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“Very well, then,” he says, though his voice is gruff. And that fire is clear to see in his gaze. “Consider it done,cosita. I will see to everything.”
And he does. He pulls back from that chair, leaves me shivering where I sit, and does exactly what he promises.
I am swept off, once again by the impenetrable Salma, to yet another astonishing suite of rooms. I’m fed, clothed, indulged.
But not by Taio.
I don’t mind. I’m going to marry this man. I’ve decided that this is the best thing for the baby. That makes all this perfectly rational. Even smart.
By this point, I can barely remember that Imighthave criedslightlyin that study.
I allow Tess to think that I’m still off somewhere on a job. On the third day we video conference with each other and I applaud her choice of new investigator and I agree that she ought to hire the two others who impress us both.
“Maybe it’s time to level up,” she says.
“I agree.” I look at her, the first person who really believed in me, and smile. “And I trust you to put it together, Tess.”
It doesn’t occur to me until after the call is over that it’s almost like I’m letting go of Miravakia Investigations…but I dismiss that.
This is a strange little break, that’s all. It can’t bereality.
Reality, as I know all too well, does not often turn up in apalace.
And when, on the fourth day, it is time for the wedding that Taio has arranged, I let Salma and a fleet of aides dress me. They fuss and they sigh and they turn me into the perfect bride in a white dress that looks like it was made of dreams. My hair is braided around my crown, then curled as it hangs down, with flowers woven in. The dress itself manages to make me look like the very best version of myself, feminine and strong at once.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
“The Marquess had a specific vision, Madam,” Salma tells me, but she’s the closest to smiling I’ve ever seen her.
When I look in the mirror, it’s not that I can’t recognize myself this time. It’s that I do. I look like a version of me I stopped believing in a long, long time ago. A version of me I left in the ashes of the life I left behind in Pennsylvania.
I lookhopeful. I glow.
I find myself wishing we could wear those masks again.
“Are you ready, Madam?” Salma asks me.
I blink and realize that all the other aides have left. It’s only me standing before a mirror, wishing for the first time in a very long time that my mother was around. This seems like a day that calls for mothers.
I blow out a breath, press a hand to my belly, and remind myself that I am one now. And that has to be enough.
Salma walks with me down a set of stairs I didn’t know were in this part of the house, to a courtyard that’s bursting with flowers and bathed in the midday light. And when we reach the bottom, Taio is there, wearing a top hat and tails the way other men wear baseball hats and sweats. It is that level of ease, wrapped up in all that masculine grandeur of his.
“Annagret.”
He says my name as if he did not really expect to see me. Or maybe he didn’t think he would see me likethis,in a bridal gown with curls in my hair, the sun on my face, and this bizarre urge to go andholdhim like we’re—
But we’re not, I caution myself. We’re not anything. We’re getting married for the baby. That’s the reason this is happening.
If I wasn’t pregnant, we would never have met again.
I want to say something funny or cutting to reset this mood. To wipe away that look of reverence in his gaze and make myself feel…well. Not better, but less likely to dissolve into floods of tears here at the bottom of this ancient stair.
Instead, all I can seem to do is smile.
Taio escorts me from the grand house, down a winding path to a sweet little chapel tucked into the hills. Once we are there, we are greeted by a priest who knows Taio by name. Salma comes in behind us, accompanied by a man I am fairly sure I last saw doing something of great importance involving the displays of flowers all over the house.
The ceremony is swift, which I am grateful for, despite the reading of Taio’s many formal names and titles. And lovely, which I did not expect. The vows are spoken in English and Spanish, and I find myself laughing, as if this is an act of joy.