“So you do smile at someone other than Edison,” I gasped, scandalized.
Then the smile was gone again and he was back in Teacher-Terminator-Mode, his foot kicking out and sweeping behind my legs, sending me sprawling onto my back again.
Dark eyes met mine as he leaned over me, his face unsmiling but I could see a hint of mirth hiding just underneath the surface. “And what did we learn, kid?”
“To keep my eyes on your feet,” I groaned, glaring up at him.
“Indeed. Now, get up and let’s try S.I.N.G again.”
I was definitely right. My ass was going to look like a very sad stained glass window by the end of today and it was only my first lesson.
It was quickly seeming like my dreams of becoming the next Karate Kid mob wife were just that. Dreams.
Eight
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Oona sighed wistfully as she stared at me in the full-length mirror.
I was two hours into trying on the dresses that the designer had brought to the estate, and looking at myself now, I was pretty sure I’d found the one I’d be wearing at the end of the week.
Once we’d agreed on everything a few days ago, Edison worked like a madman to pull together all of the things that a wedding required.
The Edison Keane that I’d seen on the day of my last wedding had been every inch the mobster. He’d oozed danger and had sent a chill down my spine when he’d addressed Amante—a man who had previously been my standard for all things scary.
But the one that I saw every day seemed like a completely different creature.
Pack Ricci hadn’t cared much about the details that went into our union—and neither had I—but Edison seemed to care too much.
He insisted it had to be perfect, though Rhodes had taken to calling him a groomzilla under his breath after we heard the man muttering about doves at dinner yesterday.
And despite it all, it was utterly charming.
I’d always known Edison Keane was handsome. The night I saw him in the hospital four years ago he’d been ruffled and bloody as Dr. Stedmeyer had stitched him up. He’d been the walking-talking manifestation of the dirty books that I downloaded onto my kindle to make the long nights in the cancer ward go by faster.
But the Edison I’d gotten to know over the past week was different from that—he was softer and a bit unsure of himself. Not to mention the fact that he blushed in a way that was far too adorable for a man fifteen years older than me.
I wasn’t sure if any of this would work out, but I was enjoying myself more than I had in years… right down to being able to pick out my own wedding dress this time around.
“Do you think he’ll like it?” I asked, turning one way and then the other to get a full look at the beautiful dress adorning my body.
My first wedding dress had been a mess of froth and gemstones that pinched my skin, but this? This was pure bliss.
The bodice was a simple A-line, hugging my body in a way that elongated my normally short torso. A long skirt of the softest chiffon floated around my legs, moving every time I shifted.
“Dearie, I think you could pop a paper bag on and every man within a fifty mile radius would be lost.”
It was strange to think of myself as beautiful. Even over a year after leaving the hospital for the last time, there were still times that I looked in the mirror and still saw a pale, boney girl with no hair.
My hair was just past my shoulders now, and while I could still stand to gain a little bit more weight, my cheeks were no longer deathly pale.
Maybe it was the complete disinterest Elio Ricci and the rest of his pack had for me, or maybe it was typical for a woman my age to feel this way, but I almost didn’t believe Oona’s words as I stared at myself in the mirror and nibbled on my bottom lip.
Much later, long after I should have been asleep, I crept to the door of my bedroom and slowly opened it. It creaked ever so slightly and I winced as I eased my way onto the landing of the stairs that led down into the greenhouse on the bottom floor of my little tower.
It was a silly habit that I’d formed after the first night, but as I peered over the railings at Edison, I didn’t care.
He came every night to take care of the plants that were in the little space, watering, trimming, wiping down leaves, and sometimes, just sitting and enjoying a glass of amber liquid as he sat in the dark.
I would have never known about it had I not started to go down the stairs to get fresh air my second night here and caught him with his back turned as he worked on the giant tropical-looking plant that took up most of the far corner of the room.
After that, I couldn’t help but peek at the man as he moved through an environment that was so opposite of the image he usually presented himself as.
Tonight was no different. He’d taken off his suit jacket, tossing it over the arm of the plush armchair that was almost hidden amongst the jungle of plants, and rolled his sleeves up just past his elbows.
Even in the dark I could see the outline of some kind of black tattoo that lined one of his forearms as he used shears to trim a large piece off of a vining plant that was hanging from a hook on the wall.
I really needed to look up the names of some of these because they were all so beautiful.
Miranda Chandler never had much of a green thumb, so any foliage in our home was of the silk variety.
Edison moved, cuttings in hand, and began placing them in long glass vials that were on a shelf next to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
It was fascinating watching his hands, which I was sure had seen more than their fair share of bloodshed, work so delicately with the plants that filled the space.
Then his warm voice made me jump nearly out of my skin. “If you stare at me any harder than that, pet, I’m afraid you’re going to bore actual holes into my back.”
With a sigh from having been caught, I padded barefoot down the stairs to join him. “How did you know I was up there?”
