Craving Dahlia

4. Dahlia

4

DAHLIA

A lek’s fingers slide around my chin, holding my face still as his mouth finds mine. His lips slant over mine, his tongue sliding over the seam of them, tasting himself, tasting me. My back arches, pressing myself into him, and I can feel how hard he is against me—every part of him. He’s solid muscle, and I moan as his tongue sweeps into my mouth and his free hand flicks open the button at the front of my blouse.

“Now you can be as loud as you want, devochka ,” he murmurs against my lips, before kissing me again.

I’m lost in him. He’s straight out of a fantasy, his mouth devouring mine, slowly, but still rough, still demanding. He nips at my lower lip, thrusts his tongue into my mouth, sucks my lip between his as his roughened palms slide up under my shirt, pushing it up over my stomach.

I shrug my blazer off, letting it fall to the floor behind me. Alek drags my shirt off next, his hands finding my breasts, thumbs rolling over my stiffening nipples under the black lace balconette cups of my bra.

“I want you,” I manage, moaning it into the kiss, and Alek chuckles darkly, one hand sliding behind my back to unclasp the hooks of my bra. He yanks it off, tossing it to the floor before he roughly jerks the waist of my skirt down, over my hips as it slides down my thighs and drops to the tile.

“Patience, gertsoginya ,” he murmurs against my mouth, as his fingers find their way between my slick folds. He drags two fingers upwards, rubbing them roughly against my clit, and I’m suddenly, viscerally aware that I’m completely naked, and he hasn’t taken a stitch of clothing off. Even his leather jacket is still on.

“You’re overdressed.” I slide my hands up the firm planes of his stomach and chest, over the soft material of his sweater, heading to push the jacket off. But Alek lets go of my face abruptly, both of his hands grabbing my wrists in an almost painful grip as he yanks them up above my head, pinning them to the wall above me.

“There’s a rule I forgot to tell you, gertsoginya ,” he murmurs, his voice a low, dark rasp. “If you want my cock, you’ll have to let me blindfold you.”

I blink at him, startled. I’ve never done that before. But why should I be surprised? This is a man who just had me go down on him in a cab, who ate me out in an elevator, who is pinning me naked to a wall right now. Who asked me in a public place if I wanted to get fucked. Blindfolding me should be low on the list of kinky things I might have expected.

And…although I’m disappointed at the idea of not getting to see his body, the idea is highly erotic. The thought of feeling everything he wants to do to me while deprived of one of my senses…I feel a throb of arousal run through me, and I nod.

“Okay,” I whisper.

Dark heat flares in his eyes. He grabs my hips, lifting me up as if I weigh nothing at all, and when my back hits the wall, my legs automatically go around his hips. He grinds into me, one hand lifting to fist my hair again as he kisses me hard, rolling the rough fabric of his jeans against my slick, swollen clit. It’s almost painful, but it also feels so fucking good, and I moan aloud as I arch into him.

“You want to come like this, devochka ?” He bites my lip, sucking it into his mouth. “Come all over me, then. We’ll see how many times we can both come before the night is over.”

A thrill rushes through me, a feeling of complete liberation making me dizzy. I can do anything I want with him. Right now, he wants me to come while he grinds into me up against a wall, and he doesn’t care if I make a mess of him. He wants me to.

I feel like I could ask this man to do anything to me, and he wouldn’t judge me.

I tip my head back, moaning as I arch my hips against him, rubbing myself against the thick ridge of his cock. He’s fully hard again, and he groans, one hand smacking against the wall next to my head as he braces himself. “ Fuck ,” he moans. “ Fuck , come on me, fuck ?—”

I’m so sensitive that every movement of my hips feels like utter fucking bliss. I’ve never come more than once with someone before, but I realize with a sudden jolt of excitement that this is going to be the first of many, and that alone is enough to tip me into my second climax, as I ride the clothed ridge of his cock, grinding into him as I start to moan.

“Yes— fuck , Alek—oh god, I want…”

“What do you want?” His hand grabs my face, jerking it to look directly at him again. “My cock? Fuck —” There’s that look of desperate need in his eyes again, a hunger that’s so close to starvation it startles me. How is it that this man lusts so intensely? He can’t be starving for sex, but he’s looking at me as if he’s on death row and I’m his last meal.

