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Ironic. Because I’m starting to crave the darkness.
“I will give you the fucking world if you let me,kiska. You will never want for anything ever again—so long as you manage your expectations. Don’t ask for what I haven’t promised, and the rest of it will be yours. Do you understand?”
She drops her gaze so that her expression is hidden from me for a moment and mumbles something.
“What was that?” I prod.
When she lifts her chin again, she looks calm and in control. “I said, ‘I do.’”
34
PAIGE
The silence burns after I fall quiet. ThisI do,even though it was a bitter joke, feels more binding than the actual one I said a few minutes earlier. Like uttering the words to a spell or a deal with the devil. I guess the latter one isn’t so far off.
“I have something for you,” Misha says.
I wonder if I’m already being rewarded for being a good little wife and agreeing to his terms. Terms that have been specifically designed to keep me at a distance. Unless we’re in bed, of course. Then we’re supposed to be as close as two humans can be.
The thought skitters through me. I shove aside the discomfort.
Don’t start panicking now. This is only the beginning.
He reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out a small velvet box. My heartrate ramps up. Usually, the ring comes before the wedding, but I suppose we aren’t going about things in the traditional way.
He flips the box open, and my brain shuts down.
“Oh my God.”
Misha plucks the ring off of the cushion like it doesn’t weigh a metric ton. “Give me your hand.”
I offer up my ring finger limply, wordlessly, staring at the pear-shaped solitaire diamond ring he’s sliding onto my finger. It’s set in a rose gold that shimmers in the greenhouse lights.
It’s a perfect fit.
“Did this thing sink the Titanic? The stone alone probably costs more than every single trailer in Corden Park put together.”
“Oh, it costs much more than that,” he says cavalierly.
Then he takes my hand, which I’m suddenly struggling to lift on my own thanks to this behemoth of a boulder I’m now stuck wearing for life, and leads me to the table where our dinner is waiting.
The house staff did remarkable work in a few short minutes. The white tablecloth flutters in the warm draft through the open doors and two tall, white candles burn in the candelabra. Silver-plated dishes gleam ethereally in the low light.
Misha pulls out my chair for me and tucks me into the table before sitting down himself. Meanwhile, I just stare at the ring on my finger. It doesn’t feel real, and not in that giddy, dreamlike, just-got-engaged feeling that girls always talk about.
It doesn’t feel real because none of this does. Not the ring on my finger or the place we’re in or the man who gave it to me.
“It’s a family ring,” he explains. I cringe—as if the thing doesn’t weigh heavily enough on me already. “It has been on the hand of every wife of every Orlov don for the past two hundred years.”
I almost choke on my tongue. “Then why in the hell did you give it tome?”
He doesn’t seem to share my indignation. “Because you are the wife of the don now, Paige. That ring belongs on your finger. It’s a symbol of your status. And mine.”
I fidget with it, silent for a moment. “Does that mean that your sister-in-law wore this ring before me?” I ask softly.
“For a time,” he says. “But when Maksim died, she returned the ring to the vault.”
“Vaults and family rings and marriages without love… I really did fall down the rabbit hole, didn’t I?” I laugh, half-bitter and half just overwhelmed.
