Page 49 of Top Shelf

His eyes stay on mine. “Yes.”

“Fantastic. Congratulations to… us.”

Viktor glances at the ring again. “To us.”

Outside his windows, Denver glows beneath the night.

Inside, my future has just rearranged itself around a contract, a huge fucking diamond, and the most ridiculous practical decision of my life.

Chapter eight

Viktor

Dr. Heidi Grant is standing in a courthouse hallway in a yellow dress, waiting to become my wife.

She stands near the windows with her arms folded tight beneath her breasts, staring out over Denver, not looking like a woman who is about to belong to anyone, least of all me. She is simply Heidi Grant, restless and vivid and irritated at the existence of government paperwork.

Her dress is short enough to show off her legs and bright enough to make the gray hallway feel interesting by association. It is fitted at the waist with little straps beneath a cropped white jacket she abandoned ten minutes ago on the back of a chair, and nothing about it is bridal in any traditional sense.

Still, when she turns, and the ring on her finger catches the light, a possessiveness shifts in me. I should stop looking at this ring, I have been telling myself this since I slid it on her finger days ago. But I have not managed it once. It’s not just the ring I notice, either. It is her. My eyes always find Heidi.

Carina and Reid sit behind us as witnesses, under strict instruction from Heidi that they are not permitted to make this weird. Carina has already welled up twice, and Reid looks as though he would prefer a penalty kill over whatever this is.

Heidi begins pacing again, three steps along the window, a sharp pivot, three steps back.

“Heidi.”

She keeps walking.

“Heidi.”

“I heard you.”

“You are wearing a path into government carpet.”

She stops and turns toward me. “Do you know how many people have probably walked on this carpet?”

“Well… No.”

“Exactly. Millions, probably.” She presses both hands against her cheeks before she starts pacing again. “I’m about to marry a man I’ve never even kissed. I think my pacing is proportional.” She stops at the window, her shoulders rising and falling beneath the straps of her dress. “This is insane.”

“The carpet?”

“The marriage, Viktor.” She spins toward me. “We’re getting married in, what, seven minutes? And you don’t even know me!”

She stares back out through the window with a hand wrapped around the opposite wrist, her thumb rubbing back and forth against her skin. I step closer.

“You do not like vodka.”

Her eyes flick to mine. “What?”

“You steal Carina’s fries after saying you’re not hungry. And if there is hockey on television, you sit where you can watch, even when you claim you are only there for the wine—and you hate raisins because you believe they ruin baked goods.”

“Everyone should hate raisins.”

“You shout to bad drivers as though they can hear you through the windows, and when you are trying not to interrupt someone, you tap your fingernail against your teeth.” I nod toward her hand because she has stopped rubbing her wrist now and is staring at me instead. “You do not like being late, but time behaves badly around you, and you go quiet when you are overwhelmed.”

Behind us, Reid and Carina stare, and Heidi’s expression shifts.