He reaches down, holding me pinned to the wall as he yanks his zipper down. “Just a little,” he groans, more to himself than to me. “Just to feel it?—”

“Alek—” I gasp his name, about to tell him that we need to wait, to go get a condom, but he takes it as encouragement. Before I can get another word out, the blunt, thick head of his cock is between my thighs, and his hips snap forward, burying himself in me in one long, hard trust that makes me scream.

I’ve never had a cock this big. For a moment, my vision narrows, and the surge of pleasure mixed with pain that jolts through me makes me feel like I might pass out. He’s still fully clothed, only his cock free, and the rough denim of his jeans chafes against my inner thighs as he thrusts again, hard.

“ O, chert voz'mi, eto tak khorosho,” he moans, his body jerking forward as he thrusts again. “God, your fucking tight pussy?—”

I’m so full. I’ve never been so full. I can feel that I’m stretched around him, his cock almost too big for me, even as soaking wet as I am. I moan, at the same time that fear trickles through me, the fear that he’s going to come inside of me without a condom.

“Alek!” I cry out his name as he rocks into me, the rough denim scraping over my clit again, and pleasure bursts through me. “Alek?—”

“Just—” He rocks into me, moaning, and then he twists away from the wall, his hungry gaze fixed on mine. “Where’s the bedroom?”

“Back—” I can’t breathe. “To the left of the main room. The door furthest to the left.”

He nods, his breathing ragged as he holds me against him, his cock still buried inside of me as he carries me towards the bedroom. He fumbles at the doorknob, slamming his shoulder into it as he knocks the door open, and he carries me straight to the bed, his cock only slipping out of me as he tosses me onto it.

“Find something to use as a blindfold,” he snaps, running a hand through his blond hair. It’s longer on top, shaved on the sides, with two thin lines buzzed into either side. He’s flushed and breathing hard, his eyes so dark that they’re almost frightening, still clothed except for his thick, bare cock jutting out in front of him, wet with my arousal. “ Now , devochka .”

His growling voice jolts me out of my fog. I sit up, trying to think of something, and fumble under my bed, finding a basket that has scarves and belts in it. I shiver when my hand touches leather, imagining what he could do to me with one of those, but I pull out a silk scarf instead, handing it to him.

He steps to the edge of the bed, his gaze intent on me, and he folds the scarf over, his gaze never leaving mine as he holds it up.

“Don’t let it slip, gertsoginya ,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly deadly serious. “If you see me, I’ll have to punish you.” He brushes his knuckles against the back of my cheek, and as his jacket shifts, I see a glimpse of the gun again. “I might not even feel like I could let you live.”

My eyes widen, and I stare up at him, looking for some hint of humor in his face, in his voice. It’s a bad joke—but it’s a joke… right ?

“You’re kidding?” My voice trembles, and Alek’s expression never moves.

“Maybe.” He moves the blindfold closer. “Don’t find out, devochka .”

I shudder as the cold silk presses against my eyes. He brings the ends of it up under my hair, tying it tightly, so tightly that it will be difficult for it to slip or get it off without unknotting it. Suddenly my world is dark, and I shudder, fear spiking through the arousal that’s still pulsing through me.

“Alek—”

“Sit there.” His voice is a sharp command. “Wait for me.”

I nod, feeling shakier than ever, so incredibly vulnerable. Every inch of my skin is bare, prickling in the cool air of the room, and every sound is suddenly magnified. The slide of his leather jacket against his sweater, the soft thud as it hits the floor. The heavy, metallic clunk of his gun as it lands on my nightstand. My head tilts towards the sound, and my heart beats faster with every piece of clothing that I can hear him removing.

I hear his footsteps, coming closer. The anticipation prickles along my skin, heightening with every step, until he’s standing directly in front of me.

His knuckles brush over my cheek again, down the side of my throat. I gasp at the touch, everything magnified by the loss of vision, the stroke of his fingers over the line of my collarbones, down between my breasts, over my breasts dragging a moan from my lips. His fingers tweak my nipples, pinching them, twisting them, and he groans aloud.

He reaches down, grabbing my waist, and I let out a squeak of shock as he tosses me back against the pillows. I feel the bed sink slightly under his weight as he follows me atop it, and then the rough slide of his palms against my inner thighs as he parts my legs. “Open them wide for me,” he commands sharply. “I want to see.”

Without the blindfold, obeying would have still felt impossibly vulnerable. With it, I feel completely laid bare, exposed in a way that makes me feel fearful and aroused all at once. But I obey him, not only because I’m a little afraid after the ‘joke’ he made, but also because I want to.

