Will took a step closer, leaning in conspiratorially. “Have you ever heard of the calm before the storm? That moment right before a tornado or large weather occurrence when everything goes completely still?”

“I think so,” I said, absolutely not liking the sound of that and how it could relate to Chloe, but curious despite myself. “Yeah.”

Will got this really intense expression, like everything he was about to tell you was the most fascinating thing he’d ever heard. He sort of bent at the knees, using his hands to gesture wildly, dramatically illustrating any point he might have. “So vapor and heat rise, drawn up toward the center of a storm. The updrafts remove some of the saturated air, forcing it up and over the highest clouds. You following me so far?” he asked. I nodded, feeling a thread of anxiety form in my chest.

“He’s getting to the fascinating part,” Max assured me.

“So you have all this air rising, but it compresses as it falls, leaving it warmer and dryer. Calm”—he said, pausing for effect—“resulting in a stable air mass, dampening cloud formation and leaving the air totally still. The calm before the storm.”

Max was already nodding; clapping Will on the back like he’d just explained the most clever analogy ever told.

I frowned. “What are you saying?”

Max reached out, put a solid grip on my shoulder. “What we’re saying, mate, is that you think you’re keeping your bird in check. But we’re all waiting for your little bomb to explode.”

I watched Chloe like a hawk the rest of the day, and as terrified as I was to admit it, Max and Will had a point.

She didn’t give me an ounce of fight when I got back to the room and showered alone. When I kissed her bare shoulder, she smiled at me warmly, but without the slightly terrifying look in her eyes like I would either be fucked to within an inch of my life or eaten for breakfast. She was wrapped in a towel, skin still damp from her shower as she blow-dried her hair. She didn’t comment on the fact that she was naked, she didn’t ask to “help” me get dressed. She didn’t ask me to fuck her once.

She was accommodating and loving, and I was completely confused.

When the waiter messed up her order at breakfast, she didn’t react. When her aunts insisted on following her around with a camera, going so far as to film her from the opposite side of the bathroom stall, she stayed calm. When my mother suggested Chloe wear her hair down instead of up for the ceremony, Chloe had only responded with a pained smile.

By this point I could practically smell the storm in the air, and we hadn’t even started the rehearsal yet.