His expression goes completely still.
“He gave me a choice,” I whisper fiercely. “He gave me safety. Respect. Friendship. Things you have never once given me without taking something in return.”
The plane surges forward. The runway blurs. And for one suspended moment, Lorenzo says nothing at all. Then the jet lifts, and the ground drops away beneath us.
Only once we’re in the air does he speak.
“Go change.”
I blink. “What?”
He nods toward the garment bag lying on the seat beside him. I hadn’t noticed it before. “There are clothes in there.”
My fingers curl against the armrests. No. No, no, no. Because the dress is hiding me. Because the dress was chosen specifically to skim over my stomach and whatever is in that bag won’t have been picked with that in mind.
And because if I refuse?—
My pulse spikes.
Lorenzo’s gaze drops to the gown. “I’m not looking at you in that dress for the rest of the flight.”
I force myself to sound angry instead of afraid. “Then don’t look at me.”
His mouth hardens. “Elizabeth.”
“No.” I lift my chin. “You’ve done enough for one day.”
He unbuckles his seat belt. Every muscle in my body locks. He stands slowly, the cabin seeming to shrink. He braces one hand on the back of the seat across from me and looks down at me with that same terrible composure he wore in the church.
“I told you to change.”
I stare back at him, heart battering against my ribs. “And I told you no.”
His gaze moves once over the bodice of the gown, over the lace sleeves, and the soft fall of silk hiding what I cannot let him see.
Something cold flickers in his eyes.
“You can walk into the bathroom and take it off yourself,” he says quietly, “or I’ll do it for you.”
Real fear slides through me then. Not because I think he’ll hurt me. Because if he comes near me with scissors or a knife or his hands tearing through the seams, he’ll see. And I have noidea what he’ll do with that truth trapped thirty thousand feet in the air.
My throat goes dry.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
He takes one step closer. Instinctively, I flatten back against the seat. His eyes narrow and I know he notices that. Not just the anger now. The fear. It sharpens his focus in a way that terrifies me more than if he’d shouted.
“Why are you fighting so hard to keep it on?”
Because this child is the only thing in the world that is still mine.
I force a bitter laugh, praying it sounds convincing. “Maybe because it’s the only decent thing I have left after you ruined my wedding.”
For a second, I think he might accept that.
Then his gaze drops again, more carefully this time, to the line of the dress and my hand flies there on instinct. His eyes lift slowly back to mine.