Something tells me that I’m never going to have an experience like this again, not unless he wants more than a one night.

I spread my legs open, and even without being able to see, I can feel his gaze between my thighs. “ Krasivyy ,” he murmurs, something almost rapt in his voice, and I feel him move forward, between my spread legs. I feel the swollen head of his cock slide through my folds, and I gasp with pleasure as the tip nudges my clit, my hips rolling upwards. But sense breaks through my fog of lust for one brief second.

“Condom. We need a condom,” I manage.

Alek pauses. “I don’t have one,” he says. “I’ll pull out.”

Unreasonably, heat sears through my veins at the thought of having him bare inside of me again. Those few minutes that he fucked me up against the wall were so incredibly, unthinkably good. I’ve never had a man inside me without a condom before, and the feeling of bare skin against skin was something I hadn’t thought could change the experience so much. But the lack of that thin latex barrier made all the difference, and the thought of this man fucking me raw makes a shudder of pure lust run through me.

I’m about to protest, to tell him we need to anyway, that I have some in the nightstand. But then I feel his body shift, and his hips snap forward, burying himself inside of me again. He groans aloud, his hips twitching as he sinks to the hilt, holding himself deeply inside for a moment as his breathing turns ragged.

“Make sure you pull out,” I gasp, because I know there’s no chance he’s stopping now. And deep down, I don’t want him to. His hot, bare, straining cock feels so good inside of me, and as he thrusts again, my back arches as my legs come up to wrap around his hips. “Oh god, Alek —” I moan his name, in the instant before I feel something odd against my inner thigh.

Where it’s pressed to his hip, I feel a thick, ridged strip of skin. Alek’s hips snap against mine again, his groan mingling with my sounds of pleasure as he starts to fuck me in earnest, Russian curses spilling from his lips, and I reach up to touch his chest. He didn’t tell me I couldn’t, and he didn’t tie me up. I want to feel him.

In the instant that I slide my hands over his skin, I knew why he blindfolded me. He’s heavily scarred. My fingers glide over a map of twisted lines and roughened flesh, over his chest, his stomach, down to the taut flesh just above where his cock is thrusting into me. If I ran my hands over his arms, his legs, I imagine I’d find more, and I think of the scar on his face, the only one I’ve actually seen.

Something tightens in my chest, an emotion that I know is pity. I can’t imagine how someone could end up with that much scarring, but I know that’s why Alek blindfolded me. Not only because he didn’t want me to see the scars, but because he didn’t want to see shock or pity in my eyes as he fucked me.

He grabs my hands, pinning them over my head as he leans down, his lips searing against mine as he kisses me roughly. His chest presses against my breasts as his hips move in an urgent rhythm, and my nipples tighten at the sensation of his hot, hard body moving against me. I can feel his scars against my skin, now, that sensation heightened like all the others, and I’m suddenly glad for the blindfold. For whatever reason—because the pleasure is so intense, more so than anything else I’ve felt before, or because I have a man inside of me bare for the first time, or because I’m about to come for the third time in one night…or maybe because I can feel that this man who is pressed against me so intimately is a map of pain that he can’t bear to let anyone else see—I feel hot tears pricking at the corner of my eyes.

Alek’s hips grind against mine, the taut flesh of his abdomen rubbing against my clit, and I moan, my head thrown back as I arch into him. We’re pressed together tightly, every inch from his mouth slanted over mine to where our legs are tangled together, and I can feel his rhythm becoming choppy, his hips jerking against me with every thrust as his breathing turns labored.

He’s close. I tear my mouth away from his as his hands tighten painfully around my wrists, my back arching, my body rolling frantically with his every movement as I chase my orgasm. Alek’s lips find my throat, dragging down the column of it, biting, sucking, and his ragged groan is what pushes me to the very brink.

“Come, gertsoginya ,” he moans. “I can’t last any longer.”

The thought, once again, that I’m the reason this brutal man is coming undone is what tips me over. The orgasm tears through me, my moans turning to a shriek of pleasure as I tighten around him, rippling and fluttering along the length of his cock as I come hard. My legs wind around him, my body arching and writhing as I chase the pleasure, and I feel his teeth in my neck, his lips sucking, his fingers bruising on my wrists as he thrusts into me once more with a painful force.

