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I stare at him for a long, tense moment. “Is this meant to be, like, a peace offering?”
“I wasn’t aware we were at war.”
“You were an ass last night at dinner,” I say before I lose my nerve.
He shrugs. “I’m not going to justify my behavior to you. Ever. So draw whatever conclusions you want, Paige. It’s of no concern to me.”
I sigh. “Are you here for another reason besides to lecture to me condescendingly?”
“To tell you to get dressed,” he says. “We’re getting married.”
The dizziness comes back in full force. It takes all of my strength not to fall back on the bed. “What? We’re getting married? Right now?”
“No.” Relief pumps through me for one cruel second before he continues. “We’re getting married in an hour.”
My mouth falls open. “But… we can’t.”
“Yes, we can. And yes, we will.”
“But I…”
I trail off, too embarrassed to admit I expected to have a proper wedding. Silly as it may seem, I expected to wear a white dress and walk down an aisle towards Misha. But now that I think about it, the very idea seems laughable. Why go through a fake wedding for a fake marriage?
Legal doesn’t make it real.
“Are you having second thoughts?” he asks.
I meet his silver gaze and I feel the shiver of fear snake down my spine. This time, I don’t care that he sees me reach for my pendant. I need the comfort more than I need privacy.
Do you have one more miracle left inside you?I ask it silently.
“Many,” I whisper. “But I’m not about to be pushed out of my own child’s life. So if marrying you is the cost of raising my baby, then I’ll happily pay it.”
I push back to my feet and try to march forward confidently, but standing takes so much of my energy that my body revolts. As soon as I take a step, my head spins and I tip forward.
Time slows. I’m so sure I’m going to crack my skull against the floor—or, worse, hurt myself in a way that hurts the baby. I don’t know why my mind leaps to the worst of all possibilities in the fraction of a second between tripping and falling, but it does, and all I can see in my imagination is bloodstained dresses and stone-faced doctors with pale hands coming to give me bad news. I see hospital lights and I smell the hospital disinfectant and those pale hands reach for me, reach for me, reach—
Then Misha intervenes.
He catches me as if I weigh nothing. One second, I’m falling, and the next, I’m cradled in his arms.
I should want to push him away, but I find myself leaning into him instead. He smells like cider and cinnamon. It brings back an old memory.
Clara and me in her beat-up green trailer one Christmas, licking the cinnamon icing off the Yule log cake that her mother had just iced for dinner that night.
We both got beaten when the adults realized what we’d done. But it was worth it. It was so worth it.
“Paige,” Misha says with surprising tenderness. “Are you okay?”
I open my eyes and look up at him. The man is even more disarming up close. Those silver eyes of his need to be outlawed. It’s criminal how hypnotic they are.
Focus.
“Should you be asking me how I am?” My voice is not nearly as strong as I’d like it to be. “Isn’t it against the rules or something? We’re not allowed to care about each other, right?”
“You’re being childish.”
“Beats being an asshole.”
