22. Miranda
22
MIRANDA
“W ait, wait, wait.” A server freezes partway out of the catering tent before pivoting to face me. I wipe up the juice of a medium-cooked angus steak from the edge of a gold-rimmed plate before twisting to face my crew. “Please ensure all the plates go out spotlessly clean. They should only be smeared while being licked clean. Presentation is as important as taste.”
Justine and Nikolai’s wedding reception is going off without a hitch. The vows were as beautiful as the blushing bride, and the guests enjoyed the menu selection so much some have asked for a second helping of the main meal.
It is the event of all events, and I’m incredibly proud to have pulled it off after such a tumultuous week.
“How are the desserts coming?”
“Almost ready to serve,” answers Shiloh, the dessert station her specialty.
She loves baking as much as I do, but she gives bland desserts a touch of sophistication with a Shiloh-inspired twist.
“Once the final plates are collected, serve the bride and groom first before moving on to their bridal party.”
The lead waiter nods before peeking into the reception venue.
Millions of twinkling lights light up the naturally beautiful Vegas sky, and although it should be chilly considering we’re only two weeks out from Christmas, there are so many sparks firing between the guests that I was worried the food would be overcooked by the time my staff served it.
I feel a sense of accomplishment when the desserts start being served. It signals my hectic night will soon come to an end, and it brings me that much closer to seeing Nero again.
I’ve been so run off my feet that I haven’t seen Nero since he donned the tuxedo Nikolai demanded all his groomsmen wear.
That was a painfully long seven hours ago.
Days ago, I would have overanalyzed his lengthy absence as a bad thing.
Now I see it more as delayed gratification.
That’s how much confidence his attention has awarded me. I’m learning my worth and refusing to settle for second best.
My newfound faith in myself is why I’ve made the decision for Nikolai and Justine’s wedding to be the last event I cater. I love working for myself and seeing my financial goals thrive from a strong work ethic and dedication, but catering isn’t my first love.
I haven’t made plans on what I should do next. I’m going to take a few weeks’ leave, then put my thinking cap on.
Fingers crossed a majority of that thinking time will be done while naked in bed and sexually exhausted. That’s where all my best ideas have come from of late.
“Where are the gold flakes for the Bloomsbury cupcakes?” Shiloh asks, her tone high with panic, dragging me from my naughty thoughts.
She’s been sweating all afternoon, striving to ensure she delivers the perfect dessert platter for Justine and Nikolai’s guests. Anyone would swear she has already accepted my offer for her to take over the ownership of my catering company.
I take a moment to deliberate before the light finally switches on.
“I left them in the catering van.”
My head was a mess this afternoon when I was packing the goods from Clark’s to have them delivered to the Popov mansion. Nikolai’s crew was on hand to assist, but when news broke that I had used some of his stolen cocaine to bake away my depression, the mood sobered.
I, along with numerous members of the Popov crew, thought my head would be on the chopping block.
Mercifully, it wasn’t.
The street value of the flour in my pantry was higher than the wholesale price of the goods Nero’s mother had stolen, and the deficit was made up by selling the goods I had made.
Consuming cocaine is far more dangerous than snorting it or smoking it in a pipe, but its stimulation is more direct to the brain from ingestion, so it has become some users’ method of choice.
Wrapping it in sugary treats is an avenue Nikolai’s crew had never considered, but I see it being on the agenda at future meetings with how fast the goods Nero didn’t consume sold.
It is fortunate Nero’s sweet tooth had him veering for the slices and treats that were gluten free, or my baking efforts that afternoon could have killed him as Roy falsely claimed my sweet tooth would kill me—it would have just been decades faster.
When Shiloh stares at me with wide eyes and a sweat-dotted brow, I say, “I’ll go grab them.”
She mouths her thanks before she returns to curling the chocolate ribbons that will sit behind cupcakes and gold-dipped chocolate strawberries.
“Sorry,” I apologize when I bump into someone partway to my van.
It’s parked close enough to the catering tent to be walkable, but far enough away not to distract from the natural beauty of Nikolai’s chosen location to marry his ahren .
My steps slow when the voice of the person I bumped into registers as familiar. “Why are you in such a hurry, Mir? Did you finally realize you’re too good for these men?”
As I twist to face Roy, my panic surges. I’m not worried about me. I don’t want his arrival pulling Nero away from the wedding reception of one of his closest friends.
“What are you doing here, Roy?”
He steps closer, filling the air and my senses with his boozy breath. “I want to speak with you.”
