by LJ Shen
“You will also have your engagement ring on at all times.”
“Or what?” I challenged, my voice shaking.
“Or I’m taking you to elope in Vegas, setting off a chain reaction of pregnancy rumors that will not do your family any good.”
I sucked in a breath, realizing for the first time what we were.
A story of a Nemesis and a Villain with no chance at a happy ending.
Where the prince doesn’t save the princess.
He tortures her.
And the beauty doesn’t sleep.
She’s stuck.
In a nightmare.
Three hours later, we walked through the doors of a ballroom situated at the Madison, one of the glitziest hotels in Chicago. With a cool wind, the twinkling buildings of the Magnificent Mile and the red Michigan Avenue Bridge reminded me that I was still in my favorite city, breathing hope into my body.
I wore an off-the-shoulder blue Armani gown that highlighted my eyes and had my hair twisted in a Dutch braid.
Ms. Sterling practically squeaked when she did my hair and makeup, reminding me just how much I missed Clara. Home was just across town, but it felt like oceans away. Things I loved and lived for—my parents, my garden, horseback riding—were untouchable. A distant memory that grew an inch farther away every second of the day.
With his dazzling all-black suit, my fiancé put a possessive hand on the small of my back and led me through the entrance of the reception area. Crystal chandeliers and curved stairways greeted us. The room was hued milk and honey, the marble floor a checked black and white. We hadn’t been invited to the ceremony at the Bishop’s local church and spent the drive here in a silence that shredded my nerves. Senator Keaton hardly shared the sentiment. In fact, he answered emails on his phone, barked orders to his young driver, Smithy, and pretended I wasn’t there.
The only attention he did give me was when he noted, “That’s not the dress I told you to wear.”
“Would you be surprised to hear I have a mind of my own?” I stared out my window as the vehicle slowed through Chicago’s downtown traffic. “After all, I’m nothing but a sheltered teenager.”
“And a disobedient one, too,” he said.
“A terrible bride,” I concluded.
“I can tame a dozen of you before breakfast.”
The minute we sauntered through the glitzy wide doors, people began to swarm around Wolfe as though he was the groom himself. He drew me close to him by the waist, making a jolt of heat travel down my belly as he smiled and made polite conversation with his admirers. His personality outside the walls of his house or his car was completely different, his charm turned up to an eleven. With his two bodyguards huddling behind us, he oozed wide grins and polite conversation. A far cry from the formidable man I lived with.
The first people to set us apart and corner us into a private tête-à-tête was a fifty-something politician couple who came all the way from DC. Wolfe introduced me as his future bride, then chided me with a good-natured sneer. “Don’t be shy. Show them the ring.”
I stood frozen, my heart pushing through my throat and ready to jump out of my mouth before Wolfe pried my hand from the side of my body and showed them the huge engagement band. The woman grasped my hand, examined it, then slapped her chest.
“Oh, it is so perfect. How’d he propose?” She batted her eyelashes at me, the suspense obviously killing her. That was my chance to ruin all of Wolfe’s hard work. I grinned, moving my hand slowly, letting the diamond catch the lights in the room and blind everyone in our vicinity.
“On the steps of the Art Institute. My poor fiancé made a spectacle of himself. Tore his dress pants from behind as he went down on one knee. His entire butt was on full display.” I sighed, not daring to look up at his reaction.
“You did not!” The man burst out laughing, clapping Wolfe’s shoulder. The woman snorted and flashed Wolfe a smile open with both admiration and lust. I chanced a look at Wolfe and saw his lips thinning in irritation. Unlike them, he did not find my story entertaining.
Their reaction put me in my element, though, and I couldn’t wait to pull this trick again. For a moment, I considered he might tell them I was lying. But that wasn’t Wolfe’s style. It was an easy way out, and he looked like the kind of man to take the long, winding road to victory.
