Deadly Oath

25. Sabrina

25

SAbrINA

I don’t say anything about the ring, or the engagement, until my book club meeting the next evening. Once I see Marie, I know she’ll notice the ring immediately, and I prepare myself to answer all the questions, to somehow paint this as a whirlwind romance without the sting of danger that it actually has. The last thing I want is to explain my background, the mafia that’s trying to kidnap me for ransom, and my FBI handler to Marie and the others. They would all find it fascinating, but I would become something else, ‘other’ once again. Something to be examined and poked at and questioned, rather than what I’ve been trying to become—their friend.

Marie and Daphne’s, at least.

The minute I slide into the minivan, Marie’s eagle eyes land on the rock on my finger. “What the hell ?” she exclaims, and I laugh, because it’s the first time I’ve heard Marie curse.

“Kian asked me to marry him,” I admit, and Marie’s eyes go rounder than I’ve ever seen them.

“Cindy is going to be so jealous,” she breathes, and I laugh harder, the sound surprising me. But it feels good.

“It was worth saying yes, then. ”

Marie laughs, too, backing out of my driveway and glancing back at my ring every few seconds. I look at hers—a tiny diamond set just above a plain gold band, and feel a pang of guilt. My ring looks nothing like the ones I’ve seen on other women here—Daphne’s is a tiny princess cut on a simple white-gold band, with a crushed diamond wedding band that is the fanciest ring I’ve seen on anyone I’ve met in Rivershade. Mine stands out, and I wonder—not for the first time—where Kian got that kind of money to buy the ring on my finger. Not only that—maybe he had savings—but why ?

We’re not in love. That much is clear, even if my feelings about him have become deeper and more complex with every day that passes. And I don’t think he loves me, even if he says he cares about me—and even if some of his actions support that. Like barging into a warehouse alone, killing everyone keeping me captive.

But without love, without a typical romance or, barring that, the expectation of a large stone on a flashy ring to show wealth, why would he blow so much money on buying me an engagement ring? I hadn’t expected one, and he must have known that. Our marriage isn’t traditional, so I hardly expected that he would do anything else traditionally.

It doesn’t make sense. But the ring itself is astonishingly beautiful, and I’m glad he bought it for me, even if I don’t entirely understand the reasoning behind it.

“How did this happen?” Marie asks, as she turns onto the road towards Cindy’s house. “I’m happy for you, really—it just seems so fast. It’s not all that long ago you were wondering if you should even keep seeing him. And now you’re marrying him? And after what happened that night at the Crow Bar…you haven’t even really told me what that was.” Her mouth twists a little, and I can see her struggling to understand.

“That night was awful,” I say quietly. “I can’t say a lot—it’s police business.” That’s not exactly true, and my throat tightens at the lie, but it’s the best I can do without having to explain an avalanche of things that I don’t want to go into. “Kian saved me, though. And I think that brought us closer together. It made us realize that we’ve found something special, and we don’t want to risk losing the chance to be together as soon as possible.”

Marie is a hopeless romantic, and that works on her exactly as I’d hoped. Her face softens, and she lets out a small, approving sigh as she turns into Cindy’s driveway.

“That really is a whirlwind,” she says. “But it’s a love story in and of itself. The others aren’t going to buy it quite that easily, though,” she adds with a laugh, and I frown.

“I know. But as long as I’m happy, that’s all that matters, right?”

“Of course.” Marie takes my hand, getting a longer look at the ring. “It really is beautiful. He picked it out himself?”

“He did.” I can’t help but feel a small burst of pride—the ring is perfect, exactly what I would have wanted, and I’m still amazed that Kian chose so well.

“He’s a keeper, then.” Marie pats my hand, and opens her door. “Well, get ready to explain to everyone else.”

The ring is the focal point of conversation, from the minute I walk in the door. Daphne is the first to notice, which brings everyone else over, asking a flurry of questions about why, when, and how. Daphne seems suitably suspicious of how fast it all happened—which I can understand—and Cindy takes one look at my ring before retreating back to her armchair, her face set in disapproving, jealous lines.

“How soon is the wedding?” Daphne asks. “It’s going to be a long engagement, right?”

