And every time he pushed—I’d pulled harder.

I DIDN’T BUY anything seductive or alluring for our dinner out, like Troy had ordered. In fact, I refused to leave the kitchen, drowning my frustrations in making food. Tons and tons of food. I used all the ingredients in the cupboards and fridge, and spent the day fussing over food for the shelter.

Hours of solitary cooking made me finally come to terms with the gravity of my situation. Until last night, I hadn’t exactly been sure what was happening. I hadn’t fully digested the fact that I had married this man.

But now it was real.

And it was scaring the hell out of me.

Connor was pacing back and forth in the living room, talking on the phone. I was almost tempted to use the opportunity to try and run away. Then again, where the hell would I go? My dad would hand me right back to Brennan, fearing the consequences of thwarting his boss. I couldn’t burden Lucy with my presence, and no loan shark was going to hand me enough to flee town, seeing as they all knew my husband or one of his family members, and at the very least, didn’t want to mess with him.

At four p.m., Maria stormed into the kitchen with a face like thundercloud, informing me that it was time to clean up all the mess I'd made and that I had to evacuate her kitchen before she grabbed me by the hair and did it herself (not in so many words, but her shouting in Spanish and hand waving certainly implied it). She was extra pissed off today, with a dash of furious, because she had a double shift both at Andrea’s and at Troy’s. Apparently he spilled some OJ in his study earlier in the morning, and of course, his hands were too precious to clean up the mess himself. Now she had to clean my mess, too.

She announced that Mr. Brennan would pick me up at eight p.m. from the lobby of our building and that I should be ready in an evening gown. I snorted into my chest, deeply focused on packing a double batch of mac and cheese. The amount of food I’d prepared could probably feed a whole army, and not a small one either. But cooking was therapeutic, and I needed a way to distract myself from my reality. From him.

“I don’t have an evening gown,” I grumbled, pivoting to the oven and taking out the coconut pies. I only had one little black dress in my closet. I wore it to weddings, funerals and I was planning to wear it to my first-ever date tonight. Anything in-between didn’t require fancy attire. In my opinion anyway.

“Too late to go buy,” she barked at me, disappointed with my inability to follow simple instructions from my husband. “What do you do? Mr. Brennan will be mad!”

“He’s always mad.”

Maria let out an exasperated sigh and turned around, fishing her cell phone out of her apron. She pressed the phone to her ear and shot me an annoyed glare. When the person on the other line answered, she started talking to them animatedly in Spanish. I wiped my hands on my pants, mildly interested in this turn of events.

Finally, after a few minutes, she hung up on the person and wiggled her finger at me. “My daughter will give you nice dress. She your size. But you no dirty it and you give back after dry clean. Comprende?”

I nodded, a little shocked and a lot relieved. I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why she’d want to help me. Either way, I was glad Brennan would see me in something presentable and perhaps give me this job.

“Thanks, I guess.” I followed her movements as she began cleaning up after me.

“You,” she said furiously, scrubbing pans and shielding me away from helping her with her shoulder, “are little girl. He,” she continued, pointing upstairs with her chin to where the bedroom was, “a big, powerful man. You no annoying him, or he dump your ass.”

I couldn’t help but break into a laugh. “Dump your ass” was just about the funniest thing Maria had ever said to me.

I shook my head and walked to her, pouting my apology. “You’re right. And please don’t clean after me. I can do this myself.” I carefully tried to pry a dirty pan from her hand.

She rolled her eyes and elbowed me away. “Let me clean, silly girl.”

I packed up all the food that I'd made and dispatched it to the homeless shelter, via a taxi and a big tip from Connor, who refused to let me deliver it myself.

I didn’t get to meet Maria’s daughter. She left the cocktail dress for Connor to pick up in the lobby along with a pair of high heels while I was in the shower. Those, too, were exactly my size. When I walked into the bedroom, the gown was already laid out on Troy’s big bed. It was a peach-colored and sleeveless, with a sweetheart neckline and a thin gold belt.