“Then you should have picked a better location and time. I don’t have time to talk to you right now. I’m busy.”
I commence walking again, only to be stopped by a snivel. “I’ve tried to see you since... since…”
“Since you were forced to face the consequences of your actions?”
He nods, darkening his eyes further when the cap hiding the perfect word for his betrayal lowers down his forehead. “But he wouldn’t give me the chance. He told me if he saw me anywhere near you, he’d kill me.” The way he sneers “he” announces who he is speaking about, but before I can warn him I won’t be held accountable for my actions if he mocks Nero in front of me again, he continues. “I made a mistake?—”
“A mistake?” I “ha!” him. “It was more than once, and I’m not solely talking about the pictures that surrounded your feet in the hotel room you booked for your mistress.”
I’m not asking a question, but he acts as if I am. “They meant nothing to me.”
I scoff before I continue for the van.
He follows me like a lost dog, but I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy that he may end up alone and on the streets.
My empathy commenced disappearing the day he called me a heffer for the first time, and it fully vanished when he referred to Nero as he .
“Stop following me, Roy,” I warn when I hear footsteps. “Because I make no promises that my van is knife-free.”
“Stop this, Mir. You’re not like them.” He thrusts his hand at the reception area whose noise subdues a smidge when his shouts reach some guests’ ears. “So why the fuck are you acting like violence is the solution for everything?”
“How do you know I’m not like them?” I ask, my tone lower than his, but my anger way higher. “Even after fourteen years, you don’t know a damn thing about me. Not a single thing.”
“I know that I love you and that you love me. You’re just blinded by the shiny new toy pretending he likes you how you are now.”
His eyes lower down my body.
They don’t spark with envy.
He looks disgusted.
“I give him days before he either loses interest in you or puts you on a diet.”
I laugh. It is witchlike and full of disbelief. “Nero is nothing like you.” I don’t wait for him to bite at the bait I’m dangling in front of him. I hit him with the utmost truths. “And that love you’re talking about isn’t close to what true love feels like. I thought I loved you, but I am learning that love isn’t being belittled by your other half, being badgered by them to the point you consider suicide, and it isn’t being fat shamed in front of an audience with the hope it will double the loss on the scales the following week. It isn’t breaking someone’s soul and then walking away without offering to pick up the pieces you smashed. That isn’t love, Roy. That’s abuse.”
“Mir—”
“No. You don’t deserve my time.” I spin before a fire inside me forces me to spin right back around. “You also don’t deserve me.”
I work his coping mechanism like a pro when he follows my trek. I ignore him while stomping across manicured lawns, while throwing open the back door of my catering van, and while pulling out the sheets of gold-flecked paper Shiloh needs.
I don’t speak a word until he pushes too hard for me not to respond. “I’m your fucking husband! That should award me some morsel of respect.”
“Wrong. You were my husband. You’re not anymore.” The hairs on my nape prickle before they fortify the rod in my back. But the person inspiring them remains hidden, confident I’ve got this. “So get the fuck out of my life before the only title our marriage will leave me with is widower.”
Roy is an idiot. I can’t put it any simpler than that.
“You—”
“Nah,” Nero mutters, moving out of the curtains stopping the bugs from entering the catering tent. “You don’t have a say in any of her decisions. You shouldn’t have had any back then, and I sure as fuck won’t let you have any now.”
“Jesus, Mir… You move fast.”
Roy glares at me as if I am a whore, but before Nero can pounce, I retaliate.
I wipe his sneer off his face with my fist.
Unlike Nero, Roy doesn’t remain standing. He crumbles to the ground, his hand shooting up to caress his cheek.
I could stay to relish his cowardly sobs, but I have an event to host and a business to run. Furthermore, my time is too precious to waste a single second on a man who has only ever loved himself.
“Once you’ve finished taking out the trash, I could use a hand, if you’re up to it?”
The tugging of Nero’s chunky lips announces he heard my comment as intended, not to mention the gravelly deliverance of his words when he reminds me that I will always come first in his eyes. “I’ll never be too busy for you, butterfly.”
With two clicks of Nero’s tattooed fingers, Eight arrives out of nowhere, hoists Roy off the ground, and then tosses him into the back of a blacked-out SUV as if he is a ragdoll.
Just as fast, Nero’s front heats my back and his breaths flutter my ear. “You just need to tell me where you need me the most, butterfly, and for how fucking long you want me.”
“Forever” is the first word out of my mouth. It is closely followed by “And everywhere.”