Page 42 of Scarlet Vows

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“I’ll help out any way I can. You have my support. This is good for you, and I think together, we can build something amazing. Don’t you think?”

“I do.”

I mean everything I said, so why does it feel like I’m betraying my best friend?

Chapter Nine

ALINA

I can’t breathe.The world keeps fading into patches of black, and my body doesn’t seem to feel like my own.

I pour a healthy glass of vodka and then down it, trying not to splutter at the burn from the now room-temperature liquid.

Today’s my wedding. Everything’s set up, our license, all of it. We’re due at the tiny chapel—a chapel—in about five hours, so I figure an early morning tipple of vodka would help.

It doesn’t.

It just makes my stomach turn and roil. I squeeze my hands hard as I sit on the edge of the bed. The cream dress Isla and I shopped for yesterday mocks me.

What the fuck was I thinking?

Marrying Ilya, one of my closest friends. It’s a different friendship from other men that I’ve had, and different from Isla. I know it’s because he’s Demyan’s best friend, and I grew up around him, at least when I wasn’t off at school, but that should make him like a brother, not…not a man.

I fall back, grabbing a pillow and shoving it over my face so I can scream.

This is a fake marriage, so why does it feel so real in all the ways that seem to matter to me?

The realness triggers me.

Of course it does. I lost Max.

At my wedding.

In the most horrific way possible.

I pull the pillow off my face and gasp, trying to get air in deep. But the room doesn’t have any air, it seems.

I scramble for my phone. “Isla, can you come now?”

“Ten minutes.” She hangs up.

My phone lights up.

Isla

Breathe.

Breathe.

BREATHE!

When she arrives, Olga tells Maize, Isla’s daughter, that she’ll bring her a treat.

The little girl beams. “Toys!”

The living room has a box of toys Sasha likes to lord over, although he’s extremely generous with his sister when she forsakes her toys for his.

Hers are in here, too, but there’s just something about Sasha’s box that makes kids want in.

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