Chapter 31 Resurrection
RORY POV
It’s the wedding day. Or should I say the get together like my husband said?
I hadn’t seen him at all today. Not even yesterday after I slept in his bed. I didn’t know why I longed to see him. It was weird. Everything about what I was feeling lately was weird.
The "ceremony" isn't until 10:00 PM, which feels more like a midnight mass than a wedding. The maids have spent the entire day carving me into a new shape. They changed my nails to a shimmering, cold silver, they applied light makeup on my face and they styled my hair into a sophisticated wave.
But it’s the dresses that make my stomach turn. They brought in several short, white gowns, each one more revealing than the last. The uneasiness in my heart won’t lift. I feel like an intruder preparing to walk into a lion's den filled with people who already despise me.
And the words Rosemary had thrown at me the night before still hurt so much I had refused her help all day. She had been a total bitch. She didn’t get to act nice now.
I hadn’t seen Liam all day because of the preparations. I slipped away to his room during a break and found him sitting on his bed packing toys into a small bag. He looked almost sad.
“Hey buddy. Going somewhere?”
He nodded without looking up.
“Where are you going? You should stay for the ceremony. I want you here.”
“Daddy said it’s better I go to my uncle,” he said quietly. “He said bad people might come today.”
My heart sank.
Alexander was sending Liam away because he was afraid something might happen. At his own wedding.
“Will you be okay with your uncle?” I said. “I’ll miss you Liam.” I pulled him into a hug and held on.
He hugged me back tight. “It’s okay Rory. I’ll miss you too. But I’ll see you in my dreams.”
The words warmed me for a second, until I remembered his nightmares, "do you see your mummy in your dreams too?"
I asked softly as I helped strap the small bag to his back.
He nodded. “I see her in my bad dreams.”
“What does she look like?” I asked.
A small silence stretched between us. I felt his body go slightly tense.
“Like you,” he said.
My brow furrowed. “In what manner?” I asked, confused.
“She lo—”
“We have to go. Time is running.”
Luke barged through the door cutting Liam off completely. I looked up at him. He was already looking somewhere past me the way he always did,like acknowledging me directly was something he had decided against.
“Hi,” I said.
He gave me one stiff nod. Face hard. Unmoved.
Of course. He didn’t like me either.
“See you Rory,” Liam waved as he followed Luke out.
“Can I get a different dress? I don’t remember picking this one.” I wrinkled my nose at the dress one of the staff, Jane was holding up.
It was a short, white gown encrusted with diamonds that caught the light like shards of glass. It looked tiny. There was no way this would hide my curves, if anything, it was designed to put them on display. I had picked a long, flared gown that started at the waist, something that made me feel safe.
“Mr. Miller picked this one himself, ma’am. He was very specific.”
Of course he was. I can’t even choose the fabric on my own back without his shadow looming over me.
I huffed in frustration, but I knew the drill: wear the dress or Jane loses her job.
I stepped into the closet and struggled into the gown.
“Jane? I need help with the back.”
She stepped in and began tugging at the laces. I realized then it wasn't just a dress, it was a corset. As she tightened it, I felt my breath hitch. When I finally turned to the mirror, I gasped.
I looked like I belonged on the cover of a high-fashion magazine.
Okay, maybe I'm pushing it a bit.
The dress was strapless, the corset pushing my breasts up until they were nearly spilling over the plunging neckline. The hem stopped dangerously high above my knees, exposing the length of my legs in the Jimmy Choo lace heels. I looked bold. I looked expensive. I looked like a target.
“You look beautiful, ma’am,” Jane whispered. She clipped a heavy silver necklace around my throat. It felt like a collar.
A knock at the door.
It opened before I answered.
Rosemary.
I rolled my eyes the moment I saw her face. She looked at me with something low and guilty in her expression.
“It’s time ma’am,” she said quietly.
I turned to Jane instead. “Shall we go Jane?”
Jane nodded. I took her hand and walked out without looking at Rosemary again.
Two security guards I recognized were already waiting outside my door.
“We’ll escort you to the ballroom,” one of them said.
There was a ballroom. Of course there was a ballroom. What else was in this building that I didn’t know about.
As the double doors swung open, the sound of a hundred conversations hit me. The room was filled with the elite, powerful men in black silk suits and women dripping in jewels.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the host’s voice boomed over the speakers, “let us welcome the reason we are here tonight... MRS. MILLER!”
The entire room pivoted. A hundred pairs of eyes locked onto me.
Gasps rippled through the air like a physical wave. The music didn't stop, but the conversation did. People were staring at me with expressions of pure, unadulterated horror.
Do I look that bad? I wondered, my hand flying to my throat.
They were murmuring. All of them at once, lips moving, conversations erupting across the room so fast and from so many directions that I couldn’t string a single sentence together from any of them. I tried reading lips and got nothing, too many mouths, too many words, all of them seeming to say the same thing I couldn’t catch.
I closed my eyes for one second.
Please. Someone get me out of here.
When I opened them an older couple was moving toward me through the crowd.
They looked like they were in their sixties, dressed in old-money elegance. But their faces... they were twisted with shock and a pain so deep it made my blood run cold.
The woman reached out a trembling hand, her eyes filling with tears as she looked at my face.
“Anastasia!” she choked out, her voice a broken wail that silenced the entire room. “Oh, my Anastasia! It’s you! You’ve come back to us!”