“It was worth the hassle.” He grinned down at me, pulling me so close to him, I thought his body was going to swallow mine whole. “Besides,” he hissed only for me to hear, his warm, minty breath tickling the side of my neck, “if my bride knew me even a little, she’d know I never kneel.”
For a while, all we did was break the news of our engagement as more and more people came to congratulate us, thereby ignoring the newly wedded couple. Bishop Junior and his bride didn’t seem to care the attention wasn’t directed at them. In fact, they looked so happy, their eyes twinkling with love, that I couldn’t help but feel even more angry toward Wolfe for depriving me of being with my true love. Senator Wolfe Keaton paraded me like a royal horse around the room, showing me off as though I was an asset. My stomach churned and whined in hunger, and it took everything in me not to sway by his side like a shaking leaf. To make matters worse, Wolfe nudged me when I needed to smile, dragged me into his embrace when I drifted away, and volunteered me to servitude on three different charity events in the upcoming months.
Attractive women giggled and slipped their numbers into his hand as they came to congratulate us on separate occasions, thinking I wouldn’t notice. One of them, a UN ambassador, even reminded him about their marvelous time in Brussels two years ago and hinted at staying in town for a while.
“We should grab a drink. Catch up,” the mahogany-haired beauty suggested in her syrupy-sweet French accent. He flashed her an Angelo smile. The kind that rearranged the molecules in the air and made your heart flutter.
“I’ll have my secretary get in touch with yours tomorrow morning.”
Bastard.
People praised our engagement and seemed to be comfortable with our age gap. In fact, other than Preston Bishop himself, who was at our table the night of the masquerade and witnessed the verbal bashing Wolfe Keaton had offered me, no one challenged our sudden engagement. Even Bishop settled for a raised eyebrow.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” he said.
“It is, isn’t it?” Wolfe retorted. “Life seems to be full of them.”
His words were casual but held a deeper meaning I wasn’t privy to.
Each time I’d been introduced to Wolfe’s peers, I came up with a different story for our engagement.
“He forgot his words, then developed a sudden lisp. He had to write them down, and even that had a few grammatical errors. It was so endearing.”
“The proposal was so romantic. He asked my father for my hand, the old-fashioned way, and I was so touched when he started crying when I said yes. He was bawling, actually, weren’t you, Wolfey? Nothing a Xanax and a piña colada couldn’t fix. Of course, I’d never have dreamt that this was my future husband’s favorite cocktail.”
“I’m so excited to be marrying a senator. I’ve always wanted to visit DC. Did you know that Nirvana was from Washington? Oh, wait, honey, that’s not the same Washington, now, is it?”
I was relentless. Even when Wolfe turned from mildly annoyed to positively furious, the tic of his jaw suggesting he was going to snap at me the minute we were alone, I kept spewing nonsense I knew would embarrass him. And he—the perfect gentleman in public—kept chuckling softly and backing me up, all while redirecting the conversation to work and the upcoming elections.
Being introduced to half of Chicago’s high society proved to be a time sucker. So much so that I didn’t have time to look for my parents. After what seemed like hours, Wolfe and I finally made our way to our table. I slid into my chair, swallowing hard and trying not to swoon from lack of food. Keaton draped his arm across the back of my chair, brushing my bare shoulder with his fingers. The freshl
y married couple was at their central table, making a toast. We were seated next to another senator, two diplomats, and the former secretary of state. My eyes began to drift among the tables, searching for my family. I knew I would find them after dessert was served and when the dancing started, but I longed for a glimpse of Mama.
I found my parents seated at the table across the room. Papa looked his usual formidable, cutthroat self; the only signs of wariness were the dark circles framing his eyes. Mama looked put together as always, but I noticed the small things no one else would. The way her chin wobbled as she spoke with the woman sitting across from her, or the way her hand shook when she reached for her glass of wine. Next to them sat Angelo’s parents, and next to them…
My heart stilled, swelling behind my ribcage like a balloon about to burst.
Angelo brought a date. Not just any date, but the date. The one everyone had been expecting him to bring.
