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Colin.
I grind my molars together at the sound of his name.
The man himself—fuckingColin—steps to the side, putting himself in my view. His manner is calm, devoid of bullshit. “She didn’t.”
She throws a panicked glance at him, no doubt willing him to go back to hiding behind her. “We’re friends. Best friends.”
I keep my gaze fixed on her before I’m tempted to shoot his head off and splatter her white dress with his blood. “Is that why you wanted to marry him? Because he’s yourbestfriend?” My mouth twists with a sneer around the term of endearment. On second thought, maybe I should blow his brains out all over her. It’ll be a good lesson.
“Please,” she says again, bravely standing her ground.
“But us, we’re not friends,cara, are we?”
She pales, knowing exactly what I mean.
“Tell him,” I command. “Tell him why we’re not friends.”
Her slender throat bobs as she swallows. “Angelo, please.”
“Tell them why we’re so much more thanfriends,” I say, caressing that spot between her breasts with the barrel.
Her red, plump lips part, but no sound escapes.
“You want me to tell him?” The question is rhetorical. She’s shaking her head, begging me quietly even as I continue, “I already consummated our engagement when I fucked her on her eighteenth birthday.”
A gasp rises from the pew. Her mother.
“That’s right.” My words are as callous as my smile, but there’s no stopping them, no denying the claim I have on her or the need to prove it to all the witnesses present. “I already fucked her more than once. Isn’t that so,bella?”
A mixture of horror and shame transforms her features, but she doesn’t look at her family or herbest friend. She doesn’t look away from me.
A deathly quiet stretches in the space. Our dirty secret is laid out in the open. It takes time to process, I suppose.
“I’ll marry you.” She’s no longer throwing bait, tempting me like earlier. Her voice is raw. She sounds defeated. Humiliated. “Right now. Just let them go.”
Bargaining with a vow that’s rightfully mine is like trying to pay me with my own money. She needs to give me more. “Beg.”
She gapes. “What?”
“Get down on your knees and beg me.”
A pained look flashes across her face. “Angelo.”
“You heard me. If you want to marry me so badly, show me how much you want it.”
“Sabella,” Ryan says from the side.
My command is harsh. “Quiet.”
The kid starts crying.
“Get him and his mother out of here,” I tell one of the guards.
There’s a shuffle and a protest.
“Go,” Ryan says, his order both authoritative and gentle.
I can relate to that. I’m not a father, but I know my father would’ve done the same. He would’ve laid his life down for me.
