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“But I’m just getting started in New York.”
Why did I even bother arguing? Dadknowsthat he can usually get me to do what he wants, butthis…
“We have supported your dream,” Dad snapped, a little angrier then. I hated making him mad, but this was my life. “I let you go to America, to do your nursing. I even funded that clinic you work in, to make sure it can open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, so you can work with the needy.”
“But I’ve repaid you, Dad. I’ve given you tip offs about anything in the city that might affect the mob. Every single time I’ve heard something from the people I’ve worked with, I’ve passed the information over to you. Haven’t I proven myself enough to you?”
Dad sighed, staring at me like I was the biggest disappointment in his life. As his only daughter, I haven’t received that look much, so it sucked to deal with.
“Emma, you know how it is. Everyone has a role to play. Your brothers are all playing their part, giving themselves over to the Family. You need to as well.”
“But…”
Dad rolled his eyes, unimpressed with my rejection. “This is your destiny, Emma. This is what you were born for. To help the Family in any way that you can. This is how you play your part.”
The sexist nature of the way this conversation went still sickens me to this day—the way my brothers have been actively made a part of the mob, and my role is just to ‘get married’, using my life as a business transaction.
I don’t want to be in the mob. I want to be a nurse.
Why can’t I be just that?
I left on bad terms with my family, promising to think about it.
But I don’t need to think about it. I already know I don’t want to be married to anyone picked out for me. I want to marry for love, not for some bullshit arrangement.
How does that benefit me?
To marry a drunk womanizer who will never love me, means I’ll also have to give up the life I live here. My work in New York, the people I know in the city.
I’ll have to sacrifice everything that makes me who I am.
Somehow, I’m going to have to get out of that arrangement. Now that my original plan has flown out the window, I don’t know what I’ll do.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and Rickie will find someone else while I’m trapped here.
I might as well getsomebenefits from being kidnapped.
With a deep sigh, I flick my eyes open, and I take my time washing my body while I try to push the past into the background, and focus on the reality I’m dealing with right now.
The reality that involves Owen freaking Jackland.
I don’t knowwhatI’m going to do with this man, especially after that intense moment in the kitchen.
He told me he was going topunish me, but he didn’t elaborate, allowing my imagination to run away with me. I keeppicturing all the ways in which he could tell me off for being abad girl.
“What is wrong with you?” I mutter to myself as I finally climb out the bath. “Stop having these silly little daydreams. This man kidnapped you.”
But even with the ankle monitor and the electrified doors, I don’t reallyfeellike I’ve been kidnapped. Not when I can do what I want in this cabin, and say what I want too. Not when Owen has made the effort to get me a wardrobe filled with clothing in my size.
It’s not how I imagined being kidnapped would be.
Not that I’ve spent a lot of time imagining being kidnapped, of course.
I throw a robe over me, not bothering to dress, because what’s the point in that? It isn’t like I’m going anywhere, is it? If it wasn’t for the scent of food, I would have just gone to bed.
But I’m lured into the kitchen where Owen is cooking again.
Half naked.
