Pretty Perfect Toy - Angel Payne Page 0,19

forever. Or maybe we were so desperate to believe it, we just did.”

“Which is why you proposed.”

I drop my arms. Past the buzz swarming my head like pissed-off cicadas, my palms burn from the stab of my fingernails.

Did I expect her to come to other conclusion?

No.

But did I expect this corner of the memories to hurt so damn much?

Same answer, shittier version.

But I’ve been through worse. Like the first time I lived through this crap. Months and months of it, instead of a few bitter minutes.

Words finally choke their way up. “Let’s define ‘proposed’.”

A rustle. A change in the air behind me. Though Ella doesn’t move beyond that, I can picture her stance now. Proud but pensive. Elegant hands clasped high against her waist, as regal as the royalty she served back in her kingdom. The “trap” I thought I was saving her from—a call I now question with every new second that passes. Every new corner of my past now exposed by her light.

Every dark, dirty corner…

“I do not understand.”

Just like a queen, her voice is velvet girded by steel. Just like the beggar at her palace, I shuffle through a turn back at her.

“Yeah. Of course you don’t.”

“What are you trying to say?” Exasperation bites her words. “All right, you loved her. Then you married her—”

“Yes.” I jog up my head another notch. “I loved her. I married her. But I never proposed.” Hard breath. One more. “I wasn’t given that choice.”

THREE

*

Mishella

There’s an intent here. Something he dreads saying so much, he cannot frame the words for it. Something his stare pleads with me to figure out, resulting in a stalemate of frustration because I cannot. I know my tight glower and leaden huff do not help—but despite his obvious assumption, the answer is not as clear as a spot on the floor between us. If it is, then it was created with invisible ink, and I have yet to locate the black light for revelation.

I didn’t propose. I wasn’t given that choice.

I am tempted to call bullshit again.

He formed those feelings for Lily Quinn of his own volition—perhaps encouraged by his mentor, but certainly not forced. Even a girl from a sheltered past on a tiny island can deduce that. Besides, had Cassian not bid for Lily’s hand, there were likely five hundred others waiting in line to do so.

So what had been different? Why was Cassian “expected” to marry Lily without taking the steps expected from a social echelon he had worked so hard to become a part of? I have snuck glances at enough of his daily mail to know. The magazines, newsletters, and social notices of the American upper crust are unique journals, chronicling day-long spa visits, tiny-sized food, and “casual parties” that took weeks to plan and thousands to fund. Events like engagements approach the status of national holiday celebrations. The wedding plans of someone like Lily Quinn would have boosted the family’s social and financial clout—

Unless those plans had to be made in a hurry.

“Creator’s toes.” The spot blares to clarity. “She—Lily—she was—”

“Pregnant.” Now the explanation flows from him without effort, even murmured like a prayer. But is it a prayer of gratitude or shame? The dazed cast of his gaze does not supply any definition. “With my baby.”

I pull in a breath. Am not shocked that the air shakes in my chest. Imagining him as a father-to-be is the easiest—and hardest—thing in the world. Watching his protective ways with Prim and Mallory makes it simple to envision him doing the same with his own child—but in my mind’s eye, that child has no other mother than me. The force of the fantasy weakens my knees. “So Nash made you marry her.”

“Nash didn’t make me do shit.” His nostrils flare and his lips thin. “She told me the day after Christmas, during a trip back here to see her parents. The day after that, we hit the jewelry store then the courthouse. Her stepmother was understandably horrified, but Nash yanked the curtain on our masquerade pretty fast.”

“And then what?”

“And then he couldn’t wait to welcome me into the family.”

“And were you happy too?”

“I was delirious.” He issues it as if confessing to murder—likely reading the little “Baby Daddy Cassian” scenario that burns across my face by now, and knowing the words will be its ice bath. But he has not brought me up here for an evening of wine and roses. For two months, I have not been allowed into this turret