Chapter Thirty-Three

 

Anna had seen dresses more beautiful than this one. Once, when the prince got married. That was a unique case, though. It's not every day that royalty gets married, and you expect a certain amount of exorbitant attitudes.

But in this case, it's not royalty. What she'd done to deserve it, she can't begin to say. But she's got a lot to look forward to in either case. Such a beautiful dress. The wedding is sooner than she might like, but that happens. Sometimes you just have to accept it.

Josh's face pops into her head. It's not a good time. She shouldn't be thinking about him any more. She keeps it to herself. Mitch wouldn't be happy to hear that she'd been thinking about someone else.

More than that, though, is that in spite of herself, she doesn't want to stop. She doesn't want to get the lecture, though. Because if she gets the lecture, if she gets into the fight…

That all comes together to meaning that she needs to stop. She'll need to be corrected. He hates it when she tries to keep things from him after he's already found out about them.

So she'll have to make sure that he doesn't find out in the first place. It's the only way, really.

Anna swallows her pride and swallows her worry and looks at the dress and thinks about how wonderful it will look on the altar. How everyone will be looking up and seeing her. How perfect it will all be.

Josh will be beside her—she closes her eyes. No, that's not right. He won't. He'll be somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Not even in the same building. Probably not in the same city.

He'll be far away and he won't be thinking about her. Because nobody thinks about Anna. Nobody remembers her or wants to remember her, and that's just how it is. That's how it has to be. Because she's not special and she's not memorable. Not like other people.

She's just nobody. It was easy to think that she was special, somehow. Easy to fool herself. When she was all alone except for Ava, it was easy to think that she should be allowed to get some sort of ideas about who she could be.

Luckily for her, it hadn't taken more than a day or two of staying in the guest room at Mitch's place for her to remember her place. He hadn't looked at her much. He hadn't demanded that she do much of anything. That, at least, was nice.

She wasn't ready for that. Not with him. Not now.

Maybe there would come a time when she'd be able to think of him in that way again, but only a day after coming back into his life wasn't soon enough. She needed time to be able to build up to that part of their relationship again.

She needed time to be able to get everything figured out for herself. She needed to be able to think clearly, and that wasn't going to happen in the house right now. Mitch seemed to recognize that, and he's let her have her space.

She should thank him. But sometimes it's inappropriate to thank people for things. Particularly, Anna thinks, when they're doing the politeness of letting you keep your private thoughts private.

As much as he was a stickler for good manners when it came to doing the right things at the right times, he insisted just as much on making sure that you didn't do the wrong things at the wrong times.

In fact, he may have been more committed to that, on the whole. It was always better to stay silent, to stay in repose, than to do something that would upset Mitch. He could play off inaction as whatever he liked. He was very smart, and he was very capable of staying on his toes.

On the other hand, Anna wasn't smart at all. She was always messing things up. Always getting confused. She should have been with a smart guy like Mitch the whole time, to make sure that she stayed in line.

Josh was nice. He was comforting. There was a lot to like about him. But he didn't know her like Mitch did. He didn't know that she needed to be kept in check. He didn't know that she was too dumb for her own good, that she needed to be taught with a firm hand.

He didn't know that she was too dumb to be left to her own devices. He thought she was better than that. For a while, Linda almost had Anna believing it, too.

But he was wrong. They were all wrong. And now she remembered it.

A pin bites into the sensitive flesh in Anna's side. She does her best not to pull away. It only makes it hurt worse, if you pull away. It's better to just keep your arms up and take it for an instant.

"Ow," she says. She allows herself that much. The pin pulls back. It still stings even when they straighten it and it comes out the fabric on the other side.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" A woman who Anna's never seen before looks concerned. It's a strange expression to see on a stranger's face. A very strange one, in fact.

It's understandable, though. She's one of Anna's bridesmaids, and if she's a bridesmaid then she should be concerned. It's only proper.

Anna swallows her worries and her fears. There's nothing to be worried about, not any more. She's got everything under control.

Because now the only thing she has to have under control are her actions. It doesn't matter if she's nervous, not really. Mitch will take care of it.

It doesn't matter if she doesn't know what to do. She doesn't have much choice in the matter; Mitch will take care of it.

It doesn't matter, because as much as she thought she did, she doesn't matter. She should have learned that lesson by now, but she won't make that mistake again.

She's been reminded and she's in her place again and regardless of what she thought she wanted, it doesn't much matter any more. Mitch will make sure that she gets where she needs to be.

If he doesn't, then this woman—Anna thinks her name is Sarah—will. She looks awfully concerned, and awfully pretty. It'd be a shame to disappoint either of them.

Anna wonders idly whether or not Mitch has fucked her. It occurred to Anna before that he might have cheated on her. It had seemed perfectly natural at the time. Of course he would want to be with other women. Women who weren't fuck-ups like she was.

Now it almost threatens to light a fire of anger in her chest. She catches it before that becomes a serious risk. It might have consequences if she were to let herself think too much about it.

She's prepared to deal with consequences, if she has to. She's done things that she knew were wrong before, when it seemed important.

The truth is, this isn't important. She's not with Mitchell because she loves him. Part of her knows that the feeling is mutual. Mitch doesn't care a whole lot about anything or anyone.

But he cares a lot about appearances. Anna knows she's not good at many things. She's dumb, she can't remember anything. She never learns. She's too flighty, too emotional.

Mitch hasn't let her get far from knowing her flaws. It's one of her better strengths, that she knows so well how flawed she is.

But her best strength is being able to keep up appearances when she has to. Because that's the one that's always been the most important out of all of them.

She can keep herself looking like she's completely fine, even when she wants to break down and cry. Even when all she wants is just to go back to her little one-bedroom apartment and wake up to a dark-eyed man cooking her eggs and bacon.

She can even smile a little. She looks in the mirror. She looks like she's handling everything. It's all moving so fast, they might be able to see a little of the stress, but everyone will just write that off.

Of course she's stressed. Who wouldn't be? All the trouble that relationship's been having… haven't you heard? She can practically hear the gossip in her head now. It's nothing like, 'the poor dear, she looks like she's getting ready to cry.'

Just 'look at her, she looks like she's had a whole wedding to prepare for in only a couple of weeks.'

She's always been good at faking her appearance. It's one of her greatest talents, and now she's doing just as well as she ever has.

Which is good, in the long run. She's not sure that she's ready to try to figure anything else out right now. Because if she does, then she knows what she'll figure out. She'll figure out that the only thing keeping her away from that kitchen, with that dark-eyed man, is Mitch Queen.

And no matter how much she knows that he's the one responsible, it doesn't matter, because there's never going to be anything that she can do about it.

So it's better not to think about it. Just like she always did.

It's just better that way.