Page 46 of Vengeful Vows

My eyes snap to Riley when she says, “This dress wasn’t designed for Veronika. Her body type is all wrong for this style. Her hips and ass will ruin it.” Her eyes are back on me, heavy and demanding. “You, on the other hand, were made for this dress.”

She plucks said dress from the rack like her bank account won’t cry processing the surcharge for a gown this pricy before she heads for the changing rooms at the back of the boutique.

“Let’s go, Mara. I don’t have all day.” Her tone is snappy, and it has my thoughts drifting to another resident of the Chrysler building for the umpteenth time today.

I haven’t seen Ark in person in almost a week. I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t missed his presence. An aura like his lights up the room when he enters it, so every room in his once glitzy apartment has been bland and uninviting since Monday morning.

I follow Riley like a puppy does an owner when she hits me with a silent demand for obedience. Her “do as I say” stare replicates Ark’s to a T.

“Wilfred will have a fit.”

Dark hair spills down Riley’s back when she cranks her neck back to face me. “Why?”

I wish she were more than a one-word interrogator. I’m the type who requires prompting to initiate a conversation—a lot of it.

Shame slowly chokes me when Riley refuses to accept my many silent rebuffs. “Because I don’t have the funds to replace the gown if I w-were to wreck it.”

“I’m fine with that.” Her shoulder almost touches her ear as her glance at the outfit I changed into before chaperoning Veronika’s appointment switches her “so what” expression to brilliance. “It isn’t like you don’t have the skills to make this gown what it should be.”

I look at her as if she has a second head. “That dress is perfect.”

A grunt rolls up her chest as she screws up her button nose. “It could be better.”

Now I’m certain Wilfred will have a fit. I took only a handful of online fashion courses, but even I know you never diss a designer on their home turf.

This is Wilfred’s only brick-and-mortar store. People travel across the globe to gain access to her designs in person. She is hugely successful, so I’m surprised by Riley’s level of criticism.

Riley isn’t. She looks smug. Calm. She seems so comfortable in her own skin that I wonder if I read the pain in her eyes wrong. Perhaps her true personality only flourishes when surrounded by like-minded people and not the uber-rich she spends most of her time with.

Eager to discover if my findings are true, I nudge my head to a box of tissues outside the changing room. “Grab the tissues.”

“What for?” Her gag is audible. “If you think a dressing room is a designer’s equivalent of a hairdresser’s salon chair, you are poorly mistaken. I don’t do crying. Ever.” There’s a hint of deceit at the end of her reply.

“I’m not going to cry.” I can’t recall the last time I cried, so I am confident in my assumption. “I just refuse for my pits to get anywhere near that gorgeous material, and I’m sweating s-so much that I’m worried the chicken at lunch was bad.”

She smiles, and it eases the swirls of my stomach. I’ve never had a girlfriend, so I’ve never learned the difference between banter and gross oversharing.

I feel like my line was a bit of both.

“Oh my god.” Tears prick my eyes as I take in the full picture in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the main changing room.

The gown is a perfect fit. It hugs my breasts and floats over my midsection before pleating at my hips to give my body the ideal hourglass shape. I’m not yet convinced I can pull off the bulky mermaid tail skirt, but I can’t take my eyes off the detailing in the bustier to worry about not showing an ounce of leg.

I feel pretty. Beautiful, even.

I look like I’m worth my weight in gold, and I am not the only one noticing.

“Wow.”

That didn’t come from Riley, whose mouth hasn’t re-hinged since she began dressing me like a Barbie doll almost twenty minutes ago. It is far too deep to belong to Riley and way too possessive.

She also can’t make the hairs on my nape stand on end by speaking one word.

Only one man has that skill.

Arkadiy.

The air in my lungs evicts in a hurry when my eyes lock with Ark’s in the reflection of the mirror. He wets his lips before adjusting his position so he can rake the front of my body. His hooded gaze is wildly inappropriate for an employer to issue an employee.

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