I shake my head, and immediately hear Cindy’s grunt from where she’s sitting. “We don’t want to wait longer than we have to to be married,” I say, trying to put as romantic of a spin on it as I can. “We’re sure, so why put it off?”

“To make sure?” Daphne suggests tactfully. “There’s a lot that goes into a marriage. Maybe it would be good to let things settle a little, just to be certain?—”

“I am certain,” I tell her firmly, and I hope that my voice doesn’t waver. “Really, I am. We’re going to get married as soon as I can arrange everything.”

“She needs a dress,” Marie says decisively. “What if we go on Saturday to a shop in Louisville? I can talk Greg into watching the kids for an afternoon. Daphne, you should come along with us.”

The other women start making excuses—plans with children on the weekend, date nights, but I’m fine with that. I don’t really want more than Marie and Daphne there, anyway.

“Why bother?” Cindy snorts. “You’ll be signing divorce papers as fast as you jumped into his bed and got him down on one knee, at this rate.”

“This is why you’re not invited,” Marie shoots back. “How does that sound, Sabrina? Saturday in Louisville?”

I look at her, at Daphne, standing there like a shield against the disapproval of everyone else in the room, and I feel a pang of guilt that I’m not being entirely honest with them. I wonder what would happen if I just told the whole truth, right here, right now. But the way my stomach floods with nausea tells me that I can’t. Besides, I literally can’t. Caldwell was very clear about that.

“That sounds perfect,” I tell them both. And I feel a flutter of excitement, as I think about picking out a wedding dress.

This might not be exactly the wedding I expected I’d have. But I can’t help but think that, in so many ways, it’s going to be better.

—

My excitement on Saturday is slightly dimmed by the fact that I’ve barely heard from Kian since he brought me the ring, and I haven’t seen him at all. The texts I’ve sent him were at first responded to with short, brief messages, and when I questioned him about it and asked why he didn’t want to come over, he said that he wanted to give us space between now and our wedding. To make it seem more special .

He said he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off of me if he came over, or if we went out, and that he wanted to wait until our wedding night to have sex again. To make it mean something. And while I fully believe that if we saw each other, it would end with us both in bed, something about what he’s saying doesn’t fully sit right with me .

It feels off, although I can’t put my finger on it. That same instinct that tried to warn me away from saying yes to the proposal is there again, whispering in the back of my head that something isn’t right.

Marie would tell me to delay it, if I told her. Daphne would probably suggest calling it off altogether. But I don’t want that. Every time I think of breaking things off with Kian, I feel that longing for him, that feeling that, in time, this could become something real. That the seeds of love are there, and that even if we’re making these vows prematurely out of a need for my protection, it might have happened anyway, in time.

As we drive into Louisville—Daphne agreed to drive, so that Greg could use the minivan to take the children out, so the three of us are crammed into her small sedan—I feel a flurry of excitement taking over my misgivings. I haven’t gone out shopping like this since I was taken away from Chicago, and the idea of trying on beautiful dresses, of spending a day looking for the perfect one, gives me a rush.

Daphne said she knew of the perfect place to start, and she pulls up in front of a small, whitewash-brick building with a pretty black iron door and windows full of bridal gowns. “I made appointments,” she explains. “At a couple of different places. You’re new here and Marie repurposed her mother’s gown, so I thought I might be the best one to choose where we went.”

“Thank you,” I tell her sincerely. “I appreciate it.”

“Everyone loves a wedding,” Daphne says with a smile. “Except Cindy, apparently.”

We all laugh at that, as we walk into the store, and the bell over the door chimes, bringing a short blonde woman from the back to help us.

“Sabrina?” she asks, looking our group over, and I step forward. “Congratulations. When is the big day?”

“Soon,” I say with a small laugh. “We thought we’d see how long a dress will take, first.”

“Well, with your figure, I think we might be able to go with something off the rack. We have some in the smaller sizes, so we’ll start with that, and if you don’t find something you like, we’ll move up to the others and see how long alterations will take. I’ll pop a bottle of champagne for you ladies, and I’ll be right back.”

The champagne, when it’s brought, is definitely purchased from a local grocery store—I’ve spent my life sipping Dom and Cristal, and the difference is noticeable to me. But Marie and Daphne are thrilled, and their excitement fuels mine. Bad champagne means nothing on a day like this, and I sip happily at my glass as the woman who greeted us—Brenda—puts an array of dresses into a room for me behind a pink velvet curtain.

