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Our relationship was easy. She was easy. So when we fell into our roles as husband and wife, it felt like I was finally getting a break from the constant war.
I see now what a seductive lie that was, though.
Nothing is easy. Nothing can ever be easy.
Anything that’s too close to me and my world is in danger.
My gaze slides down to Bee’s fake belly. I press my hand to it tenderly so that the whole restaurant can see. “The only thing we need to be concerned with right now is being the perfect family.”
She shifts uncomfortably beneath my touch. “Dmitri…”
“We knew the cost of this charade,” I remind her quietly. “This wedding has to go smoothly.”
Her lips purse with determination. “For that, you’re gonna have to talk to Wren. Or are you planning on ignoring my maid of honor through the whole ceremony?”
My jaw flexes furiously. “You asked her to be your maid of honor?”
She smiles. “Sure did. I had a special dress custom-made for her, too. Her belly has really popped in the last week. She’s glowing.”
She’s rubbing my face in the fact that I haven’t seen Wren in almost two weeks. I have been keeping tabs on her of course—just from a distance. Dr. Liza keeps me updated on every checkup, so I know my son is healthy. I know he’s the size of a butternut squash. I know that he’s been kicking feverishly for the last few weeks at all hours of the day and night.
Fighting. Just like his father.
“Have you felt the baby move?”
Bee’s face softens instantly. “Yeah. It’s trippy. There’s an actual person in there,” she murmurs in awe.
I’m gripping the armrest of my chair so hard that my knuckles have turned white. How is it fair that she gets to experience what should be my right as the baby’s father?
“You planning on avoiding Wren even after the baby’s born?” Bee asks curiously as though she’s read my mind. “Because that’s definitely gonna be a challenge.”
“Less so than it is right now.”
Bee just sighs and runs a hand up and down her belly. “Hope the little one doesn’t inherit your stubbornness.”
“Wren’s every bit as stubborn as I am.”
“True,” she concedes. “Like I said, you two are made for each other.”
I bite my tongue to keep from snapping at her again. The woman whose sister I murdered is the one that’s made for me? It’s a farfetched notion even by Bee’s standards.
So why the fuck can’t I get her out of my head?
The apartment is eerily quiet.
I’m extra cautious as I assemble the shelves along the wall that faces the crib I just put together. In a matter of hours, the space has transformed. I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do when I walked in here a handful of hours ago in the dead of the night.
But still, I can’t bring myself to leave.
“Bee?”
Oh, fuck.
Wren walks into the nursery and stops short when she sees me. Her eyes go wide with shock and her cheeks flush scarlet. There’s no way in hell she was expecting it to be me in here, which I know only because Wren would sooner jump off a bridge than voluntarily let me catch sight of her in that whisper-thin white slip she’s wearing.
Bee was right: she is glowing. Something pale and beautiful and ethereal in the midnight gloom.
The shock on Wren’s face gives way to indignation. “Coming in here whenever you want defeats the purpose of giving me my own space.”
