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“Starting tomorrow, I’ve upped your security team.” Zeno took over the task of dressing me, buttoning my blouse with deft fingers. “Whenever you step outside, keep that gun on you at all times. Understood?”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I pushed his hands away and slipped into my blazer, glaring at him. “I’m so sick and tired of you trying to control every aspect of my life.”
Zeno shrugged, not looking offended at my words. “Call it whatever you want, but I need to protect mypurchaseafter all.”
Any bridge we’d crossed, any intimacy we shared, evaporated away.
He really was an asshole.
Calling me a purchase brought my head back to the ground. I couldn’t ever forget his real motives, amazing orgasms aside.
“Get out, Zeno.” There was no strength to my voice and maybe that was more impactful. I caught his subtle flinch. When he didn’t move, I barked again, “Get out!”
He raised an eyebrow at my sternness, unaccustomed to my principal voice, before he left like a thief in the night.
This marriage hadn’t even begun, and I already felt at the end of my rope.
CHAPTER 17
I Do
Darla
Every girl who grew up with fairy tales coveted a happy ending, the final moment where the prince and the princess set off into the sunset with glee, knowing their story had only begun.
I would know. After all, I was an expert at creating happy endings for my characters so thousands of readers across the globe could find escapism between the pages.
It was almost laughable at its core. The girl whose bloodline was cursed with never finding true love spent hours penning fictional love as a means to cope with what she’d never have. As a way to imagine what it may be like if she had a prince of her own to keep forever.
I stopped seeing life through rose-tinted glasses around the time my ex-boyfriend Owen cheated on me. I was twenty-five years old and caught him in bed with our colleague. The cheat didn’t even have the gall to look embarrassed. He said it was my fault—saidmyneed to wait until marriage led him down this astray path, where he was forced to give in to his urges.
Two years ago, I gave up on the possibility of true love existing for me. I believed in it, I even witnessed it in the flesh—Ella and Cade were prime examples of two soulmates— but it wasn’t in the cards for me.
I’d been relatively quiet throughout the ride to the church and my bridal party— Dacia, Ella, Hera, Alberto, and Diane—chose to leave me alone. When the limousine rolled to a stop in front of the church, it was heavily cloaked with armed guards.
This wasn’t an occasion to celebrate.
This was a sentencing.
My girls clamoured out of the limousine and helped me, adjusting my veil and dress while my mother stood on the side, palms clasped in front of her like a jailer leading the sentenced to its prison.
“You look breathtaking,” Ella, my maid of honour, said with a watery smile.
I hugged her, needing her now more than ever. We used to dream about marrying our respective Prince Charmings. Funny how life didn’t always work out the way we wanted. “Thank you.”
“Fortune favours the brave,” Ella hushed in my ear.
“And the bold,” I added.
“Yes, and my girl is both. You’re going to go in there and show that motherfucker what you’re made of.”
Soon, I was climbing the church steps with my bridal party fussing over my train and the guards ushering us into the edifice with impatience.
I wasn’t religious and a court marriage would have sufficed. But I presumed some criminals had morals since Zeno insisted we marry here, by the hands of Father Domenico.
Ironic how those who sinned the most, preached the most.
“Are you ready?” Alberto whispered once we arrived at the closed double doors, smoothing his hands over his tux and white hair. He tried his best to keep it together, but I could tell he was emotional.