“ Yebat—” He curses aloud, his voice a snarl, and I feel him pull back. I open my eyes on instinct, moaning at the loss of sensation, but it’s all still dark behind the blindfold. I hear his ragged breathing, his groan of pleasure, the fevered slap of his fist along his cock—and then I feel him pitch forward, the hot spray of his cum coating my breasts, my stomach, down to the edge of my abdomen as he paints me with his cum. “ Okh moy chertov bog ?—”

A shudder runs through me. Am I ever going to be able to get off again without a man cursing in Russian as he comes? It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced, and as I start to come down from my high with Alek’s cum streaked over my skin, I feel a wave of disappointment that it’s never going to happen again.

I feel him trail his fingers down, through the lines of cum between my breasts, over my stomach. He presses his slick fingers against my clit, rubbing once in a tight circle, and my entire body seizes with a jolt of pleasure at the feeling of him coating my clit with his cum. I wait for him to say something, but he jerks his fingers away, and I feel the bed shift as he gets up. I start to reach for the blindfold, and then I remember what he said, and my hand goes still.

I hear the sounds of him picking up his clothes, the clunk of his gun being taken off the nightstand. For one brief second, it occurs to me that he could have brought me back here to fuck me and then kill me, and a paralyzing fear grips every muscle in my body. Genevieve knows he brought me here, I reason. He wouldn’t get away with it. But if he’s Bratva, he can get away with just about anything he wants.

Nothing happens, and I sag back against the pillows, hearing him move through the room. Slowly, I push myself up, trying to find the courage to ask for his number. It was clear that this was incredibly good for him, too—so why wouldn’t he want to do it again? I’m not getting married tomorrow. I’m not even going back to D.C. for another six weeks. The fact that I was terrified of him a moment ago flits out of my head, a clear sign that he’s completely fucked me senseless.

“My phone is in my purse,” I blurt out. “Or you could write your number down. If you don’t want me to take off the blindfold. We could do this again…”

My voice trails off as I hear my front door slam shut. While all those frantic thoughts were rattling around in my head, I didn’t realize he’d left the room entirely. I sit up abruptly, snatching the blindfold away, and look around the room as I blink, my vision coming back into focus.

He’s gone. His clothes, the gun, every trace of him. I jump up, running to my bedroom door, but the apartment is empty except for me. The front door is closed. And with a rush of disappointment that’s almost painful, I feel one thing with absolute certainty.

I’m never going to see him again.

—

“You did what?” Evelyn’s voice, shocked and laughing, rises over the chatter of the other guests outside on the heated patio at Over Easy, our favorite brunch spot. I narrow my eyes at her, hissing out a hushing sound, but I bite my lip to hold back my own nervous giggle, too. My cheeks are bright red, and to my right, Genevieve is smirking at me.

“No, keep going,” Genevieve urges. “I want to hear all of it.” She picks up her mimosa, taking a sip. “Every filthy detail.”

Evelyn wrinkles her nose, reaching for her sparkling water. At eight weeks pregnant, while Genevieve and I are sipping a mimosa and a Bloody Mary, with the promise of a latte at the end of brunch, Evelyn is sticking to sparkling water with lemon and decaf coffee. But I can tell that despite the restrictions, she’s happy. I know deep down, she thought she might want children one day, even if her dating life was dry as a desert before Dimitri and her boutique was practically like having a child in and of itself, in terms of time and upkeep.

Genevieve and I are more on the same page when it comes to kids. Genevieve has no desire for them. She’s long said that whatever maternal instinct she has, she’ll satisfy by teaching dance to children once she ages out of professional ballet. And I don’t really think I want them, either. I don’t dislike children—I can’t wait for Evelyn to have my honorary niece or nephew so I can spoil them to death. But I can give Evelyn’s baby back to her at the end of the day.

It’s the commitment that makes me nervous. The responsibility. It’s something that there’s no way out of, once it happens. Another entire person, dependent on you for everything. If you screw up, they probably become a bad person, probably. Or they hate you. Their life is messed up, at the very least. I don’t want that on my conscience.

I never really worried about it before. My string of short-lived flings were never going to turn into anything that would result in me having a family of my own, anyway. But now that my father wants me to get married—and to someone who will undoubtedly expect the picture-perfect wife and two-point-five kids that his public image demands…I’m scrambling to figure out where I land on all of that. If I can stomach the idea of not only marrying Jude, but giving him children.

