5. Declan
5
DECLAN
W hite lace and satin flowed after the redhead as she turned and fled. She gripped the skirt of her dress and sprinted down the aisle and away.
What the fuck ?
Ian frowned at me, then turned toward Shane and Keira, like I did.
She fucking ran. After giving me a stern glare, she ran!
“What the hell is going on, Murray?” I stalked over to him, ready to punch his panicked face in.
“Cara!” Keira seethed, running after the redhead.
“Cara?” Ian was at my side.
“Who the fuck is Cara?” I demanded as I gripped the front of Murray’s shirt.
“My, my, my daughter,” Shane admitted, leaning back as I pulled him close.
I gritted my teeth. “Your daughter?” Right then, Saoirse entered the empty church from a side door. She wasn’t wearing a white gown. She didn’t look like a bride.
“What the fuck is going on? Are you trying to renege?” I shook him, straining with the urge to kill him.
“No!” He gripped my hands, trying to pull my fingers free. Stinking of nervous sweat, he panted and cringed at my tight hold on his shirt cinching at his neck.
“Where’d she go?” Saoirse whined, stomping her foot. “Daddy! You said she’d marry him because she’s your oldest.”
“Cara is my daughter,” Shane said. “My first daughter. With Nora Gallagher. She was my girlfriend before I married Keira.”
Keeping Shane right where he was, I turned to Ian. “Do you know anything about this?”
He shook his head, just as mad as I was.
“If you let me…” Shane fought to get free, reaching not to remove my hand from his shirt but to reach inside his jacket. “I worried you might not believe me. But I have…”
I released him, pushing him back with a shove. He staggered and held up a paper. After I snatched it and read it over, I gave it to Ian to see.
Cara Gallagher, daughter of Nora Gallagher and Shane Murray. The fucker had a backup daughter, and he expected me to marry her instead of the whiny bitch behind him.
Dad only needed me to marry someone from another reputable family. I wouldn’t call Shane Murray anything but a spineless idiot, but he was from an Irish Mob Family. And his first daughter seemed to have more of a backbone than he did.
“I’m not going to marry him ,” Saoirse whined, pouting from the side of the empty pew.
I narrowed my eyes at her, wishing she’d shut up already. “No, you’re fucking not.” If I had a choice, I’d go for the redhead with vivid green eyes. A woman who’d try to stand up to me and go against orders. Someone with fire.
Keira rushed back into the church, out of breath and furious. She flapped her arm up and let it fall to her side. “I can’t find her! She just took off and—” Scowling at her husband, she shook her head in warning. “ You go chase her down and demand that she see this through. I will not let this monster marry Saoirse.”
If this weren’t my wedding day, I would’ve killed her for that insult. I was sick of her attitude, and I saw that her daughter would be a replica.
No. I wanted the woman who looked at me like she dared me to consider her my bride. It’d be entertaining, at least, to bend her to my will.
“Keep him there,” I told Ian, pointing at the priest. “She couldn’t have run far.”
I strode out of the church, ignoring the heavy front doors and instead going toward the small courtyard toward the side. Keira must not have looked very hard, or Cara hid, because I found my future wife.
Her ass in the air. Her slender arms reaching up. Strong fingers gripping bricks on the wall.
“Going somewhere?” I growled as she tried to escape.
She turned her head, not stopping her climb, and glowered at me. “Leave me alone.”
Not a chance in hell I’ll do that.
I stalked closer, admiring her curvy yet toned body. She wasn’t frumpy with fat, nor was she skinny with no substance. Graceful and athletic.
“Get down.”
“I don’t take orders from you.”
I gritted my teeth, annoyed and excited that she’d be so dumb as to push back. “Think again, wife .”
“I’m not your wife.” She growled, trying to reach for a higher rock. “And I won’t be your anything—” She fell, dropping into my arms. I held her soft weight snugly in my arms, but she was wild to be free of me. Her elbow jabbed into my neck, and with the many layers of her billowing dress, the satiny fabric made her too slippery to hold on to.
She broke away, backing to the stone wall. Limping but not caving to any injury she might have gotten from that fall, she glared at me, unafraid to look me in the eye with that heated sass. Huffing a breath up to clear her red hair from her face, she backpedaled until I had her cornered against the wall.
Up close, she was gorgeous. Mad and riled up. Her freckled cheeks blushed while her parted lips let in shallow inhales. Her tits practically spilled out of her dress, plump and begging for my touch. But that gaze, so furious and determined…
Fuck, she was something else.
“You’re going to be my wife,” I said. “I’ll fuck you right here against this wall and force the union on you through consummation.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me my stepsister doesn’t appeal more.”
She doesn’t even compare.
“ You will be my wife.”
“No.”
I tilted my head to the side. “You will be my wife long enough so you can give me an heir.”
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
“All I need is a goddamn heir. Nothing more. I don’t give a shit who my wife is so long as I get an heir.”
She licked her lips, taunting me to taste her mouth right here. To nip at her and make her hiss. Anything. Everything. I was two seconds from ramming into her right here in this courtyard.
Her phone pinged, and she glanced down at it, still tense with confusion. When she blinked quickly, she shook her head and mumbled something to herself, something so low that I couldn’t understand.
“What?”
“I…” She met my gaze again, troubled yet calculating. “You need an heir?”
“That’s what I fucking said.”
Her throat tensed and flexed as she struggled to swallow. Pale and seeming more scared, she lifted her chin defiantly.
Goddamn, she was ballsy. She had gumption, facing me like this. If she could put up a fight like this, not too timid and frightened to give me all she got, it would be all too easy to slam into her cunt and overpower her. To conquer her. To claim and possess her.
“I’ll marry you under one condition.”
I laughed once. How cute. She thought she had any grounds to negotiate with me? I realized that Shane couldn’t have been honest with her about why she had to marry me, and I was slightly intrigued about what motivated her to show up at all to a wedding when she had no clue who her groom was.
“A condition?”
She scowled at my mocking tone. “What’s your name?” she demanded.
So, she was told nothing? It didn’t matter. “Declan Sullivan.”
Arching one brow, she reacted as though she’d never heard of me before. It wasn’t hard to see how Shane—and Keira—had likely cast her and Nora aside. The man hadn’t ever acknowledged a second daughter. Her ignorance about who I was made sense.
“I will marry you on one condition.”
I crossed my arms, curious. “Go on,” I goaded her without any intention to agree to her criteria. I was in charge here. I was the boss. Not her.
“If I’m not pregnant within… six months, I can leave you.”
Leave? She would marry me if she had a way out?
I stared at her, trying to understand how she’d come to that conclusion. She really didn’t know much about the Mob ways of life. Couples didn’t split and get divorced. That was too trivial, a waste of time. When you married, you married for life. To the death.
The idea of my third wife not sticking around forever was a joke. She would be mine until she died. But it wasn’t up to me to educate her about that fact now.
“Six months?” I asked, pretending to consider it.
“Yes. If I don’t give you an heir, then I can leave.” She nodded once, as if repeating her scheme made more sense the second time she heard it out loud.
Fuck no.
I extended my hand for her to shake it. “It’s a deal,” I lied.
She narrowed her eyes, cautious as she stepped forward. Her fingers hovered over mine until she lowered her hand and touched me. The first press of her warm grip surprised me. Firm, strong. She was no weakling, bold and not too shy to give me a real shake.
“Deal,” she agreed, stepping closer.
I kept my hand on hers, tugging her out from the pebbles lining the path, and hauled her right back into the church.
I hadn’t realized how fun this would end up being.
At her attempts to pull her hand from mine, I grinned, knowing she would never run away from me again.
You’re mine. For good. Whether you like it or not.