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It compliments my figure and skin tone so nicely it seems designed just for me. I know I have to try on other dresses to be sure, and I will. But nothing will change my mind: this is it. The tears begin to fall harder. If my mom and sister were here, they would have said that this is fate, that this marriage is blessed. But my mom and sister will never see this dress, and somehow that makes this wedding seem more like a curse.

“Did you hear what I said?” Matthew pulls my attention back to our meeting and I’m finally able to move my gaze from the street outside my office window to his face.

“Not a single word,” I admit.

He studies me for a while and then shakes his head. “I can’t work with you today.”

I inhale deeply and rub my eyes, trying to focus on my job but finding it difficult to concentrate since my encounter with the agent. A series of gruesome scenarios keep replaying in my head and I don’t know how to stop this downward mental spiral.

“Sorry, I promise I’ll focus on this.” I wave my hand toward the papers scattered on my desk. What the hell is this, anyway?

“No. We’re both wasting time. This isn’t urgent. Just solve your problems with Silver and come back when you can get your head in it.”

“I don’t have any problems with her!” I answer way too quickly for someone with a clean conscience.

Matthew raises his eyebrow, a silent challenge not to bullshit him.

“I’m just a bit tense,” I admit.

“For the last ten days, it’s been increasingly impossible to work with you. So, if it’s not her, it means you have another problem I’m not aware of, even worse than your trouble in paradise.” He pins me to my chair with a stern gaze.

I don’t know what to tell him. Ever since the agent told me about Silver being in danger, I can’t focus on anything but her. On top of that, I feel guilty for lying to her. And the more I worry about her, the less able I am to tell her the truth, and the deeper I’m digging myself into this pit. But I can’t tell Matthew. He knows we need to increase the security because my father told me there is movement around Silver, but he doesn’t know the details. He knows I prefer to deal with security personally, because most of them are mixed in with my father’s men and Matthew wants to know as little as possible when it comes to him.

“It’s nothing, really. Some bullshit about the wedding.” Now I’m lying to him too. They say if you want to be a politician you have to be good at it, and I am. But they never tell you how to deal with your conscience afterwards with the people you care about.

“Go home, please. Go to her and don’t come back until you’ve resolved this issue.”

I feel so out of balance lately that I don’t even try to come up with an excuse to stay. If this is how I feel for a woman I don’t even love, I can’t imagine having a career while hopelessly in love.

When I walk into the living room, I find Silver with fifty or more small boxes in front of her. Paper in hand, she is reading and putting them in an order I don’t understand.

“What the heck are you doing?” I chuckle and she jumps, startled.

“Jesus. I didn’t hear you come home.” She puts a hand on her heart.

“My question still stands. What are you doing?” I don’t get what she’s up to this time.

Every time I come home there’s some news, big or small, that awaits me. Ten days ago, it was that she found the perfect dress and was so excited about it, I felt confident enough to put that in the big news pile. Yesterday, it was that she finally managed to master a recipe she was trying for a while—small news information pile. Regardless, there’s never a dull moment coming home to her and I’m getting used to it. All day, I anticipate this moment I walk through the door and find out if it’s a big pile or a small pile day.

“The bakery I contacted for the wedding cake sent sixty-three samples of cake. I’m putting them in the order they suggest tasting them, to avoid screwing up the tasting,” she explains, reading another line and putting a small white box with the logo next to a similar box, neatly positioned in a row.

“Sixty-three? That’s more than our guest list!” I choke on the number.

She looks at me shyly, like a little girl caught doing something bad. “Yeah. It may be my fault. When they asked my preference, I told them I don’t have a favorite, so they decided to send one sample for every flavor they make. In my defense, I didn’t even know there were sixty-three different cake flavors.”

“Jesus. That’s a lot to taste!” I blurt out.

She smiles and my day feels a bit better. “When I drop your name, they tend to bend over backwards to please me. I think catering the cake for your wedding day is a big deal for them. You’re famous enough to give their business a huge boost if you’re happy with it. Hence, the sixty-three boxes.”

I rub a hand over my face. “This is why I hate adding my name to anything. Too much pressure. For Pete’s sake, it’s a cake! If I don’t happen to like how it tastes, the bakery shouldn’t go out of business.”

She smiles sympathetically and then points to the kitchen. “Grab a fork and a glass of water. You have a lot of tasting to do. I’m not risking a sugar coma alone,” she jokes, and I follow her orders.

I sit next to her, helping her put the boxes in order and then grab the papers and throw them on the chair next to me.

“Hey! We need that. Those are the descriptions of the flavors!” she complains.

“No, we just need to taste them and see if we like what’s in our mouth. Should we do a yes, maybe, and hell no, that’s disgusting pile?” I ask.