“Dahlia.” Genevieve snaps her fingers playfully. “Earth to Dahlia. Don’t leave us hanging. You went down on that guy in a cab ?”

“A New York cab.” Evelyn shudders. “Dimitri talked me into doing that once in the car, but it was a private car . And one with a divider so the driver couldn’t see.”

“He could probably hear, though,” Genevieve says with a wicked grin, and Evelyn flushes a startling shade of red.

“He was very…demanding about it,” I admit. “It was rough. But it was so hot.” I can feel my cheeks turning pink, too. “I don’t think I’d do it again, but in the moment?—”

“What about the rest?” Genevieve looks at me. “Was he as good in bed as he looked?”

“Better. He went down on me in the elevator, and then he blindfolded me in bed?—”

“Blindfolded?” Evelyn bites her lip. “That sounds fun. I’ll have to take that suggestion home.”

“Chris does it all the time. Mostly so I don’t see his small dick, I think,” Genevieve adds. “How about this guy, Dahlia? Was he small?”

I shake my head. Two days later, and I’m still sore. “It was almost too much,” I admit, taking a sip of my drink, and Genevieve lets out a delighted laugh.

“Good for you.” She grins at me. “Anything else you want to share?”

“He had a Bratva tattoo.” I blurt it out before I can think better of it, and I see Evelyn freeze, her hand around her glass.

The server picks that moment to arrive with our breakfast—avocado toast for Evelyn, smoked salmon eggs Benedict for me, and a green salad with berries and dressing on the side for Genevieve. I can see Evelyn’s thoughts racing as we thank the server and they walk away, and her attention snaps back to me.

“Describe him again?” she says curiously. “Was it one of Dimitri’s guys?” There’s no judgment in her tone—she’s seen me flirt with Gus. But there is some surprise. I haven’t seriously tried to pursue any of the men I’ve seen while at her house, despite the fact that they’re all fit as hell and some are incredibly hot. It has always just seemed like a bad idea, to fuck someone who works at the place where my best friend lives. A recipe for an awkward run-in later, at the least. And I’d hate for one of them to break my heart, and then for Dimitri to feel like he needs to kill them over it.

He’s practically my brother-in-law, so I can see him reacting that way.

“Tall. Pale, sort of sandy blond hair. He had it long on top, shaved on the sides, lines buzzed into it. He looked like he was tattooed all over—although I only saw his hands and the sides of his neck before he blindfolded me. He had on jeans, a sweater, boots, and a leather jacket. Carried a gun under it. I’ve never seen him around Dimitri, at the mansion, the penthouse—anything like that.” I start to mention the scars, but stop myself. Even though Alek left without a word, and even though I’ll never see him again, it feels like something I shouldn’t share.

Evelyn shakes her head. “It doesn’t ring a bell. There’s one guy on Dimitri’s security who has hair kind of like that, but he’s not even into women, so it definitely wasn’t him.” She laughs. “I think tattoos aren’t specific to a family, though? I don’t know. I’ve never looked at any of the other men’s tattoos that closely. I wouldn’t want Dimitri to shoot any of them, thinking I’m checking them out.” She laughs again, but I’m not entirely sure she’s joking. Knowing Dimitri and how possessive he is of her, she might not be. And my heartbeat picks up in my chest as I remember Alek’s voice, rough as he put the blindfold over my eyes.

I might even feel like I can’t let you live.

“I can ask Dimitri, though—” she starts to say, and I shake my head.

“No. God no.” I feel my cheeks burn. “Please don’t. I’ll never be able to come over again if I know Dimitri knows I fucked someone from the Bratva, one of his men or not.”

Genevieve and Evelyn both laugh at that. “It’s probably for the best,” Evelyn says, her expression sobering a bit. “With the funeral coming up for Dimitri’s father, he’s been more withdrawn than usual. There’s a lot to handle. I’ve been trying to give him space.”

“I’m so sorry,” Genevieve says, and Evelyn and I exchange a glance. I know the truth of what happened, but very few others do.

“It was sudden,” Evelyn says, which isn’t a lie. “We’re dealing with it.”

Genevieve takes that as a hint not to ask any further questions, which I can tell Evelyn is grateful for. Dimitri’s father has been gone for over a month and a half now, and his body won’t be what makes up the ashes in that urn. Evelyn swore me to silence, though, and I’ll never say a word to anyone. Dimitri has been spreading the word among his connections that his father faded into the background of the business due to illness—an illness that finally, according to his version of events, claimed his father’s life. Now a funeral is being held, more than six weeks after his father’s actual death, to bolster the story.

