Chapter 8 – Bridal Chains

Eve

Luciana brings the battlefield to my door at nine sharp.

Instead of knives, tape measures. Instead of shackles, silk.

A garment rack glides in like a silver executioner, trailed by two seamstresses and a woman with a tablet who introduces herself as Claudia and never looks up from her digital gallows.

“We will begin with foundation garments,” Claudia says, eyes on the screen. “Your measurements from the boutique are incomplete.”

“Let me guess.” I paste on a smile that shows my teeth. “You’ll remedy that.”

“Of course,” she says, in the tone of someone commenting on the weather.

I strip to my underwear without bothering to hide and get on the stool the seamstress set in the center of the room.

The mirror reflects a stranger. I’m pale from too little sleep, hair a mess of curls I’ve made no effort to tame, lips red from me constantly biting them.

Tape snakes around my ribs, numbers are written down. Fingers skim the curve of my hipbone with indifferent professionalism.

“Turn, please.”

“Lift your arms.”

“Breathe in. Hold.”

The lace chemise Claudia chooses is the sort of thing that looks innocent from far away and obscene once it’s close. Delicate floral patterning that pretends modesty and then disappears entirely the second light hits at a certain angle.

It clings to my body, the hem ending an inch below my vulva. My nipples harden treacherously against the lace, indiscriminate, responding only to air and nerves.

What follows is baffling. This isn’t just a wedding dress fitting. It’s mostly lingerie.

Corsets. Stockings with seams and garter belts. Silk shorts that are just a suggestion, paired with low-cut spaghetti-strap camisoles. Bras that are clearly only intended to look good. G-strings that offer plenty of titillation and no support.

The pile is huge. Lace, satin, whispers of fabric that seems like the wind could tear them to shreds. “Lovely. That will be for everyday wear. Mr. Grimaldi will be pleased with the initial selection. Now that we have your sizes pinned down, he can order anything else that strikes his fancy.”

Fury is making me see red. If that bastard thinks I’m going to play Underwear Barbie for him and dress up in his selection of frothy intimate wear, he’s going to be extremely disappointed.

“Next we need to decide on the wedding lingerie. Mr. Grimaldi requested a minimalist silhouette, so an ivory corset will probably be wise,” Claudia says, finally glancing up, as if she’s delivered the weather and now the hurricane arrives.

I want to swear like a storm trooper and chase all these people from my room, but they’re not responsible for the wreckage of my life.

The first dress is all bias cut swish with a neckline that would make a priest rethink his vows. Underwear would certainly not be required. “No.”

The second is a sleeveless mermaid gown that hugs my silhouette so tight, I can barely move my legs. I already know I’m being confined, I don’t need the dress to remind me as well.

God. The third dress looks like the seamstress took moonlight and taught it obedience. It pours over me, catching in all the right places, then sliding free like it already knows my shape by heart.

I turn slowly. I may hate the entire idea of this wedding, but this dress is… perfect.

“That one,” the seamstress says, almost reverently.

“I said minimalist,” Claudia replies. “This is… lyrical.”

The door opens before I can tell Claudia where Dominik can stick his requirements.

Dominik is in a dark suit, the kind that weaponizes his shoulders. His frozen glass eyes cut through the bustle and land on me.

No one needs to announce him. My skin does it for me. Every nerve lifts its head like prey scenting a predator.

His gaze travels the length of my body slowly. Not in a leering way, more like he’s assessing me.

I want to fold my arms over my chest. Instead, I hold his eyes like I don’t have a care in the world.

Dominik doesn’t look away from me when he says, “Out.”

They all evaporate with professional speed. The room breathes only for us now.

I lift my chin. “You don’t knock?”

He takes a step closer, a planet altering my tide. “On a door in my house?” His mouth curves fractionally. “No.”

“Did you come to watch the tailors truss me?”

“I came to see what I bought,” he says plainly.

My mouth opens with a litany of curses. I swallow the worst of it and choose something that will bruise less in the replay.

“You could have waited until I was dressed,” I say.

“I prefer you half-dressed,” he retorts, gaze landing meaningfully on the pile of lingerie. I refuse to blush.

