Chapter 12: The Dress

The dressmaker arrived at ten with three assistants and four garment bags.

Marissa had turned the east drawing room into a fitting salon.

There was a tall mirror on a stand and a round stool in the middle of the carpet.

"Strip to your slip, dear," Marissa said. "We want to see the line."

I stood on the stool in my slip, and one assistant strapped the silicone belly around my waist.

It was heavy and warm, and it smelled of rubber.

I looked at my reflection, a flat-stomached woman in a pad that said five months, and I kept my face still.

"Perfect," Marissa said, circling me. "Look how natural it sits."

"It does look natural," I said.

My voice was perfectly steady, and she smiled at me approvingly.

Jonas stood at the door with his hands behind him and his eyes on the opposite wall.

Under his sleeve I could see the white edge of the bandage I had wrapped.

Nobody else in the room knew what that bandage meant.

"Now me," Marissa said.

The assistants helped me out of the pad and strapped it onto her.

She turned sideways in the mirror and put both hands on the swell.

She looked at herself with an expression I had never seen on her face.

It was real longing.

It made me angrier than anything she had ever said.

"It's lovely," she whispered. "Lawson will cry."

"I'm sure he will," I said.

Then she held out her left hand and wiggled her fingers.

"Annabel, dear, may I borrow your ring? Just to see how it looks with the dress."

I looked at my wedding ring, a Draper heirloom, a square emerald in old gold.

Lawson had slid it onto my finger three years ago without once looking at my face.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Deceived Me, So I Destroyed His Family's Legacy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.