I contort. I reach. I get maybe six buttons from the top and then nothing, my arms do not bend that direction and the fabric is pulling, the bodice is tight, too tight, it's been tight since I put it on this morning in my father's house when I thought I was dressing for someone else's wedding, and now it's pressing in from every side and I cannot get air properly and?—
The memory comes without warning.
Another dress. Another room. Hands on my buttons, moving faster than I wanted, and me standing there telling myself it was fine, it was fine, this was what was supposed to happen, this was what being a wife meant, this was?—
Stop.
I press the heel of my hand against my sternum and I breathe. In. Out. I am in Rafael Caruso's house. I am twenty-four years old. That was five years ago and a different room and a different man and I am not the same person anymore either.
In. Out.
I reach back and move up the dress and I work the buttons with hands that are steady because I am making them steady, one by one, until enough of them are open that I can drag the whole thing down and step out of it. It falls to the floor in a pile of pale-grey fabric that I step away from immediately because I don't want to look at it.
I stand there for a moment.
Just breathing.
Then I look at the bed.
Someone has laid out clothes. There is a full wardrobe, actually, I see hanging in the open closet, neatly arranged. Outfits in my size, which means this was planned in advance, which means everyone in this house knew exactly what today was going to be before I left my father's house this morning.
The whole world was briefed except fucking me.
I woke up this morning a single woman. A free woman. A woman with a Paris apartment and a bakery downstairs and absolutely zero intention of ever getting married again. And now I am standing in a stranger's bedroom surrounded by clothes someone else chose for me for a life someone else planned for me and I am so angry I would put my fist through that very expensive looking wall if it wouldn’t break my bones to pieces.
I yank on everything I can find. Leggings. A long sleeve top. A cardigan over that. Socks. I look like I'm preparing for a polar expedition and I do not care even slightly.
I know what's supposed to happen tonight.
My father's voice in my ear, clinical and unbothered:Rafael will expect to consummate the marriage. Don't give him any reason to think something is wrong. Be convincing
Be convincing. Be a fucking slut.
Over my dead body.
Use the only currency a woman has in this world to buy her sister's life.
My skin crawls at the thought. I’m not a wife; I’m a bribe. And Rafael Caruso doesn't look like the kind of man who accepts a counterfeit payment.
I climb onto the bed on the far side, on top of the covers because getting under them feels like a level of settling in that I'm not prepared to commit to, and I arrange myself in what I hope is a convincing impression of a woman peacefully asleep. Flat on my back. Eyes closed. Hands folded. Completely natural.
This is so stupid. He's going to walk in here and see a woman lying on top of the covers in a cardigan and socks and immediately know something is wrong. But the alternative isto actually be awake when he comes in and I cannot do that, I cannot have that conversation, I cannot lie here and look at him with his jaw and his hands and his green eyes and his?—
No.
Asleep. I am asleep. I have been asleep for hours. I am the most deeply asleep person in this building.
I hear the door.
Well shit.
My whole body goes rigid, which is not what deeply sleeping people do, but I cannot help it. His footsteps are quiet, which is unfair because a man that large should not be able to move that quietly, it goes against the basic principles of physics.
They stop.
Silence.
He's looking at me. He's standing there looking at me and if I open my eyes I will have to explain the cardigan and the socks and the aggressive corpse position and I would genuinely rather stay like this forever.
