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You know it would’ve been. You would’ve worn that dress in front of a sanctuary full of people.
Yes. She would have. He would’ve given her the wedding of her dreams. He would have been the solicitous groom. And he would’ve taken her to a beautiful hotel, where he would’ve laid her down on silken sheets after and given her a glorious wedding night.
And she wished, in that moment that she could have the fantasy back.
It would’ve been so much easier.
It was this damn reality. That was what made things so difficult. And she wasn’t angry at herself for seeking the mists of fantasy. She knew why she did it. It was just she couldn’t do it. Not now. Not with everything she knew. Not with everything she was. Everything she had become.
She ate dinner alone.
She spent the evening holding Soriya, rocking her. Reminding herself that this was why she was doing what she was doing.
No. Because at some point you need to be doing something for yourself.
That realization cracked her open.
She saw her mother as selfish, so she had determined that she would simply become the best mother to Soriya that she could possibly be.
She had thought that her own desire shouldn’t come into it. That it couldn’t come into it. And she realized with absolute clarity that was just as potentially damaging as being a selfish mother.
She had to know who she was. She had to be able to show her daughter what life could be.
She couldn’t see herself as a lamb. Because she wasn’t one. She was a tigress. Wasn’t she? She was too. She had survived everything that she had been raised with. She had done it well. It wasn’t that she didn’t have issues. But she was acknowledging them. She had survived. She would give Soriya better. And she would make sure that she knew from the beginning that she was a daughter of a tigress, and that she would be no less. That she was brilliant and wonderful, and that she deserved the whole world.
But she would have to demand things for herself.
Otherwise...
Those lessons would be empty. If she saw Riot meekly accepting this sham of a marriage, a life without love, if she saw her wandering around like she was a woman in chains, then how would a message of empowerment mean anything?
And anyway, it was just more hiding. To go from a fantasy straight to martyrdom. To decide that she hated him when nothing inside of her was anything near that clear or simple when it came to her feelings for Krav.
No. It was more. It was everything, just as he was.
Everything ugly and complex, but the good things remained.
And that was when she made her decision.
She kissed Soriya on the forehead and laid her down in her crib, and then she went down the hall. She was dressed in nothing remarkable. It was not a wedding night ensemble.
They made love in Paris, but she hadn’t remembered the truth of them. She did now. She remembered the way that he had hurt her. But she also remembered the foundation of their connection. The heat between them, so undeniable. The way that she had always craved more, even if they had just finished making love. The way he had transformed her, from someone who was afraid of this sort of desire, to a woman who had embraced it.
The memories were complicated. And so were they.
And so was she.
In her sweats.
Without knocking, she opened the door to Krav’s bedroom.
He was standing in front of his nightstand, shirtless, wearing the dark pants that he had worn in the wedding, and nothing more. His feet were bare, and just as it had seemed that first night they were together, there was something so intimate about that.
She wished that they could go back there. To Cambodia. She remembered vividly seeing him in the clothing native to his country—the silk sarong in a rich blue, flowing over him like water, rather than the rigid, fitted suits he wore away from there—and how...right it looked. How fitting.
This life was one that had been forced upon him. In the same way he was trying to force it onto her. But perhaps he knew no other way. And perhaps he didn’t think anyone would choose this life, this life with him, if there wasn’t force involved. What else had he been shown?
He had shared with her, and she had tried her best not to feel sympathy.
