Page 121 of Mile High Ex's Dad
She smiles faintly at that. “At least you’re honest.”
“More than most.”
Another pause. “I think we had a very enlightening conversation tonight.”
“Very,” I murmur.
Then she turns and walks away. I watch her go, thinking not about what she said, but about what she didn’t. By the time she disappears around the corner, I know two things.
The first is that Camille is not nearly as simple as Ethan likes to think.
The second is that she wanted something from me tonight, and she left without it.
18
SIENNA
Morning comes too early,but the second I step outside, something in me lifts.
It’s ridiculous, maybe, after everything that happened yesterday. The poison. The ambulance. Camille. Ethan. Viktor. All of it hanging over the estate like a storm that never fully moved on.
And still, I feel it.
The pull of a wedding morning.
I’ve loved this part of it for as long as I can remember. Not the performance, not the money. The structure of it. The order. The way dozens of small moving parts have to come together at exactly the right time. The way a blank space turns into something planned and beautiful because someone cared enough to think through every detail.
I love the quiet before guests arrive. The last checks. The flowers catching morning light. The small panic no one else sees and the satisfaction of smoothing it out before it becomes visible. I love the structure of it, the way a hundred moving parts can becomeone beautiful thing for a few hours if enough people care and one person is paying attention.
That’s why I got into this in the first place. Not for the dresses or the staged photos or the fake speeches people write to sound sentimental. For this part. The making of it.
Nadine is beside me with a clipboard and a mug of coffee gone half-cold, already moving through the schedule like she slept far better than I did.
“Chapel flowers are in,” she says. “String quartet is due in twenty. Photographer wants the bride downstairs by eleven, which means she’ll come down at eleven thirty and act like that was always the plan.”
I smile despite myself. “That sounds right.”
We walk the edge of the lawn together, checking chairs, aisle spacing, the placement of the arrangements, the backup shade stands if the sun gets too strong. Staff cross back and forth with trays, linen, cables, flowers. The whole place is waking up into usefulness.
And under all of it, there’s something else.
Men.
Not guests. Not staff. Not obvious security either. They’re moving around the grounds in the kind of way that is meant not to be noticed. One near the tree line pretending to look at his phone. Another by the path to the side terrace. One farther out near the hedge, walking slowly enough to look casual and not quite managing it.
Viktor’s men.
The thought comes easily now.
Yesterday I looked up what pakhan meant. I shouldn’t have, but of course I did. A boss. The head of a bratva organization. The man at the top.
He’s the big bad wolf. He’s also the father of my baby.
I watch one of the men glance toward the house and then away again, and my stomach tightens.
Nadine follows my gaze. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just noticing we seem to have acquired extra help.”