“You were meant to be a bride,” Brenda declares, from the first dress she helps me into. “This is stunning on you.”

She’s absolutely right. I know I want to try on more than one dress, but the first is beautiful—a strapless, structured satin gown with a lace overlay that has thin straps and flows out over the underskirt, studded with 3-D flowers all over the lower part of the bodice and skirt. I look as if I stepped into a fairytale, the waist nipping in and the skirt flowing out to give me more of a curve than I actually have, and I feel as if I’m looking at a princess in the mirror. I can picture it—blonde hair curled, a light bit of makeup, and a long, flowing veil to match.

Marie and Daphne’s gasps when I step out tell me that they’re thinking exactly the same thing. “That’s the one,” Marie says decisively, and Daphne laughs.

“It’s beautiful,” Daphne says. “But you should definitely try on more than one. This is hard to beat, though.”

“It matches my ring.” It has the same delicate, fairytale, ethereal quality as the ring Kian chose for me, and I almost don’t want to take it off. I slip out of it reluctantly, reaching for the next dress Brenda hands me, a sleek silk gown that clings to every inch of me, with narrow straps and a skirt that pools around my feet. It’s classic, elegant, and very much what I imagine I might have worn in my other life. But that alone makes me hesitant to choose it.

I try on a number of other dresses, everything from a princess-style strapless ballgown with a huge, horsehair-stiffened tulle skirt to an off-the-shoulder satin dress spangled with small seed pearls, but my mind keeps drifting back to the first dress. Daphne insists we go to the next appointment, where I try on a flurry of other gowns—a mermaid style that’s all in lace, a strapless satin bodice with a cascade of feathers for a skirt, a sweet A-line dress with fluttery cap sleeves and swiss dot lace. But none of them feel quite right, and by the end of the day, I find myself wanting to go back to the first store.

When I put the fairytale dress back on, I’m sure of it. I step out of the dressing room again as Brenda fastens a chapel-length veil to my hair, and the way Marie gasps as I turn towards her and Daphne seals it. I’m sure that this is the one.

Marie’s second gasp is when Brenda rings it up. “Kian gave me a credit card,” I tell her, which I’m thankful for. He told me not to worry about cost, when he handed it to me after putting the ring on my finger, and I was glad he did. My little editing job certainly doesn’t pay enough to fund a dress like this, and I can only imagine the look on Caldwell’s face if I told him I needed additional funds for a wedding dress.

“Oh, that’s so sweet!” Marie exclaims, and Daphne raises an eyebrow.

“That was good of him. Is he funding the rest of the wedding, too?”

I can hear the suspicion in her voice. I know that, unlike Cindy, hers is rooted in worry for me, and it makes me feel worse about concealing what’s really going on. Marie is bowled over by the supposed romance of it all, but Daphne is a bit more pragmatic, and for a moment, I wish I could just tell her the truth.

“We’ll get married at the church for a small donation, so no cost there. And then go out to eat afterward,” I tell her. “I was going to ask the two of you if you’d be our witnesses later, but no time like the present, I suppose, since we’re talking about it. I think Kian is fine with covering a meal for the four of us for a sort of reception. A celebratory dinner.”

“He doesn’t have anyone he’s inviting?” Daphne asks, an edge still in her voice, though I can tell she’s coming around.

“He said he hasn’t been here long enough to get that close with anyone. But he knows the two of you are important to me,” I add, and as I say it, I realize it’s true. Marie is my friend, and if I were to leave, I would miss Daphne, too. “So we both want you included.”

“We’d be honored,” Marie cuts in, putting a hand on Daphne’s arm and giving her a meaningful look. “I’m so happy for you, Sabrina. The move was hard on you at first, I could tell. But now you’re finding a life here.”

I am. Her words wrap around my heart, warming it, and I realize that I’m beginning to think I could be happy here. Maybe this marriage was for a practical reason, but it’s romantic, too, in its own way. More romantic than any match I would have made in my old life would ever have been.

I’m glad that I’m marrying Kian. I’m glad that I’ve decided to be his.

For the first time since that fateful night in Chicago, I’m beginning to see a future for myself.