Guests turned to look as I passed by. I didn’t catch their faces, only the sheen of black jackets and expensive dresses, their civil complicit muteness filling the room.
I didn’t look left.
I didn’t look right.
I looked only at him.
Matvey Yezhov stood under the great arch of lilies and gold, his hands folded in front of him, wearing black-on-black with a silver pin at his collar. Still. Unyielding. An ice-and-iron sculpture.
We locked eyes for a moment, and I almost shivered from the iciness in his gaze. There was no warmth to them, no softness. Nothing to say he was human.
But then, my eyes darted to his mouth, and my heart skipped a beat.
That mouth had kissed me so possessively weeks ago. He’d claimed and marked me with that one kiss.
That mouth had said things still echoing in the darkest corner of me, and I hated that my body remembered. I hated that a single look could have warmth seeping under my skin.
I looked away quickly, unable to bear the heat from his gaze and the butterflies in my stomach.
He held out a hand to me when I reached him, and I reluctantly took it, standing beside him, my hands trembling against the bouquet of roses I was holding.
He said nothing. Didn’t blink. Just gazed straight ahead as if already giving the eulogy for the girl I used to be.
The priest began to speak. His voice was distant, as if he were speaking from far away, and my head was submerged under water.
My replies were mechanical when it was time to say our vows. I couldn’t make sense of most of the things I said, except the words that I didn’t even mean.
“Yes.”
“I do.”
I felt none of them.
They did not belong to me.
They were Zoella Yezhov’s—the girl who would take my place now—and then the priest uttered the words that pulled me back into my body:
“Under the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
The room stopped moving.
I stopped breathing.
Matvey turned toward me, and the world narrowed to inches between us as he leaned closer.
My stomach churned in anticipation, my breath hitched, and my heartbeat raced as I waited for the inevitable.
The kiss.
My heart was a wild drumbeat in my chest, but my face was still. I’d learned to wear a mask, and I wore it now: porcelain bride, flawless and impassive.
Matvey’s gaze met mine. For a moment, I saw something behind them, something almost soft.
But no—it was icier than that.
It was intentional.
He leaned in on purpose, and I prepared myself.
