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I sat before Bianca in a crowded restaurant as she just looked at me with her eyes wide open and a hint of judgment in them. She then looked around to see Nikolai's soldiers standing all around the restaurant. Her lips pressed into a thin line as if she was disappointed in me or something.
I shifted in my seat, clearly uneasy by the way she was looking at me and the way she was reacting like I had committed a crime.
"Say something!" I snapped at her.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Um... wow."
I rolled my eyes. "Really? That's all you got to say?"
"You're not Evangeline anymore, you're Mrs. Nikolai Costello," she moved her finger around the restaurant, gesturing toward Nikolai's men. "I can clearly see that!"
I cringed at the way she uttered that sentence, she said it like I'm not a normal human being anymore. "I'm still Evangeline, B."
"No, you're not. In our world that makes you my queen. I don't know what our friendship status is anymore. What I can say or cannot say to you," she said, looking pissed off.
"It doesn't mean I'm not the same person anymore, B. It's still me, and I'm still your friend. Me being married to Nikolai doesn't have to change things between us. You know I wouldn't involve Nikolai in our friendship," I explained to her.
She reached over the table and held my hand that was resting over it. "Is Nikolai abusing you, blackmailing you with something?"
My eyes widened at her words. "Abusing me? No! What the hell, B?"
"What did he do to you?"
My frown deepened. "What do you mean?"
She heaved a sigh. "What does he have against you? How did he manage all this? I know he must have done it to get out of his marriage to Grace. So, did he blackmail you, forced you, abused you in any way?"
I rolled my eyes at the absurdity of her words. "Do I look like a girl that had been forced into anything?"
A crinkle appeared between her brows. "Are you saying that you got married to him willingly?"
I nodded. "Yes..."
"Why? Why would you marry Niko, Evangeline? Do you have any idea what you got yourself into? He probably manipulated you into getting married to him just so he doesn't have to marry Grace. He never liked her and you were probably his way out. What? He said two sweet words to you and you fell right into his trap? You are too innocent for someone like him."
Something about her words rubbed me the wrong way. She was clearly insinuating that Nikolai only married me as a way out. I'm surprised how it didn't even cross her mind that we could actually have feelings for one another.
"It was not a trap, he didn't manipulate me. We did this because we wanted to, Bianca. Why is it so hard for you to believe that Nikolai married me because he wanted me? He didn't have any hidden agenda or whatever. Nikolai wanted me, not Grace," I snapped as I looked around the crowded café, making sure to keep my voice low.
