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FUMI
“What the fuck…”
Tempest snorts next to me in the dark of the auditorium. She leans in close, both of our gazes still locked on the figure in pale pink up on stage.
“Right?” She whispers back. “She’s fucking incredible.”
Our conversation elicits a sharp glare from the shrewd woman in black prowling the front of the stage.
“Shit, we’re going to her in trouble,” Tempest says, sliding down in her seat.
I don’t know her well, but I get the impression trouble is Tempest’s middle name.
I’ve met Gabriel and Alistair’s little sister in passing at firm events before. She’s hilarious, and loud, and brassy, and loud, and infectiously fun.
Did I mention loud?
Today, Tempest is coming wedding dress shopping with me, along with Taylor, Eloise, and Bianca, Tempest’s sister-in-law, who’s currently weaving ballet magic and defying gravity on the stage in front of us.
We’ve been given special permission—provided we don’t cause any distractions, and that’s going…well, you know—to watch a dress rehearsal for the upcoming mixed bill by the Zakharova Ballet, where Bianca is a principal dancer. The scary woman giving Roma fortune teller vibes in the dark shawl and glittering rings is Magda Kuzmina, the Zakharova’s iron-fisted artistic director, who may or may not be involved with the Russian Bratva.
It’s a wonderful break from reality to be sitting in the dark at the back of the theatre watching Bianca dance. Especially since shit has gotten ten times more real since the media circus the other day at the Conrad Hotel.
Since the photos of Gabriel and I kissing passionately hit every fucking newspaper, tabloid, blog, and gossipy Twitter account in the known universe.
Photos, I should add, that Tempest has been fantastic at not bringing up so far today. I love her for that.
It was supposed to be his cheek. When he walked over to Emily Puthe, who was trying to cunt her way into making me look like an asshole, my immediate idea was to sell my relationship with Gabriel by kissing his cheek.
Except—I don’t know, maybe there was a minor earthquake or something. Or my sense of balance was off. Honestly, I haven’t ruled out him moving his mouth to catch my lips instead of his cheek.
Whatever it was, it happened. And about eleventy-million people seem to have been there to take a picture of it to put online.
On the plus side, the timing couldn’t be better with his campaign announcement. That’s a plus, because if Gabriel wins his first attempt at the Governor’s seat, we stay married for three years of his term before we renegotiate pending his decision to run for a second.
If he doesn’t win, my “sentence” is actually seven years because he’ll be trying for the seat again.
Seven. Fucking. Years. Married to a control freak with freaky kinks he never shows anyone. Who I can’t even enjoy awesome, hot, violent sex with, because initiating that would involve one, knowingly fucking my boss. And two, admitting to him how I know what he’s into.
Neither of those are…good.
All this is to say, anything helping this year’s campaign is a very good thing for me.
Just the same, I needed an escape today. Work’s been insane, especially since I’ve had to add my other “work” playing Gabriel’s fiancée on top of my already completely full schedule at Crown and Black. To make it worse, almost the entire office is still looking at me like I’m some sort of management shill. Or a scab crossing the picket line. Cassidy still isn’t talking to me, which is really starting to bother me.
Home is better, but “home” means sharing a space with Gabriel, who nit-picks when I leave a hoodie on the back of the sofa. Or, God help us all, if I have the audacity to put the Greek yogurt back in the fridge on the second shelf, not the third.
Literal war crimes, from Gabriel’s perspective.
The worst part of it is that I know he’s not only a straight-laced, tight-assed rule baron. Because I’ve seen the other hidden side of him.
The dark, primal side.
And it’s that, coupled with the fact that Gabriel is startlingly attractive, that makes living with him maddening.
Imagine being perpetually horny, a little scared of, and also annoyed by the person around you all the time.
On the plus side, he seems to be putting in more hours at work even than me. There are nights I come home exhausted and depleted after an eleven-hour day to realize he’s either still at the office or has gotten home maybe ten minutes before me just to go back there.
