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"Ma'am, I assure you I know my responsibilities and obligations," he said, his voice quiet.
"Then you will be able to spare a morning for wedding planning," my mother said. "I'll not have my little girl play mistress to a man married to a job."
For a long moment Anton sat in his chair, very still. Then he stood abruptly and closed his thin laptop. "Very well," he said, sending a shock through me, "I will accompany you. But we must be done by lunch. There are many important things I must attend to here."
"My daughter is important," my mother said, and I wanted to melt into the floor and disappear. Why had I thought this was a good idea? And why wasn't Anton stopping her?
Anton rounded his desk, not even glancing at me, the faint smile I had come to think of as Buddha-like plastered over his face and in a flash I realized he only wore that face when he was feeling something very strongly but desperately wanted to keep it hidden. The thought rocked me and I stared as he held his arm out to my mother. "Please, let us go, Mrs. Dare. There is much work to be done."
My mother seemed slightly taken aback by his acquiescence, then drew herself up to her full height—not very high, admittedly—and gave him a regal nod. "Thank you, Anton." And she looped her hand around his arm and let him escort her to the door.
I trailed behind them, suddenly feeling like a third wheel. At least it gave me a chance to watch Anton when the full force of his attention wasn't riveted on me.
His dark head tilted and leaned toward my mother, that Zen-master smile softening his gaze, and yet behind it I saw emptiness, as though he were wearing a mask made of his own face. I had seen that mask drop not once, but several times, and behind it I knew lurked a man full of something painful and dark. Seeing him adopt his persona so smoothly—I knew he must have had great practice at it. Years. Decades. Somewhere along the line he had decided that it was better to hide than to be forthright. Perhaps that was true in the world of business, but now I was bound to him, and I wished I could lift the mask away and see the man underneath. The glimpses I'd seen weren't enough for me.
As I observed him with my mother, all courtesy and dead inside, my heart twisted in my chest, a little ache born of pure human empathy, and a little jealousy, too. If I could hide like that... I probably wouldn't have had to get married in the first place, for a start. And yet we'd both arrived at the same place despite our opposite natures.
I chewed my lip and shadowed them to the car, my mother chattering away and Anton nodding politely. As he handed her inside, his eyes caught mine.
For a brief moment, I saw a fire in him as we stared at each other, a warning, a feeling, a passion flaring up, and my breath caught.
Then he broke away and the moment was gone. "Yes, of course, Mrs. Dare," he said formally as he slid into the car after my mother, in response to something I couldn't hear.
Thoughtful, I let the driver guide me into the front seat, and we were off.
*
Twenty minutes later I wished I had a gun. I didn't know what I was going to shoot, but it was going to be something, and it was going to be dramatic. All over the news. Billionaire Bridezilla Busts Boutique, Caps Cake. I'd be the lead-in on the late night talk shows for months. It would be grand.
"Do you think we should do the boxes or the plaques?" my mother was asking my husband. "The boxes are lovely, make me think of a little gift, but the plaques are more commemorative."
"I think you are right," Anton said noncommitally. In the ten minutes we'd been in the shop, my mother had gone through at least twenty different wedding invitation designs, cooing over each of them as if they were her grandchildren. I felt like I was on a Real Housewives episode. There hadn't been Real Housewives when I was a little
girl, but it was exactly like my childhood.
And I was thirteen again, awkwardly standing in the background while my mother whirlwinded her way through thousands of dollars, oohing and aahing over the most ridiculous things. No one needed a five thousand dollar picnic basket, and yet we owned two. And I just let her dress me up like a doll all those years, even when I was most comfortable in a t-shirt and jeans. And sneakers. I liked my Nikes. And yet she'd taken me shoe shopping once a month, simply because no girl could possibly go longer than a month without buying a set of ridiculous heels.
I hate shopping. I wished, suddenly, that I had turned Anton down. Nothing was worse than being held captive to my mother's acquisitive whims. If I'd known it was all going to end in frilly-boxed wedding invitations, I would have said no and moved out of the country.
I should probably still do that.
"Felicia, dear, you still haven't told me your wedding colors."
I started. I'd been too lost in thought and stuck in the past to realize that my mother had been speaking to me.
"What? Oh. I don't know."
She gave an exasperated sigh. "You don't know? You don't have a favorite color? Just pick your favorite color and we'll decide what others will go with it."
God, this was all so inane. Pressing my lips together, I racked my brain. "Orange?" I said at last.
My mother turned and looked at me. Then she closed her eyes and appeared to collect herself. "Orange?" she said at last.
"I like orange roses," I said defensively.
"Not yellow? Or white or red?" she asked hopefully. "Even purple... there are some lovely purple-hued roses..."
I turned to Anton, mutely pleading with him for help, but he simply stared back at me. His gaze was watchful. Curious. He was waiting to see what I would do.
