The servants buzz around like flies, and she realizes she’ll never have peace. She puts the drawing board aside and nods at the servants.
“Okay, let me see them,” she says.
Each dress is different, but they all look straight out of a fairytale. Some have fluffy skirts, others are slinky and silky, and there’s one jaw-dropping, s.e.xy backless dress. She sighs and shakes her head. The dresses are fine, but she doesn’t want to choose one. She doesn’t even want to get married.
“Mr. Clifford, she won’t choose any,” a voice calls.
The servants part and Andrew walks into the room, wearing a crisp gray suit. He looks healthy and strong, and Leilani wonders what happened to the wounds on his back. He sits next to her, letting a warm hand rest casually on her shoulder.
“Honey, aren’t you satisfied with the dresses?” he asks. “If you don’t like them, that’s fine. We’ll design something new—after all, we still have a few weeks.”
Leilani shrugs his hand off her shoulder, and he grabs the sketch pad from the coffee table. He flips through the sketches, and his forehead wrinkles.
“Do you want to design the dress yourself?” he asks. “You’re quite good.”
“No, I don’t,” she says. “I don’t have the time—I’m busy with something else.”
“Surely some cufflinks aren’t as important as your wedding dress,” he says.
“I’m not interested in designing a dress,” she says. “Give those papers back to me.”
Andrew smirks and says, “Not until you choose a dress.”
“You can choose one for me,” she snaps, grabbing the sketchpad out of his hands.
“No, I wanted you to choose the one you like best,” he insists.
That’s ironic, she thinks. I can’t even choose the person I like best.
She looks at the sea of dresses and sighs, “Fine, I’ll choose, but I have some conditions.”
“Honey, I’m just asking you to choose a dress,” Andrew says. “Why do there have to be conditioned?”
“Because it makes me happy,” she answers. “It’s the only way I’ll choose.”
Andrew narrows his eyes, but a smile plays around the corner of his mouth. He turns to face her and nods.
“You’re quite the negotiator,” he says. “Okay, tell me—what are your conditions?”
“I want to go out today,” she says. “Can I ask one of the drivers to take me around? I need to run some errands.”
“That’s not a problem,” Andrew says, his smile getting larger. “I really feel like we’ve turned a new page in our relationship—you’re not sneaking around behind my back anymore.”
Leilani shrugs. Even if she didn’t tell Andrew her plans, he’d find them out anyway. She’s sure that the drivers and servants are under strict orders to report all her plans to him.
She looks at the sea of white dresses and sighs. She waves her hand, and the servants present the dresses one by one. The first is slinky, tight silk with a thigh-high slit. She shakes her head—it’s too s.e.xy. The next is a creamy, frothy mix of tulle and pearls—it looks like something a ballerina might wear. She frowns, and the next servant presents a dress with a huge skirt and a tight bodice covered in swan feathers. She rolls her eyes.
Each dress is ridiculous than the last. By the time she gets to the tenth dress, she’s beginning to lose hope. Does Andrew know me at all? She thinks. I’d never wear any of this. And then she sees it—the perfect dress.
It’s made of cream-colored silk, and it seems to glow in the light. It has a sweetheart neckline, and the multi-layered skirt looks like an upside-down flower. Each layer of silk hangs as softly and as gracefully as a flower petal. The maid twirls the dress, and the silk layers catch the breeze and float. Leilani smiles.
“Do you like this one?” Andrew asks. “It’s so simple.”
No, it’s perfect, she thinks.
She nods, trying to pretend she doesn’t really care, but she’s scared her smile gives her away. Andrew flicks his wrist, and the other servants leave the room one by one. The petite girl with the perfect dress stays behind, smiling as if she’s received some great honor. Leilani pretends to be busy with her sketching supplies.
“Will you try it on for me?” Andrew whispers into her ear.
“It’s bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the wedding,” she says. “Besides, I’m busy. Let’s have breakfast instead.”
Andrew shrugs and helps her up. As they walk to the dining room, he keeps his arm around her waist. He pulls her chair out for her and pours her a cup of orange juice. She eats quickly, typing emails on her phone between bites. Sophie has asked her to bring the designs to the do. Headquarters, so that’ll be her first stop.
The town car passes through fields filled with small yellow cinquefoil flowers.
Leilani rests her head on the window and closes her eyes, letting the smooth motion of the car lull her to sleep.
Her phone rings and she checks the caller I.D. She doesn’t recognize the number and rejects the call. It rings again, and she sighs and answers.
“Hello, is this Mrs. Bamford?” a polite male voice asks.
“Well, not exactly,” Leilani says. “I go by Miss Peters now.”
“Well, I’m Dr. Pan, and I’m calling from Memorial Hospital,” the man says. “You were here a while ago, visiting a patient named Irene Flynn.”
“Yes, of course,” Leilani says. “She’s my nanny.”
“Well, according to my notes, we told you we’d found an unidentified drug in her blood,” Dr. Pan says. “We’ve managed to identify the drug’s chemical components now, and we have a full report. Shall I have it sent by courier to the Bamford home?”
“Oh, um, no,” Leilani stammers. “I mean, I’ll come to the hospital personally to get it. Would you mind telling me what the drug is?”
“It’s a chemical reagent and toxin containing phosphate,” Dr. Pan says. “It can induce a coma, and it’s very difficult to reverse the effects. Now that we know this, we can design a treatment to try to reverse the effects of the drug.”
“Tell me, is it difficult to make the drug?” Leilani asks. “Could it be produced in your hospital’s labs, for example?”
“No, I don’t think it could,” Dr. Pan says. “Besides, if you’re worried someone has been drugging her, I assure you, she’s safe here. Based on the cell damage, she would have taken the drug two or three years ago.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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