“How are you feeling about what your father asked, after the other night?” Genevieve asks, and Evelyn looks at me curiously. I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Evelyn about it yet.

“I don’t know,” I admit, reaching up unconsciously to rub at the mark Alek left on my throat. I covered it up as best as I could with concealer, but I’m not sure I did that good of a job. I saw Genevieve look at it with a smirk when we sat down.

“What’s going on?” Evelyn asks, and I explain to her what I told Genevieve at Hush—including my father’s threat to cut me off if I don’t agree.

“That’s awful.” She frowns. “I can’t believe he’d do that.”

“I know.” I take another sip of my drink, my appetite fading, but I cut into my eggs all the same. “I wouldn’t have thought so, either. But he’s serious. He thinks it’s time I ‘stopped playing around in New York’ and came home. Did what’s best for the family.”

“Getting a degree in museum science and becoming a curator at the Met isn’t ‘playing around,’” Evelyn says with a snort. “That’s ridiculous. And you’re supposed to give that up so you can go back to D.C. and play politician’s wife?”

“That’s the idea.” I push a piece of salmon into the hollandaise sauce miserably. “I don’t want to marry him. He’s boring in every possible way. How he looks, the things he talks about—I met him briefly this past week while I was home, and he hasn’t improved since I last saw him. Grown up or not, he’s still not someone I want to even spend all that much time around. Let alone marry.”

“Do you think he’d let the two of you live separately?” Genevieve takes a delicate bite of her salad. “If he has so much money, you could just fly home when he needs you on his arm, and enjoy your freedom the rest of the time. Easy.”

“Maybe.” I want to believe that she’s right, desperately. It’s the same thought that I had. But I know men like Jude. They’re proud, and they believe the world kneels at their feet—and that anyone who doesn’t, should. Spoiled, rich boys, not men. He’ll want to feel that he owns me, and that illusion doesn’t include me having my own apartment and life in a different city.

The memory of Alek comes back sharply, flooding my veins with heat. For one night, he treated me like he owned me. He demanded things of me. He didn’t take no for an answer. He made me suck his cock, pinned me against walls, wrung orgasms from my body like they were his right. Demanded that only he get my pleasure for that one night. Fucked me raw and marked me with his cum, even when I begged him to use a condom.

But with him, I liked it. He was a man. A brutal, primal man . Jude could never hope to be half of what Alek was.

If I were going to let any man own me, it would be one like Alek.

I shove the thought away the moment it comes into my head, shocked at myself for even thinking it. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m never going to see him again.

“If your father cuts you off, you could come live at the mansion,” Evelyn suggests, but I can see the doubt in her eyes. Dimitri wouldn’t be pleased with it, I know. For all that I know he cares about me like a sister, I’m not really part of the family. And his world has rules, ones that sometimes even he can’t break, or shouldn’t. Letting his wife’s best friend just move in, suddenly privy to secrets that can slip past walls and with access to information that should be kept private, would be crossing a huge line. I know Evelyn would fight to talk him into it, but I don’t want her to do that. I don’t want to be the cause of friction in their marriage.

“I’ll figure it out,” I promise her. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going home in six weeks, and I’m going to tell my father I can’t do it.” But even as I say it, I feel doubt slither through me. It’s easy to say here, in this bright New York cafe, with my life all around me. Far away from D.C., and my father’s influence, my bank account still comfortably padded.

But when I think about facing him, telling him no, my stomach quivers. My father loves me, but he’s stern, and I’ve always known when not to push him too far. The idea of telling him no in regards to something he’s said he so firmly wants me to do makes me feel like a little girl again, wanting his approval. Wanting him to be proud of me, not disappointed. He won’t take that no easily. And I don’t want to have to upend my life. I love my apartment, my nights out, my brunches with my friends, my designer wardrobe. I love everything I have here.

I won’t even get to keep this life if I marry Jude, though. I’ll have to go back to D.C.. So what’s the point, in the end? I should just accept that I’m going to have to finally be on my own, and go from there.

“I’m going to tell him no,” I repeat, more decisively this time. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”

Evelyn and Genevieve just nod, clearly relieved to hear it. But I can feel a ball of ice settling in my stomach, and I wish I could be so sure that it will all work out in the end.