Page 90 of Tangled Decadence
That did the trick. His face puckered for a moment and then he sighed. “Oh, fucking hell, fine. If it makes you happy. But she has to keep her mouth shut.”
“What are you smiling about?” Syrah asks, fixing me with a curious grin.
“Just super happy that you could be here. It wouldn’t have felt right getting married without you.”
“Oh, hush, you.” She wraps me up in a tight embrace and squeezes until my eyes start leaking tears. I guess I must be squeezing pretty hard in my own right, because her eyes are doing the exact same thing.
We both start giggling and fumbling for tissues as we disentangle ourselves, so we can dab the tears away before our makeup gets ruined. Lord knows I don’t want Sy burning my house down if her smoky eye efforts go to shit.
Even still, when she collects herself, she takes one look at me and frowns. “Let me just touch up your?—”
Knock-knock-knock.
I glance at the clock on the wall. I was told my car would be ready to leave at eleven. I still have a good twenty minutes before departure.
“Lemme see who it is,” Syrah says, leaving me sitting by the bed. “Don’t move.”
She returns a moment later with a small box between her hands. I blink at it quizzically. “Who’s that from?”
“Beats me. Just saw it at the door. No one in the hallway or anything.” She gives it a long whiff. “Jeez, it even smells expensive.”
She offers it to me and I place it on my lap, fingers grazing along the edge of the dramatic chiffon ribbon it’s wrapped in. Syrah’s right: it smells amazing, like it took a bath in Chanel No. 5 on its way through the postal system.
“More jewelry,” Syrah predicts, sitting down beside me. “Guaranteed.”
The box is square and flat, so I’m inclined to agree with her. My money’s on a necklace. I pull at the ribbon and it falls away easily. Unlatching the box, I flip the lid up and find exactly what I’d suspected—a necklace.
But not just any necklace. This one has a gorgeous, bespoke pendant twinkling with a rainbow’s worth of colored diamonds. It’s a rose with seven petals, and on the uppermost petal is a tiny diamond bee that winks at me cheekily.
A rose for Rose.
A bee for Bee.
“Oh my God,” I breathe, as fresh tears overwhelm me. “Sorry, Sy. You really will have to redo my makeup.”
“Yeah,” she sniffles. “That makes two of us.”
We turn to each other and laugh through our tears. “He really did think of everything, didn’t he?” Syrah says, eyeing the pendant with fascination.
“He always does.” I pull the necklace out of its case and hand it to Syrah. “Can you put it on me?”
“With pleasure.”
Once it’s secured around my neck, I touch it gingerly, feeling more complete than I have in a while. I squeeze Syrah’s hand and swallow all the emotion threatening to bubble up inside me. “Now, I have all three of you with me today.”
“Here,” she says, handing me a note that I hadn’t even noticed. “It came with the gift.”
It’s a short note written on a small, perfumed card, but I recognize Dmitri’s handwriting instantly.
Moya devushka,
It is my greatest honor to marry you today. Please accept this gift as a token of my love and devotion to you. For today, for tomorrow, for all the days to come.
Yours always,
Dmitri
“Oh, for the love of God!” Syrah says from where she’s reading just over my shoulder. She’s not even pretending to give me privacy. “It’s stupidly unfair how good he is at this shit. I’m all swoony on the inside and the note isn’t even for me.”