cold.
“Lena.”His voice was controlled.Controlled was all he ever was, mask after mask hiding whatever monster lived underneath.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Pain crossed his features before he smoothed it away.Or irritation at my lack of performance.I didn’t care which.
We walked up the courthouse steps together, not touching, a foot of spring air between us.Inside, the building smelled like old paper and floor wax and bureaucracy.A security guard waved us through without comment.Apparently, when you were Raphael Antonov, metal detectors didn’t apply.
The judge’s chambers were on the second floor.A small office, all wood paneling and law books and a window that looked out over the parking lot.No flowers.No music.No guests beyond the two witnesses already waiting.
Alice stood by the window, her weathered face unreadable.She had been kind to me during those months I had lived in Raphael’s manor, and the grief in her eyes when she looked at me now was genuine.But she was his.They were all his.
Parsons took his place beside her.Two witnesses to a wedding that wasn’t a wedding at all.Just paperwork.Just a legal binding that would transfer ownership of Lena Hughes to the man who had already taken everything else.
The judge was a woman in her sixties, gray-haired and efficient.She glanced at the marriage license on her desk, then at us.
“Do you have rings?”
Raphael reached into his pocket and produced a velvet box.My stomach dropped as he opened it to reveal a band of platinum studded with diamonds.Expensive.Tasteful.A shackle disguised as jewelry.
I hadn’t brought a ring for him.Hadn’t even considered it.
“I have my own,” he said, and he was wearing a simple platinum band I had never seen before.Already on his finger.Already claiming a marriage that hadn’t happened yet.
“Very well.”The judge gestured to the space before her desk.“If you’ll both stand here.”
The floor was unsteady under my feet as I walked to where she pointed.Raphael moved beside me, close enough to smell him.Sandalwood and leather and beneath that, a warmer familiarity, something that made my body tighten with an awareness I desperately wanted to kill.My skin remembered his hands even as my mind screamed in fury.
Traitor body.Traitor heart.
“We are gathered here to unite this man and this woman in matrimony,” the judge began, her voice flat and professional.No warmth.No ceremony.Just the words required by law.
I kept my eyes fixed on a point over her shoulder.A water stain on the ceiling.A brown discoloration shaped vaguely like a bird, wings spread in frozen flight.Something mundane to focus on while my world ended.
“Do you, Raphael Antonov, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do.”
Two words.Steady and certain.Like he meant them.
