25. Cady
Cady
The first dress is ivory, structured, and corseted, with a silhouette that photographs beautifully.
Until I know exactly what Artem did, I have to keep playing along.
I stand on the pedestal while Sophie moves around me with quiet efficiency, adjusting the train and smoothing the fabric at my waist.
I look at my reflection and feel nothing except the dull, specific misery of a woman doing something she doesn’t want to do.
The bruise has faded to a greenish-yellow at the edges over the past three days. I’ve had moderate success covering it with makeup, which means anyone who knows what they’re looking at can still see it and anyone who doesn’t has probably noticed anyway and chosen not to say anything.
I got out of seeing my brothers the first day with a lie about wedding plans and another obligation. Since then, I’ve been dodging them completely.
Killian has called four times.
Rian has called twice, which means Rian is more worried. He only calls when something has gotten past the point where a text would do.
I’ve sent them to voicemail and followed up with messages about being busy, promising to call soon. I don’t know what to tell them.
I don’t know what Artem has done or is doing or plans to do, and until I do, sending my brothers after Misha feels like lighting a match in a room I haven’t finished mapping.
So I’ve stayed quiet, shown up where I’m supposed to, stood on pedestals in dresses I hate, and waited.
“It’s beautiful.” Sophie’s voice carries the careful neutrality of a woman who has learned to read rooms.
“It’s fine.”
She unzips me because she already knows that I do not want to get married.
The second dress is a champagne color with a low back and a skirt that moves when I walk.
I stand on the pedestal again, stare at my reflection, and think about the fact that I am shopping for a wedding dress to marry a man I’ve already told I don’t want to marry, for a wedding I don’t want to have, arranged by a father who has never asked what I want.
The champagne makes my complexion look sallow.
“Next,” I say without more explanation.
The third dress is the one that almost breaks me.
It’s simpler than the others, ivory again but a softer shade, draping off my shoulders with delicate lace that traces the neckline and sleeves.
It doesn’t try too hard, and I can imagine a different version of this day where it felt like a choice instead of a sentence.
I step up, and Sophie adjusts the train and steps back with quiet satisfaction.
“This is the one,” she says softly, and I can hear that she means it.
I look at my reflection. The dress would be perfect under different circumstances. When I look up, Artem is standing behind me in the mirror.
I didn’t hear the door with the tiny bell. I didn’t hear him cross the shop.
Black jeans, white tee, and no jacket. Nothing that should make a person’s breath catch, and yet my reflection tells on me before I can stop it.
His eyes move over the mirror slowly, from the lace at my shoulders down the line of the silhouette and back up again.
Then, his gaze moves over me in a way that makes my knees weak.
Sophie turns from the mirror and clocks him, her professional warmth kicking in. “Oh, hello. I don’t think we’ve met—“
Artem gives her one long, flat look that communicates everything it needs to.
He wants her gone.
Sophie glances between us, nods, and reaches smoothly for her phone.
“I’ll just… step outside and make a quick call,” she says brightly, and she’s out the door.
The shop goes still as our eyes meet in the mirror.
“Take off the dress,” he orders out of the blue, and it’s low enough that it doesn’t carry past the two of us.
I’m surprised I can find my voice. “No one has told me the wedding is off,” I say to the mirror, because I can’t look at his actual face right now. “And there’s—”
He crosses the shop floor and stops behind me on the pedestal.
I am acutely aware of how much of him there is and how the lace at my shoulders suddenly feels like it was put there specifically to be removed.
“What do you want?” I ask with a bit of annoyance. “I don’t remember us having an appointment. A date. A freaking—”
“The dress,” he grunts. “Off.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“Then why are you still wearing it?”
“Because I’m still getting married.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I haven’t heard differently.”
“You are now.”
“You’re not the one who made this arrangement. My father—”
“I spoke to your father. Misha is gone. You’re not getting married. Now… take off. The fucking. Dress.”
The relief that moves through me is so immediate and thorough that I have to work to keep it off my face.
He takes my hand without asking and steps back off the pedestal, moving toward the row of dressing rooms along the back wall and pushing the nearest door open, guiding me inside.
The space is small and softly lit with mirrors on three sides.
I turn to face him with my arms crossed. “I can take it off myself.”
“I know.” He reaches for the zipper at my back anyway, his hands settling at my shoulders.
“Artem—“
“I know.” He’s quieter this time, and I reach back and close my fingers around his hand. If I don’t stop him now, I won’t stop him at all.
“I said I can do it myself.”
He looks down at me with pretty hazel eyes and that expression that hasn’t cooled one degree since he walked through the door of this shop.
“Then do it,” he says very quietly. “I’ll watch.”
When I don’t do what he asks, he begins to unzip me, and I smack his hand away.
“Turn around,” he orders gently, his fingers finding the top of the zipper again.
“Artem.” I reach back and push his hand away again, turning to face him in the small space. “Where is Misha?”
