AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As strategic as the flirty, innocent dress he has me dolled up in. Between my hair twisted into a side braid and the silhouette of the dress, I look like I jumped straight out of the 1940s. It’s oddly wholesome for the fiancée of the notorious Ivan Pushkin.
As far as anyone can see, I’m innocent and naive. The perfect target. What they don’t know—what I’m finally starting to figure out—is that I’m in on the plan, too.
On my way out the door, I swipe on a bold red lipstick.
It fits how I’m beginning to feel.
37
CORA
This interview is a trainwreck.
The interviewer is a middle-aged woman in an ill-fitting pantsuit. “I love love,” she informed us the moment she walked through the door. “You have no idea how fast I jumped at the opportunity to share your story. I’m so honored to be here.”
Now, half an hour into what feels more like an interrogation than a fluff piece, she is sagged in her seat with a weary grimace on her face.
“Was there anything about the other person that stood out to you immediately?” she practically begs. “Anything at all?”
At first, I tried to let Ivan lead the interview. He’s had more practice at this kind of thing than I have. Between the two of us, he is the charmer.
But thirty minutes into this torture, it is a race to respond before he can continue to kill what is already a thoroughly dead vibe.
“It’s hard not to notice Ivan when you walk into a room.” I press my palm against his bicep, and he goes rigid under my touch. “He rescued me from a pretty embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. My dress ripped, and he offered his jacket. Between the chivalry and his good looks, I was smitten.”
Hope floods the woman’s face. She sits up, leaning in. “Oh my goodness! What’s the story there?”
“A drunken asshole tried to assault her,” Ivan growls.
“How heroic of you, sweeping in to save her!”
“It’s my duty to control guests at my own party. Once I saw what was going on, I didn’t have a choice.”
Oh yes,duty.The readers will swoon to hear about how it was Ivan’s unwilling obligation to protect and then marry me. Truly the stuff of which romances are spun.
I paste a smile on my face. “And once we realized how much we had in common, we didn’t have a choice but to get married.”
It’s not actually untrue. And yet Ivan somehow manages to look even less approachable. He scowls, his jaw flexing like he’s trying to crack his own molars.
Is he doing this on purpose? Are we trying to blow this interview?
The interviewer looses a sigh and reaches for her camera bag. “Well, let’s get a close-up of the ring, shall we?”
I don’t know how much Ivan paid Kieran to overnight this custom job, but the exact ring from the mockup he showed me yesterday is now perched on my finger. Ivan unceremoniously tossed it to me in the car.
“Put this on,” he grumbled.
Again—just a touch shy of a storybook proposal.
I had to bite back my shock at the sheer size of it. He might as well have put a diamond-encrusted softball on my finger.
“That is gorgeous!” She snaps a photo. “Can you hold hands?” she asks, nervously eyeing Ivan. “And move closer together. I’ll take a shot with your hands in focus and your bodies blurred. I think it will look nice above the fold.”
I inch closer until our thighs are pressed together. The heat of him burns through the thin fabric of my dress. Then he slides his hand under mine, his fingers curling around my knuckles.
It’s the first time today I’ve seen his cold facade start to defrost.
As the woman lines the shot up, her face tucked behind the camera, his thumb strokes the side of my hand. I feel that touch everywhere from head to toe.
