Chapter 26
“ I s Mr. Floppy Jowls again,” Yuri proclaimed as soon as Dexter entered the office.
“Is like basset hound staring at steak, yes?” Maxim said, high fiving his brother.
Andrei tipped his head, studying Dexter. “No, is also something different. Spring in step, mixed with droopy sadness.”
“Is woman trouble,” Ivan added.
Yuri held up his hands. “No woman trouble on day of big party. Lots of clients coming. Must be happiness all around.”
“We will be happy, are happy,” Dexter amended.
“This is not face of happiness,” Maxim said, lifting Dexter’s lips and forcing them into a smile.
“Tell Popovs the trouble so we can fix before big party,” Andrei commanded.
“There’s no trouble. We had a rough wakeup. Some guy from Lainey’s past…” he trailed off. Was Ian from her past? Or was he the future, making Dexter the placeholder? That was what he had been at first, he knew. Lainey had come to him in all honesty, broken and hurt, wanting nothing more from him than a few thousand dollars. It wasn’t her fault he’d fallen in love with her. She wasn’t obligated to maintain their marriage after their contract expired. But he wanted her to. More than anything, and the feeling was so out of control it left him helpless enough to consult the Popovs.
“Is like hearing thirteen year old girl read diary out loud,” Yuri said, pressing his hands over his ears. “Dexter, take advice. Be man. Time for grand gesture.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Dexter admitted. He realized how far he’d fallen when Yuri’s eyes lit with excitement.
“Two words: white horse and knight costume. Good thing for you I know man who rents both. Also broadsword, if things go bad.”
When he slit a finger across his throat, a bit of sense returned to Dexter’s brain. He held up his hand, warding off the crazy. “Thanks, guys, but this is something I need to figure out on my own. Let me know if there’s anything you need me to handle for the party.”
“Is under control,” Ivan assured him.
“You figure out wife problem,” Andrei said.
“Happy faces,” Maxim reminded him, pulling his own lips into a grimace that was probably supposed to pass for a happy visage and instead looked like a plague death mask.
Dexter nodded and backstepped away from them, locking himself in his office. He let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and tried to think. For so long he had been trying to love Lainey the way he thought she wanted to be loved—with lots of space and time and low-key interactions. But that wasn’t Lainey’s style. You need a grand gesture.
As much as he hated to admit it, he thought The Russians were probably right, at least in this instance. Lainey was a grand gesture kind of girl. For her, he could do it; he could do anything. The question was what should he do?
He sat behind his desk and stared blankly at his computer until at last inspiration struck. Then he reached for his phone. This would be the grandest gesture of his life. If it didn’t work, he would likely never recover. Either way, Lainey was worth it.
L ainey was nervous. Unable to eat, have-to-stop-thinking-about-it levels of nervous. During the day she kept properly busy, working a few hours in the morning for Mr. Weaver, then making deliveries of her own candy in the afternoon. So far her new boss didn’t have a problem with her side business, and she thought it was due more to patheticness on her part than kindness on his. Why should he be bothered by her tiny little hobby? It was no threat to his vast candy empire. Okay, maybe vast candy empire was a stretch, but he did have the Easter and Valentine markets clearly cornered. Lainey would never be proper competition. Why shouldn’t she piddle with her adorable little hobby? That was what she imagined him thinking. In reality he was probably too distracted by his painful lumbago to care what she was doing, one way or the other. Having her on staff had drastically reduced the number of hours he had to stand, and for that he was almost gleeful.
When she was finished making her deliveries, it was time to get ready for the party. From her former working days, she owned a proper black evening gown. Last week she tried it on, to make certain she hadn’t grown out of it over the months of sampling her wares. Thankfully poverty and hard work made her balance all the sampling with not eating anything else, so it was a sad kind of win. She hadn’t gained weight, but she had probably shaved years off her life with malnutrition. If not for the milk in the chocolate and all the orange peel she’d used in the chocolate covered fruitcakes at Christmas, she would definitely have rickets and scurvy by now.
That could be my thing; I could bring back all the obscure pirate diseases. Maybe I’ll get a parrot, add a bird disease to the mix.
Tonight she did not look like a pirate, thankfully. There was no way she could compete with the exquisite Sonya, but who could? If one were to take Sonya out of the equation, however, Lainey could hold her own. She had curled her hair, the first time since she quit her job, and applied full makeup. Her mascara had become so gunky she had to look up a life hack to figure out how to fix it and she was certain there was more than a little bacteria on all the implements that had sat fallow for so many months, but hopefully the conjunctivitis would hold off until tomorrow, allowing her to get through this most momentous night before the temporary blindness set in. There’s always a bright side, if you look hard enough with your conjunctivitis-swollen lids, Lainey thought. And if she had to get an eye patch, more the better for her retro pirate identity.
Why was the night momentous? She had no idea. None of these people meant anything to her. The only ones she knew were The Russians. But for Dexter and his career, the night was momentous. For that reason, it was important to her. There was more to it, however, and that was the part she had been trying not to dwell on. The night had taken on its own significance, outside of Dexter’s job. Increasingly it began to feel like a do or die event, a make it or break it test run on their marriage. Mostly because they had set it up that way. Why hadn’t they talked about what would happen after? In all the time they’d spent together the last few weeks, why had they never addressed the issue of their future?
Was it because, like her, Dexter was afraid? Or, worse, was it because he didn’t care? Would he be glad to be rid of her and her problems? When she thought about it, she had been nothing but a drain on him, both financially and otherwise. His stoic nature must be so tired of her leaky eyes and emotions. The one thing he had asked was that she didn’t make him try to fix her, and what had he done? Fixed her in every possible way. For a while it had been like having her own tagalong life coach, teaching her how to be a better and more productive human. Even if it all fell apart, she would be forever grateful for everything he’d taught her, like how to take responsibility for her life, how to switch off her over eager emotions and embrace duty, how to appreciate herself, even if most people thought she was needy and off kilter. On the other hand, what was the true cost of all those lessons? It would be ironic indeed if, in teaching her how to handle herself in the real world, Dexter had exhausted his patience and needed to walk away. On the other hand, she would understand. Hadn’t she always believed she was too much? His absence would be definitive proof, once and for all. It would be a devastating blow if the one person who finally made her see her worth robbed her of it in the process of leaving.
Right now, however, she only had to focus on the moment at hand. She might not have her life together, might still fail at everything, but for this night she looked amazing. Better, she looked like a loving and happy wife.
Am I? she asked, studying herself in the mirror. One eye winked closed. She hoped it was because she was thinking about the possibility of pinkeye and not an actual case of pinkeye. Forcing both eyes open, she blinked a couple of times and gave herself another pep talk.
For tonight, you’re the happiest, luckiest woman in the world. When tomorrow comes…we’ll deal with it then.
She opened her fancy clutch, plopped her lipstick inside and turned to go, pausing in the kitchen to dump a handful of chocolates inside. If Lainey’s life had taught her one thing, it was that one never knew when there might be an emergency when chocolate was required. And as far as Lainey was concerned, every emergency required chocolate.
She snapped the clutch closed, gave it a little pat, and walked out the door, ready to meet her husband.