Page 86 of Plug and Tame

When Nathaniel eventually spoke, his voice was flat, but she felt the barb all the same. “There will be cake.”

She immediately registered the double meaning: there would be literal cake, the kind she was eating now… And then there would be Gloria, waiting for Nathaniel to perform his duty in consummating their marriage.

Her heart dropped.

What if he enjoys it?

What if he likes her better?

“Pet,” Nathaniel said softly, trying to call her back.

It was too late. An image flashed in her mind of Nathaniel leaning over a white bed in a fine suit, his head buried between the thighs of another woman in a wedding dress. It made her stomach queasy, and her food turned to ash in her mouth. She had a strong urge to spit it out, but she forced herself to swallow.

“Pet.” Nathaniel was reaching across the table, his hand extended.

She didn’t take it. Instead, she cleared her throat as she busied herself with patting her mouth with her napkin. “And are you looking forward to having your cake and eating it too?”

For fuck’s sake, Kira…

Pain flashed across Nathaniel’s face, and her question hung in the air, her fragile heart beating too fast as she waited for him to answer. She’d set the trap for herself. Now, she waited for the plummeting fall.

“Well?” she demanded, digging at the remainder of her cake with her spoon, burying her spoon as she buried herself deeper. She was no longer hungry, and was hardly aware of the delicate frosting she was wrecking.

Nathaniel’s voice was steady. “Kira. You, and only you, are the one that I love.”

“Yes, well…I’ll try to remember that when you hand me over to your father.”

Damn it, Kira. Just shut the fuck up.

Just shut the fuck up!

She hadn’t meant her words to come out so negatively, but she couldn’t help it. She was so jealous. So…so sad that this was it.

That it was all ending.

It was worse than simply jealousy or sadness. Those were fleeting and temporary. The emotion she felt looming over her had an ominous finality to it: resignation.

No.

No!

Better to be jealous and petty than to accept defeat and feel nothing.

So, she embraced the insanity of it, and her quiet jealousy roared to life into something beautiful and untameable. It was like a sleeping dragon that she’d accidentally woken, and she purposefully dragged it out of its cave to face stark daylight. It thrashed about and seethed with thick smoke, ready to destroy everything in its wake.

Thankfully, Nathaniel was calm. He rose from his chair and walked around to her side.

“Pet.”

She didn’t respond.

Unleash the dragon? Make a scene? Break some shit?

So tempting, even if it would solve nothing.

“Pet.”

Another infinitely calm, steady word from this beautiful man.