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“Preferences?”

“Location, flowers, music.” When she blinks again, I hold up a hand. “We can discuss details later.”

“I assumed we’d have a civil ceremony. Something quick and efficient.”

“A small ceremony is fine. But I want my mother in attendance.”

“Your mother?” she repeats faintly.

“My mother never thought she would see me get married or have a grandchild.”

I can easily imagine her joy as she watches me say my vows, as long as she doesn’t know the true reason behind them. It’s been years since her breakdown, the one that finally penetrated my wall of anger and helped me get myself under control. But I hear the long-ago echo of her sobs in the principal’s office after being called away from work yet again to come get me after a fight. Can still feel the panic when she hadn’t been able to stop crying and the principal had called for an ambulance. Can stillsee her eyes when I visited her in the hospital, her gaze made vacant by medication and exhaustion.

“She doesn’t know about the will or the paintings. We’re going to keep it that way.”

Alessandra arches a brow at the firmness in my tone. But she doesn’t push.

“We could get married in private and just tell her after.”

My lips quirk. “How is it that you weren’t afraid to be lawyer to the devil himself but the thought of saying your vows in front of my mother has you quaking?”

“Because Lucifer was business. Your mother…” She shakes her head. “Tomorrow. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

Part of me wants to reach out to her, to run my fingers over her temples and smooth her tangled hair back from her face. A far more intimate touch than just sex. A line I crossed with her once before. Never again.

“Tomorrow then.”

She goes inside, leaving me alone on the terrace as I mentally compile a checklist of things that will need to happen in the next week, from finalizing the details of the ceremony to updating my will and creating a prenup.

I glance over my shoulder. A light comes on in her room. Her shadow appears in the window. My jaw tightens as her shadow moves, pulling her dress up over her head and—

I turn my back on the penthouse and stand on my terrace a quarter mile above the street below, gazing out over a city of eight million people. A sight that normally makes me proud, the skyscrapers and lights and endless stream of traffic a visual reminder of all I’ve overcome and conquered to get to the top.

But tonight, my thoughts aren’t on my accomplishments or future goals. They’re focused on the woman who’s just agreed to be my wife.

CHAPTER SIX

Alessandra

A blanket ofpillowy white covers most of New York City, broken here and there by a tower or skyscraper defiantly pushing through the clouds. With the sea of white below me and the sky above colored the same shade of blue as a robin’s egg, the view can only be described as magical.

My tired sigh fills the room. The same can’t be said for my wedding. In four hours, I will legally be Mrs. Michail Sullivan, saying false vows in front of Michail’s mother and brothers. My former clients.

God, I just want this day to be over.

Michail asked me again yesterday over breakfast if I was sure there wasn’t anyone I wanted to invite. My abrupt no shut down any further conversation. I can only imagine the reactions, not to mention judgments, I’d get if I invited anyone from Kingston. My grandmother is still alive, but I haven’t spoken to her in twenty-four years. I saw her at Mom’s funeral, which surprised me. She didn’t talk to me, though, which wasn’t a surprise. She’d placed me in the same category as my father before I was even born; someone who had ruined my mother’s future.

Michail wouldn’t understand. His mother is still an important part of his life. I was surprised he invited Rafael and Gavriil. Obviously things have changed between those threesince I saw them all together at the will reading. Despite Michail’s grizzly bear personality, he has people in his life who care about him.

I don’t. I’ve kept people at arm’s length for so long, telling myself that time with my mother, the occasional happy hour with coworkers and my career would be enough. That one day I’d get around to dating, to working on those trust issues and open myself up to love, to marriage and a family of my own.

Now it’s too late. I’m hitting all the milestones I’d dreamed of as a little girl, dreams I hadn’t even realized I still harbored, and I have no one to share it with.

Everyone coming to the wedding knows Michail and I are expecting a child together. But only Rafael and Gavriil and their wives know about the marriage clause. I don’t know who I’m more nervous about seeing: my future husband’s mother or his half-brothers he just learned about three months ago? I’d only met with Rafe and Gavriil a few times during my tenure with Lucifer, but they’d always treated me with respect, even appreciation for taking on their beast of a father. How will they treat me now after learning that their father’s estate lawyer had a one-night stand with their illegitimate half-brother and is now pregnant with their nephew?

I groan. When did my life become a soap opera?

A knock sounds on my door, breaking through my melancholy thoughts.