Page 26 of Glass Omega

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?”

“I’ve known you were up there since the first night. Stealth isn’t quite your forte, Perrie Chandler.”

And here I thought I was going to be a super spy mob wife.

So, to recap,Karate Kidmob wife was out and now I had no hope of being a James Bond-esque mob wife… so, what did that leave for me? Maybe… tight animal print dresses? No, I never looked good in patterns…

As if he could read my ever-spiraling inner-thoughts, Edison’s lips pulled up into a smirk as his golden eyes sparkled.

“Why didn’t you say something before?” I asked, fiddling with one of the leaves of a nearby plant.

Edison shrugged, tucking his shears into the little brown leather apron he was wearing around his waist that I’d never noticed before because of the limited angle from the upperlanding. “I figured you would scurry back into your room if I acknowledged you.”

“But…?” There had to be a reason he finally said something tonight.

“But,” Edison put emphasis on the word, “you’ve shown me that you are braver than I initially thought you were.”

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