He moves around me slowly and I track his movement in the mirror. He doesn’t touch me, but I can still somehow feel the heat of his palm on my back.

“This is perfect.”

“Perfect for what?” I demand, looking at him in the mirror. “Display? Breeding pen?”

He meets my eyes in the glass, and the blue is endlessly cold and deep, a lake that drowns the unwary. “Perfect for me.”

My breath misbehaves and I hate it instantly.

He leans closer, his mouth near enough that the little hairs along my nape stand up. “Do you know what I see when I look at you like this?”

“A purchase order.”

“A promise,” he says, and the word slides along my nerves like a wire. “Skin that remembers my hands. A mouth that will learn my name the way a prayer learns the roof of the mouth. A body that will take me, keep me, and carry my legacy.”

The last word is a barbed hook. I feel it snag in my gut.

“No uterus talk when I’m in couture,” I say, striving for cool and landing somewhere near volcanic. “It ruins the line of the silhouette.”

“You’re the line,” he says. “Everything else bends around you.”

It’s such a strange sentence from a man who claims the world bends around him that it steals my retort for a second. I stare at us in the mirror, beast and girl, captor and bride, two people who refuse to look away. My cheeks are flushed high. His pupils have dilated. This is not romance. It’s physics.

“Turn,” he says quietly.

I don’t move.

“Turn,” he repeats, same volume, and somehow the word gains weight.

I turn and I hate each inch I surrender to his inspection, but I rotate anyway. Because this is a small battle I can lose to save energy for later ones.

His gaze sweeps down. Lingering at the swell of my hips, the delineation of thigh where the stocking band bites. The dress gives me nowhere to hide.

“Walk,” he says.

“Do you plan on adding ‘fetch’ to the list?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says blandly. “But later.”

I walk. The hem whispers. The train breathes. When I turn back, he hasn’t moved. He’s carved from patience.

“Again.”

We repeat the humiliating pilgrimage twice more.

“It’ll do,” he says.

“It’s not your decision,” I snap.

“It is literally my decision,” he says, mild as milk. “But you know that you looked at yourself and thought, ‘yes.’”

My mouth goes hot. Betrayal, immediate and personal.

“Why all the white?” I ask, to drown out the blood in my ears. “Symbolic purity? You’re about a decade late for that.”

“Tradition,” he says. “And optics.” His tone remains even, but I see the way he grits his teeth. Finally, a point to me. Even if his reaction makes no sense. How can he possibly be jealous when he has no feelings for me?

He circles again, slower, until he’s in front of me. His gaze drops to my mouth.

“From now on you’ll dress only in the garments I provide for you.”

“My body is not your signature,” I say furiously.

His eyes lift to mine and the frost-honed color goes darker. “It’s my guarantee.”

Heat licks up my neck. Fury, again. Always. “I hope you choke on your guarantees.”

He smiles. Not teeth. Not warmth. A knife set on a table between us. “I’m difficult to choke.”

“We’ll see.”

He takes one final slow look and then steps back. I finally feel like I can breathe again.

He opens the door and nods to Claudia, “This is the dress.” Stylus poised, she nods. “Confirmed, sir.”

His gaze returns to me, sharp enough to leave a mark if I let it.

“You have two hours,” he says. “Then they’ll be back with the rest of your new wardrobe.”

“Can’t wait,” I deadpan.

Dominik pauses with his hand on the frame, as if remembering a detail meant to be delivered with its own weight.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, evenly. “That’s where your value to me lies. Which is why no expense will be spared to enhance your market price.”

Then he leaves.

I pick up a high-heeled satin sandal and hurl it at the door. My arm moves before the rest of me can think about it. The shoe thunks against the closed door with a satisfying, useless sound.

Claudia startles, mouth pinched. The seamstress’s pins tinkle like rain on the tiles. Luciana walks to the door, retrieves the shoe, and sets it down with measured grace.

“Let’s not scuff the paint, dear,” she murmurs. “Some marks are easier to explain than others.”

I look at myself in the mirror, in moonlight made obedient. My cheeks are flushed, my eyes are bright and my pulse is a drum no lace can hide.

I smile at the woman in the glass and it isn’t pretty. It’s a promise of my own.