Her name was Emily Bianchi. Her father, Emmanuel Bianchi, was a well-known businessman and an undeclared member of The Outfit. Emily was twenty-three with silky blond hair and glorious cheekbones. Tall and busty, she could fit my slender, tiny frame in her palm. She was the closest thing to Italian-American royalty after me, but since she was Angelo’s age, their connection was expected—almost prayed for—among the families of The Outfit.
I’d met her plenty of times before, and she always treated me with a blend of boredom and dismissal. Not exactly rude but impolite enough to let me know that she didn’t like the amount of attention I was getting. It didn’t help that Emily went to school with Angelo, and that she absolutely despised me for spending my summers with him.
She wore a skintight black maxi dress with a deep slit that ran along her right thigh and was adorned with enough gold around her neck and through her ears to open a pawn shop. She had her hand clasped above Angelo’s as she made conversation with the people around her. A small, possessive gesture he did not reject. Not even when his eyes wandered across the room and landed on mine, locking us together in a weird battle in which no one would win.
I stiffened in my chair, my heart jackhammering against my sternum.
Air. I needed more air. More space. More hope. Because what I saw in his eyes frightened me more than my soon-to-be husband. It was complete and utter acceptance of the situation.
They were both in their twenties.
They were both beautiful, single, and from the same social circle.
They were both ready for marriage. Game over for me.
“Francesca?” One of the diplomats whose name I didn’t catch chuckled into his napkin, trying to draw my attention back to the conversation at the table. I broke away from Angelo’s gaze and blinked, looking back and forth between the old man and my future husband. I could see Wolfe’s jaw tensing with frustration that had built throughout the evening and knew he hadn’t missed the moment I’d shared with my childhood friend.
I smiled apologetically, smoothing my dress.
“Could you repeat the question, please?”
“Care to tell us how Senator Keaton popped the question? I have to say, he never struck me as the over-romantic type,” he chortled, stroking his beard like a Harry Potter character. I didn’t even have it in me to taunt Wolfe. I was too caught up in the fact that my life was officially over, and Angelo was going to marry Emily, therefore fulfilling my worst nightmare.
“Yeah, of course. He…he…proposed to me on the…”
“Staircase to the museum,” Wolfe clipped, chucking my chin in faux affection that made my skin crawl. “I don’t know what I did to deserve her passionate kiss. You stole my breath.” He turned to me, his grays on my blues, two pools of beautiful lies. People gasped around us, enchanted by the magnetic power of his expression as he stared at me. “I stole your heart.”
You stole my first kiss.
Then my happiness.
And finally, my life.
“T-that’s right.” I dabbed my neck with a linen napkin, suddenly too nauseous and weak to fight back. My body was finally crumpling under the strain of not eating for days. “I will never forget that night,” I said.
“Me neither.”
“You make a beautiful couple,” someone remarked. I was too dizzy to even tell if they were male or female.
Wolfe smirked, raising his tumbler of whiskey to his lips.
Defying him purposely—and undoubtedly stupidly—I allowed my eyes to drift back to the table where I longed to sit. Emily was now grazing her French-manicured fingernails along Angelo’s blazered arm. Angelo looked down at her face, his mouth breaking into a grin. I could see how she defrosted him to the idea of them. How she lowered his guard, one touch at a time.
She leaned toward him, whispering something in his ear and giggling, and his eyes shot to me again. Were they talking about me? Was I making a complete fool of myself by staring at them so openly? I grabbed a glass of champagne, about to knock it down in one go.
Wolfe wrapped his fingers around my wrist, stilling my hand before it reached my mouth. It was a gentle, firm touch. Callous and hairy. A man’s touch.
“Sweetheart, we’ve been through this. This is real champagne. The grownup kind,” he said with a hint of exasperated sympathy in his voice, causing the entire table to roar with wild laughter.
“The trouble of marrying a youngster,” the other senator snorted out.
