Page 18 of For Flag's Sake
“You didn’t want to get married?” Etta asks over top of her. “And he made you?”
“Well,” I hedge. My teeth nip at my lower lip. “Sort of? He planned a surprise wedding and tricked me into showing up, then dragged me to the front for vows andI dos, kissed me, shoved a certificate into my hands to sign, then declared me his wife.”
Etta scowls so ferociously I get the feeling she’d bop me upside the head if it wouldn’t get her fired. “He planned a surprise wedding, which you did not run from at first sight, then he declared his love for you, which you did not run from at first word, then he said ‘I do,’ to whichyou said ‘I do’ back, then he gave you the marriage certificate, whichyou then signed your name to. Is this an accurate take?”
I sniff. “On paper, sure, but it leaves out all of the nuance and social pressure involved.”
The effort Etta extends to stay very still and very quiet shows a great deal of self-control. A commendable amount, even. Her eyes scream fire at me, but her hands rest demurely at her sides and her mouth merely pinches.
“Sorry,” Mary interjects, lacking the years Etta’s self-control took to hone. “It’s just that… that doesn’t sound like you were forced, exactly?”
“There are many ways to force a person to do what you want,” I inform her. “And not all of them are as blatant as what one might assume.”
“Perhaps some are so subtle as to not be under the definition of ‘force’ at all,” Etta mutters as her control takes a nose-dive.
Ah. Well. She had a good run.
I sigh and guide us away from silly semantics and back to the true crux of the matter.
“Stars,” I decide. “The painting needs more stars.”
With that, I stride to my canvas and get to work fixing it. My guests linger for several moments before Etta huffs and bids me an exasperated goodbye. Mary follows behind her, a lamb after her shepherd, and I wave a gold-tinted paintbrush in farewell. They came, they made an ultimately failed attempt at helping, they left. The circle of life.
I hum low in my throat as I speckle golden dots in the fringes of my painting. Perhaps when I’m done, I’ll do a more circular sort of image.
Or maybe I won’t.
Or maybe I will.
Or I won’t.
Or I will.
I have choices. I have options. I have the full opportunity to decide for myself without pressure squeezing something out of me that I might not have chosen in my freedom.
I can do anything I want to.
And I will.
Because Ican.
Chapter Nine
?
Maple
My eyes narrow on the man sitting across from me at a small, round table in Nivora’s main lobby. The stars didn’t help, and I had to paint over more than half of the newly added golden dots. I’m now forced to consider that, perhaps, the problem lies somewhere else. Maybe the couple? I don’t believe for a second that the square of red is the issue, but possibly the slant of the man’s nose, or the dimple in his chin…
For his part, Ivy takes my severe observation with remarkable patience. He hasn’t spoken—or moved—since his initial greeting when I arrived downstairs. His jade green gaze rests contentedly on my face as I review the contours of his in a structured scan. I catalog features I’ve memorized thousands of times, looking for discrepancies in my memory. Finding none, I frown. He’s exactly as I remembered.
Ivy takes my frown as the sign that it is and breaks his silence. “You know I’ll sit for you any time you want, rosy. Even while you’re here. Just say the word and I’ll come.”
I just bet he will. “I don’t want you to sit for me right now,” I lie. I’d very much like for him to sit for me, preferably directly beside my painting until I can determine what, precisely, I’ve done wrong. That would require letting him into my suite, though, which I would not survive through unscathed. I barely made it through the half-groveling, half-begging phone call with him this morning when he contacted me to set this meeting, his voice gruff and pleading. Havingthatvoice with his face taking up space in my studio would do more harm than good tothe scraps of willpower helping me resist his charms—the same charms that got me married to him in the first place. Good looks, a scrumptious voice, and a willingness to leverage them to get you trapped in his web—The Iverson Special.
“You have your ‘war plan?’” I ask. My fingers itch to create the air quotes my tone implies, and I shove them under my thighs. Pettiness during a war summit is not a good look.
“I have a proposal,” Ivy says.
