Page 27 of Firedrake Betrayal
It’s beautiful, but I think he’s already forgotten the purpose of this shopping trip.
“We’re going to rescue my dad, not go to a cocktail party,” I mutter.
“You need a full wardrobe, Jade.” Dominik looks at me. “And I intend to spoil you.Let me.”
The boutique assistant isn’t even trying to hide her jealousy. If I thought Dominik would listen, I’d suggest she could take my place.
“I don’t need?—”
“Why don’t you bring the first of the outfits?” Dominik talks over meagainas he steers me to the dressing rooms at the back of the store. “And Jade will try on that dress. I didn’t see one in her size.”
I dig in my heels. “How do you even know what size I am?”
“I’m observant.” Dominik propels me along as if he doesn’t even notice.
He escorts me into an all-white dressing room with silver hooks and a wooden bench, a space big enough to be someone’s bedroom.
Dominik stares down at me with an intensity that makes me inch away. Something jabs me at the back of my neck and I wince. Probably a clothing hook.
“You are my wife. You will let me do this for you.”
“I am not?—”
He brushes my throat with his finger, right over the spot he bit me. “Thissays you are.”
I push his hand away. “Thatis something you forced on me, and I don’t know that I will ever forgive you for it.”
The boutique assistant’s heels click loudly toward us, and I wonder why I even agreed to this shopping trip. I’d be alone in New York if I ran, and I don’t like the thought of being in such acrowded city on my own. But I’d be a step closer to getting back to Dad instead of wasting time in a fancy Manhattan boutique.
Dominik must read my mounting frustration for him to say, “The plane will take us to Oklahoma in the morning.”
I search his expression. “You mean it?”
“I do.”
When he reaches toward me, I lean away.
His lips quirk into a half smile. “My jacket.”
Embarrassed, I shrug out of the jacket he slipped over my shoulders and hand it to him. “Thanks.”
I don’t know what I thought he was going to do to me, but for the foreseeable future, I’d rather he kept his hands to himself.
I give the hovering assistant a quick peek, and almost wish I hadn’t when I see the armload of clothes she’s cradling.
Nothing looks practical. Everything looks expensive. And colorful. I’d expected this would be a few minutes of shopping. I have a feeling this visit is going to be significantly longer than a few minutes.
Dominik walks out of the dressing room. On his way to a white couch beside a wall-sized mirror he says to an assistant, “You can begin.”
It begins all right. An endless barrage of clothes the assistant thrusts at me.
I put up with it by telling myself there’s no point in arguing. That the plane leaves tomorrow morning and this is the price I’m paying to see my dad.
Twenty minutes later, I’ve had enough.
After failing to find the dress I arrived in amid the clothes all around me, I fling the door open.
Dominik is reclining on a white boucle couch opposite. He slowly lowers his champagne flute from his lips.
