Red Reaper - Soldiers of Fortune [book one]

Chapter TWENTY

Lucky O'Cléirigh

... a few days later ...

I check my anxious reflection in the bedroom mirror for the hundredth time, contemplating a third change of clothes and a prescription sedative for my shredded nerves.. Smoothing my hands down the front of the tight white princess dress, made of lace and ribbons, I wonder out loud to myself if maybe the puritanical colour is a little too desperate.. "Crap.. I can't wear white! He's gonna think I'm hinting at something!"

Wait.. Am I hinting at something?

Damn it Lucky!

What am I thinking?

I can't go on a date looking like this!

I have lost all control of my subconscious, unable to keep it from creating all these fantasies about the future.. All these dreams sneak their way into everything I do and say and the fear of my desperation to be loved being seen becomes a dread that sits at the very front of my thoughts..

I don't want Konstantin to think I'm marriage crazy just because I want to wait..

I mean.. I am a little crazy, but that is beside the point..

Maybe I should call Konstantin and reschedule.. After Everything Brody had said and Wren rattling my cage so hard, I don't exactly feel like myself.. Actually, I haven't felt like myself in such a long time. I'm not even sure who it is I am..

I'm not so sure I've ever known..

"Ugh! No!" With a groan of self doubt I rush back into the closet and begin rifling through the hangers to find something that is less bridal and more breezy..

With a determined effort to refocus on the night ahead, a night that I have been looking forward to for so long.. I make a conscious decision not to let other men ruin the one chance I have with the man I really want.. I select a casual black shift dress but before I can try it on there is a loud knock at the door and I am out of time, stuck wearing the white and freaking out about how it will be interpreted..

Maybe he will think it's cute?

Or maybe he will think I am a maniac..

There's only one way to find out..

-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-

I slip into a pair of strappy silver sandals and brush my beachy honeycomb curls back from my face, taking a few deep breaths before I flounder across the living room to the door.. When I pull it open and find the Big Russian Bear, looking fine in a charcoal grey suit, I just about squeak in pleasure at the sight as all bad thoughts fall right out of my head to hit the floor..

It's impossible for me not to be happy when I see him..

He is the most handsome man to ever walk the earth, I'm sure, with his coffee coloured eyes that melt into mine and his carved from olive stone square jawline.. Though he looks even neater tonight than usual, his beard is trimmed tidy and close and his onyx hair is glossed back..