small distinctive blue ring box—a shade of blue that can be mistaken for no other jeweler—a box that even the least brand-aware person just knows is something special.
I see the shock in her face, but she doesn't break character. She playfully delivers that final joke. “Is it a clown pin?”
This part comes from a commercial we all saw once. Despite all the social reference points that divide us, that one stupid commercial is something we all share. I can't even remember what they were selling, but the scene is a woman in a romantic restaurant opening what she thinks is an engagement ring. But instead it's this ridiculous clown pin. We thought it would be funny. And it's a reference many of our guests will get because they saw that commercial too.
I laugh again, for once glad the camera is trained on her, not me, because for fuck's sake, I think I might tear up here. “No,” I say as stoically as I can manage.
She opens the box, and then everything she's held in comes rolling out down her face as she cries. Real tears.
I get down on one knee. “Livia Fairchild, will you be my person?”
It's another cutesy line meant to tug on heartstrings at the reception when we unveil the premiere of this short Oscar-contending film.
She cries harder “Yes, I will be your person.” And in this moment I know she means this and wants every promise contained in that blue box. My mouth claims hers, and I put the ring on her finger. It glints brilliantly in the sun against her tanned skin. It's all so perfect.
12
Soren
New Year's Eve
Six months ago. New Year's Eve.
Livia is silent in the passenger side as we drive up the long driveway of my parents' hundred acre estate. She's been to my home, but she's never been to my parents' place. It is admittedly a little stuffy, over-the-top, maybe a bit pretentious, and I can tell she's extremely nervous about this meeting.
“I won't fit in here. Your parents will think I'm a gold digger.”
“Aren't you?”
She shoots me a nasty look. “I'm a hostage.”
In a few short months she'll learn the price of her smart mouth when she's tied down and begging, calling me Master. She has no idea what she's in for with us.
“And tell me, were you a hostage during all those months you voluntarily dated me? And Griffin? And Dayne?” Though admittedly Dayne has been in the grouping a much shorter length of time and by our invitation. But she still said yes to him.
Livia starts to cry, and I feel like the bastard I so clearly am. She flinches when I park the car in the circular drive and wipe her tears away with my thumb.
There's a sick part of me that wants her to always be a little on edge, a little afraid. I get off on it no matter how wrong that may be, but I don't truly want her to hate me. I'm still angry with her even though I know I have no right to be. She wasn't lying. She wasn't cheating. And without her, this relationship quad wouldn't be possible. I know my anger is irrational.
I'm more angry at myself than I am at her, angry that I allowed myself to care, that I became so attached to a woman who so obviously isn't equipped to handle all that I am, who probably doesn't have a kinky bone in her body, and yet I plan to subject her to every dark corner of my psyche, and Griffin's, and Dayne's, for the rest of her natural life.
I still don't know why I haven't let her in to my world. I think I was planning to, but when I learned Griffin was dating her, I had this need to claim her in a permanent way—it was this panicked feeling in my chest. And I had the need to share her in a permanent way. Griffin is probably a better match for her as the public face of the marriage. But I don't care. I want her to have my last name and be seen in public as mine. I want all the power, and I want her to know I'm the one who has it.
Griffin wouldn't have had to run interference with her father. He's squeaky clean on paper. But her father was easy enough to manage. I downplayed what he heard, claimed I'd grown a lot since that time, gave a long heartfelt speech about