Arranged love

Matteo was a sick son of a bitch growing up. The rumors about him at school would get a kid with lesser wealth thrown in prison for life, but the girls he chose to use never would step forward, and I hated it. The way he watched them walk by in the halls. The way he’d touch them without their permission, and they would physically shrink into themselves.

“You’re right. You won’t.” His eyes skim over my heaving chest, naked torso, and yoga pants-clad thighs. “But you will be a Bianchi, nonetheless.” He leans in closer, his lips nearly touching mine, and I have to swallow the bile that wants to rise at his closeness. He reeks of cigarettes and whores. The cheap kind. “And the Bianchis share everything they have.”

Is he talking about his brother?

I almost laugh. Luca didn’t want me then, and he won’t want me now. Not as his wife. If he was here, lying in my bed naked and hard, then his car being outside would maybe make sense. But this doesn’t.

I whip around to face my father once again, my loose hair slapping me in the face. “What the fuck is going on?” I shout, close to hysterics.

His face hardens. “Young lady, watch your language …”

I ignore him. “Tell me this is some kind of joke. Why are they really here?” I snap.

I know my father has done business with them in the past. But for Luca’s car to be out front is … unsettling, to say the least. He’s been gone for what feels like forever. Up and left me alone. He wouldn’t come back now. Not for me.

My father won’t look me in the eyes. He stares down at the papers in his hands, holding them out of my view. My heart pounds in my chest, and my voice breaks. “Daddy …”

“Haven.”

My chest tightens at the softness in his tone, and tears sting my eyes. “I won’t,” I say even though I’m sure that Matteo is lying. This has to be a mistake. A misunderstanding.

He slaps the edge of his desk with the papers. My father is a tall guy at six feet three. I’m only five feet four. But then again, I’m not his biological child. His dark blue eyes glare down at me, and I shrink back. “It’s done,” he growls. “I don’t wanna hear one more word from you!”

What’s done? I wonder, shaking my head, but I can’t make myself ask the words. A part of me knows, but I just don’t understand why. My father would never do this. I’ve gotten in trouble in the past with the police-had a couple of rowdy years-and I know I still live at home at twenty-four, but I’m not that big of a problem. He wouldn’t do this to get rid of me. Would he? “No.”

Marriage?

To Luca Bianchi?

Why now? Why him?

I look at his father. “He won’t agree to this.”

He looks me up and down the same way Matteo did and gives me a smile that would scare any grown man. “It was his idea.”

I take a step back from the desk, then another. I turn, yank open the door, and run out of his office. I stomp down the staircase, through the house, and out the back door. Tears run down my face, but I don’t stop as I run across the stone path yard. Then my shoes hit the patch of synthetic grass that my mother had my father put in years ago. I round the inground pool and come to the rock wall. I reach up, gripping a hold and place my shoes in an open slot. Looking up, I begin to climb, but I scream out, letting go and falling to my ass. Adding another bruise to my already black and blue body. I scramble back as the man I’ve tried so hard to forget jumps down from where he’s perched at the top. He was sitting in my favorite spot, waiting on me.

“Get back!” I shout.

Luca Bianchi stands before me with his hands tucked in his jeans. It’s May, and he has a black leather jacket on over his white T-shirt but has left it unzipped. He always wears it. Some would think it’s ’cause he’s cold natured, but I know it’s to hide the gun and holster he wears. Last time I saw him was almost two years in this very spot. He lied to me, and then he left me. No text. No letter. Nothing. It was a common occurrence.

For too long I’ve been playing this cat and mouse game.

He no longer looks like the boy I once fell in love with. He was always on the skinny side back then, but he’s filled out in all the right places. From what I can see, his arms are bigger, and he no longer shaves his face. He keeps it trimmed short, giving him a five o’clock shadow. And I hate how much I like it. How much it makes him look like a man.

His dark eyes rake over my bruised knees, my earlier fall leaving a hole in my yoga pants. Now the white spandex material is covered in blood along with dirt. Then they trail up my naked stomach and to my sports bra, and my nipples harden when he licks his luscious lips.

I cross my arms over my chest to try to cover them.

He grips his jeans-clad thighs, pulling them up to allow him to kneel before me. “Hello, Haven.”

Dread washes over me. Like a wave shoving me under the water, holding me hostage. “Why are you here, Luca? And don’t give me any bullshit.”

He tilts his head to the side, his eyes never leaving mine, and it makes me nervous. As if he’s searching for something. I was always an open book when it came to him. Not only could he read my thoughts, but he would use my body. I would spread my legs for him like an avid reader would turn the pages of a book.

My heart pounds, and my breathing increases. I think I’m gonna hyperventilate. Pass out.

“What do you mean by bullshit?” he asks.

He still takes me as a naïve woman who will believe everything he says. I’ve changed just as much on the inside as he has on the outside. My eyes narrow on him. “Cut the shit.”

He sighs. “I’m here to give you what you’ve always wanted.”

I eye him skeptically. The Bianchi men aren’t fucking genies. They don’t grant anyone a wish they want, unless it’s something they know that can benefit them. “What I’ve always wanted?”

He reaches into the pocket of his leather jacket. My mouth goes dry at the sight of a black velvet box. “Luca …”

“Me.”

The single word has tears stinging my eyes, and my chest tightens. I wanted this for so long. For him to love me and want me. But it’s a lie, and I won’t live a life based on a lie. Not with him. Not for anyone.

“This is your favorite place.” He gestures to the rock wall. I used to love to climb it before jumping into the pool. “This is where I first kissed you. Where I first told you I loved you.” I flinch at those words. Just more lies. “Where I first fucked you …”

“I get it!” I snap, pushing to my feet, and take a step back from him. He rises too and grips the box in his hand. My face tells him all he needs to know, and he is not pleased.

“I won’t marry you.” I shake my head, forcing my lips to say the words out loud no matter how much it hurts my heart. He’s all I’ve ever wanted.

“This isn’t up for debate,” he growls.

My head is spinning. I can’t understand why he is here. Why he all of a sudden wants me. And to be his wife of all things. “Luca …”

“Do you know what I had to do to make this happen?”

My fear quickly turns to anger. What he had to do? “Don’t try to make this sound like you want me,” I snap. “This is only to benefit you in some way.”

“Haven …”

“Or you would have married me two years ago …” Tears sting my eyes.

“That was a long time ago,” he says through gritted teeth.

“It still happened.” I throw my arms out wide. “Right here in this very spot.”

“Yes, and I regret it,” he snaps.

My chest tightens at his words, and the first tear falls. His narrowed eyes soften, and he runs a hand through his dark hair, the action opening his leather jacket and showing me the black grip of his gun. My eyes go to his when he releases a sigh.

“I didn’t mean that.”

I swallow around the massive lump in my throat and try to control my breathing and calm my racing heart. I don’t want to show him how much his words hurt me. I gave up on us a long time ago. But every time I finally felt ready to move on, he’d enter my life, and I’d fall back into his trap like the weak woman I am.

I hate it.

I hate myself.