After I Could Hear the Don's Thoughts

Now Richard was down on one knee, choosing my wedding shoes for me himself.

His fingers traced lazy circles over my ankle.

[Elise's calves are still a little thick, and it makes her ankles look heavy too.]

I froze. I thought I’d imagined it, and then he went on.

[Charlotte's legs are so much better. Long, straight, that soft pale skin. I could touch them forever and never get bored.]

My whole body went tight on instinct, and the scene from my past life, the moment I caught them, rose up in front of my eyes again.

My trip had ended early. I came back to the Marlowe estate and heard the kind of laughter coming from the study that no one should ever hear.

Through the gap in the door, I saw Charlotte wearing nothing but a pair of black stockings, perched on the huge black-walnut desk.

Richard had her leg in his hands and was kissing his way up from her toes, slow.

My stomach turned, and I clenched my jaw shut.

"Elise? What's wrong?"

Richard had noticed something was off. He patted the top of my foot and asked, all tenderness.

I yanked my foot back sharply.

The skin where he had touched me had gone to gooseflesh.

"What is it? You don't like these shoes?"

I fought to stay calm. "No. I just felt cold all of a sudden."

As I spoke, I stole a glance at him.

His face was perfectly composed, without a flicker of panic.

"If you're not feeling well, we'll stop."

He turned to the clerk. "Send everything she tried on today to the Marlowe estate."

Then he stood, slipped off his jacket, and draped it gently over my shoulders.

It carried a thread of sweet, cloying musk, the perfume Charlotte always wore.

I frowned. "Have you been in contact with Charlotte lately?"

He went still, and disgust surfaced on his face at once.

"A woman who cares that much about money is never loyal. I already fired her. Don't worry about it."

He gripped my hand, the words coming fast. "Where she goes from here, I don't know and I don't care!"

"Relax. She could strip naked in front of me and I wouldn't blink."

In this life, Richard really had cut Charlotte off early.

At the club, in front of everyone, he had humiliated her, calling her a useless parasite who collected a paycheck and did nothing.

Then he fired her on the spot.

Charlotte argued back, frantic, and knocked over a wine bottle at the edge of the table, and a shard of glass caught my shin.

Richard was so angry he drew his gun then and there and pressed it under her chin, telling her she would pay for that with her life.

"How many lives do you have to dare hurt my Donna?" he snarled.

In the end I was the one who didn't want a scene, so I told him to let her go.

He holstered the gun, reluctant, and warned her. "I'll keep this bullet just for you. If I ever lay eyes on you again, I’ll put it straight in you."

He looked like he hated her even more than I did.

Richard's voice cut into my memory.

"You're fine. Why bring her up out of nowhere?"

I stared into his eyes. There was a flicker of unease in them, almost too small to catch.

I was about to speak when I heard it again.

[Did she figure something out? No. I showered twice before I came to see her, so there shouldn't be any scent left.]

[Don't spook yourself. I've been so careful this time, and she can't have noticed.]

[After tomorrow, after the wedding, Elise becomes my Donna for good.]

His mouth stayed pressed shut the whole time, and at last I understood.

That was what he truly thought deep down.