Something shifts in his expression, and then it’s gone. “Not here.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
I smack his hand away and, this time, he allows it. “Where?”
“Gone.”
Gone could mean so many different things in this world.
“He’s your brother,” I say slowly. “I want to know that he’s—“
“He’s fine.” His voice is flat and final. “He’s out of the city, he’s alive, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
He reaches past me for the zipper again, and I catch his wrist with both hands this time.
His eyes drop to where my hands are wrapped around his wrist and then come back up to my face with a dark, steady heat.
“I’m not letting you take this dress off me,” I tell him. “Let it go.”
“You’re not stopping me.”
“I’m literally holding your wrist.”
“With both hands,” he agrees, and the corner of his mouth moves in a way that does something deeply inconvenient to my ability to maintain this argument. “And I have an extra.”
Smartass.
“More words,” I command. “Less touching.”
He looks at me with annoyance. “What else is there to possibly know?”
“I want to know about my father. And how you got the wedding called off. And why haven’t I been summoned to his home so he can berate me for all of this?”
Artem looks at me for a moment, deciding how much to give me, and then he lets out a slow breath and steps back.
“I went to his office.”
I stare at him. He’s smarter than that, and he knows damn well those five words aren’t going to do it for me.
He sighs. “I told him that Misha was gone and that the arrangement was over. He wasn’t happy.”
“I’d imagine not. No one tells my father what to do.”
“I’m not saying he didn’t bitch about it. But he badly wants an alliance with the Volkovs. He told me that since I’d decided to take matters into my own hands, I could marry you instead—”
“No.”
Artem glowers at me. “I’m not finished.”
“I’m not going to marry you.”
“But you’d marry my brother?”
“Did I look like I wanted to marry Misha? I thought I made myself perfectly clear—”
“You’re in a fucking wedding dress right now—”
A muscle in his jaw ticks as he stretches his neck a little and continues.
“I told him that a ring and a license aren’t what makes someone safe.
That my name sitting behind yours is enough.
That anyone who needs to know will know, and anyone who knows anything about what that means won’t come near you.
I also told him that if he arranges you with anyone else or puts your name on any deal you didn’t choose, I’ll dismantle everything he has, starting with his men and working my way up.”
“You threatened him?”
“Yes.”
“Because… you’re buying Misha time?”
“No.”
I look at him with his arms crossed and his eyes steady on mine. I think about my father behind his desk and his men hovering around him in protection. And Artem Makarov walked in there anyway and came out having changed the terms of what my father had planned.
“And you think that’s going to work?” I pose. “You just walk in, and he’ll listen?”
“Yep.”
My eyes narrow. “You don’t know my father.”
“I know him well enough.”
Right.
“So… what does that make us?” I say carefully.
Something shifts in his expression. “What do you mean?”
“You told my father your name sits behind mine. That anyone who knows will know.” I hold his gaze. “What does that mean for us, specifically? You and me.”
He just blinks at me.
“Are we… dating?” I say flatly.
“I don’t date.”
“I know you don’t date. I looked into you, remember?
You don’t date, you don’t bring women home, you don’t do any of the things normal people do.
” I cross my arms. “And yet, here you are in my dressing room, trying to take off my dress and telling my father your name covers mine. So, I’m asking you what we’re calling it? ”
“Does it need a name?”
“Normal people prefer that.”
Something moves at the corner of his mouth. “You are not normal people.”
“Neither are you.”
I see the wheels turning before he suddenly pushes off the wall.
“If the word makes you more comfortable, then fine,” he says.
“You’re going to need to be more specific than ‘fine.’”
“We’re dating.” His eyes drop to my zipper. “Now, take off the dress.”
He catches my wrist when I move to push his hand away, turning me gently so that my back is to him, and I can feel him close behind me as his fingers find the zipper again and slide it down slowly.
“Artem—“
“You have your word,” he says quietly, close to my ear, the zipper moving down another inch. “I have the dress.”
“That’s not—“
“Lisichka.”
“One year,” I tell him. “Tops. Then we break up.”
“You’re not breaking up with me.” The dress loosens around me, the lace at my shoulders shifts forward, and his hands slide up to ease it off. I have every opportunity to stop him, but I’m too caught up in his words. “I’m your protection.”
“Two,” I retort. “Then we’re free of each other—”
“No.” The dress falls, and he turns me around. I’m naked underneath, but he doesn’t bother to give me an appreciative glance. He just looks straight into my eyes when he adds, “You’re mine until one of us dies. And I don’t plan on doing that for a long time.”
And then he slams his lips against mine.
There’s nothing soft or careful about it, no asking or waiting, just his hand in my hair and his mouth on mine with the last of my restraint gone. He’s stopped arguing with himself about this.
I stop arguing, too.
And I should keep doing it.
Because when his free hand lands between my legs, I’ll agree to anything he says.
Like an idiot.