Wolfe raised a thick, condescending eyebrow. “Marriage is a tricky business. Which reminds me…” He leaned forward, his blank expression turning into a sympathetic frown. “How are you handling the divorce from Edna?”
Now my furious blush became almost unbearable. I wanted to kill him. Kill him for this stupid stunt, for forcing me into marrying him, and for the fact that, by proxy, he just threw Angelo into Emily’s arms.
I put the champagne glass back on the table, biting my tongue from pointing out that I’d drank plenty at the gala where we’d met, and he didn’t seem to care much then. Actually, he took advantage of my tipsiness when he tricked me into kissing him.
“May I be excused?” I cleared my throat and, without waiting for an answer, stood and charged toward the bathroom, aware of the fact that my nemesis’ eyes, as well as Angelo’s and my parents’, were all on my back, pointed like loaded guns.
The restrooms were at the end of the ballroom, Gentlemen and Ladies facing one another, under a massive wrought-iron, curved stairway. I slipped inside, sagging against the wall, closing my eyes, and taking the deepest breath my corseted bodice would allow.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
A hand clasped my shoulder. Small, warm fingers curling around my collarbone. I cracked my eyes open and yelped, jumping backward, my head hitting the tiles behind me.
“Sweet Jesus!”
It was Mama. Up close, her face looked too wary, too old, and too unfamiliar. It looked like she’d aged a decade overnight, and all the anger I’d harbored toward her in the past three days flew out the window. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from crying. Her normally proud, brown mane was littered with gray hair.
“How are you holding up, Vita Mia?”
Instead of answering, I flung myself into her arms, releasing a sob I’d been holding since Wolfe ushered me into his sleek black Escalade tonight. How could I not cut her some slack? She looked as miserable as I was.
“I hate it there. I don’t eat. I barely sleep. And to make matters worse…” I sniffed, disconnecting from her so I could hold her gaze for emphasis. “Angelo is dating Emily now.” I felt my eyes bulging out of their sockets with urgency.
“It’s only their first date,” Mama assured me, patting my back and drawing me into another hug. I shook my head in the crook of her shoulder.
“I don’t even know why it matters. I’m getting married. It’s done.”
“Sweetie…”
“Why, Mama?” I stepped out of her embrace again, dragging myself toward the imperial sinks to pluck some tissue before my makeup was compl
etely ruined. “What possessed Papa to do something like this?”
I watched her in the reflection of the mirror behind me. The way her shoulders wilted in her slightly oversized black dress. I realized she hadn’t been eating much, either.
“Your father doesn’t share many things with me, but trust me when I tell you this was not an easy decision for him to make. We are still shaken by what happened. We just want you to give Senator Keaton an honest chance. He is handsome, rich, and has a good job. You’re not marrying beneath you.”
“I am marrying a monster,” I drawled.
“You could be happy, amore.”
I shook my head, before throwing it backward and laughing. She didn’t have to spell it out for me. Her hands were tied. I harbored many bad feelings toward my father but thinking them openly—not to mention uttering them aloud—was like pouring cyanide onto an open wound. Mama looked back and forth between the door and me, and I knew what she was thinking. We couldn’t stay here much longer. People would start asking questions. Especially when they saw that I’d been crying. Keeping up appearances was vital in The Outfit, and if people suspected Papa’s arm had been twisted by a young, ambitious senator who was new on the scene, it could kill his reputation.
Mama opened her purse and produced something, shoving it into my hand.
“I found this buried under a pile of dirty laundry in your room. Use it, Vita Mia. Start easing into your new life because it’s not going to be a bad one. And for the love of God, start eating!”
She dashed out, leaving me to open my hand and inspect the recovered item. It was my cell phone. My precious cell phone. Fully charged and stocked with messages and missed calls. I wanted to inspect them all—privately, and when time allowed for it. I knew that my assumption that Senator Keaton had taken my phone privileges without asking him was a little extreme. Then again, blackmailing my father into giving him my hand was not exactly subtle courting, so no one could blame me for jumping to conclusions.
