Chapter 4
CATRIONA
The moment the words come out of my mouth, I want to suck them back in.
Panic flares then rises in my esophagus like a geyser.
I’ve always made it a point to put my goals first, much to the detriment of my sex life, so marriage has been the last thing on my radar.
Being tied down to a man like my mother hasn’t exactly been on my to-do list.
After tonight, O’Connor would be last on the list of candidates I’d consider chaining myself to.
But I’ll do it.
Even if it’s him. Despite what he’s done.
Maybe even because of it. It would serve him right to be married to me, forced to face the breadth of my loathing every day for the rest of his life.
I don’t examine the reasons that I can’t stomach the thought of him marrying her. Would they be honorable upon inspection? Probably not.
I have no illusions about the kind of man he is, yet I still find myself incandescent with rage all over again, fists clenched and teeth grinding.
I’ll never admit it out loud, but fuck him for even considering this after that night.
And fuck me for thinking it meant anything at all.
I should know better. One thing for sure and two things for certain: I’ll never let my guard down around him ever again if I can help it.
If he’s determined to go through with this, then he’s going to learn exactly what regret tastes like. He’s going to understand his threats and intimidation won’t work on me.
“Did you think about me that much?” Aiden asks, leaning close enough with his full lips parting and his voice dropping a few octaves.
The mocking note grates on my nerves. My vision tunnels, and my fists clench until my nails bite half-moons into my palms. As he studies me, my skin prickles like the ghosts of those hands are trailing all over my body.
Breasts, hips, thighs. All the places where my dress stretches tight over my curves.
But the man who would have touched me, found all those places and worshipped them, is gone.
He’s been replaced by the stranger in front of me.
The one with a face so cold he could still be wearing that blank-faced mask.
The fact that I fell for his act infuriates me almost as much as his words.
I’ll blame it on grief. We all go a little mad sometimes, right?
My sins aren’t as bad as murder, but fucking a psychopath and liking it feels just as unforgivable.
“You wish, O’Connor. I have better things to do with my time. The only reason I’m offering is because you’re fucking with my family. Is coercion the only way you’d ever get anyone to marry you? Makes sense, based on my personal experience, but I’m willing if it means you’ll leave her alone.”
He pushes back, his grin turning feral. It hovers there for a moment, reminding me of the man I’d known that night—the one who had gotten so thoroughly under my defenses that I let him do unfathomable things to me. That I’d wanted him to do more.
“Your begging is cute now, but useless. What will it take for you to understand?”
Shock and fury thicken my voice and blur my vision with crimson.
“You really are a fucking jerk. Why? Why does it have to be her? It doesn’t have to be me, but you can have anyone you want.
Anyone else. Why is it so damn important that you have to marry her, or do you simply delight in being a bastard? ”
His silver eyes flick back and forth between mine, and I do my best at shuttering my thoughts and expression. I suppress the urge to look away, to give him yet another moment of vulnerability. Because I’m not lying. I would do anything to keep this marriage from happening.
Whatever is left in his face hardens, turning cold, and I fight a shiver that traces skeletal fingers down my spine.
Finally, he says, “Envious, Catriona? Afraid to be left out? That I’d choose her? Jealousy is an ugly color on you.”
“Oh, fuck you, O’Connor,” I say, finally unleashing a sliver of the emotions rioting inside me.
Then it’s overcome by fear, genuine fear, flashing through me like a lightning strike, and I know with a certainty that makes me ill he’s going to stick to his word.
It feels like this whole situation is a car wreck that I’m being forced to watch from the sidelines, with no way to prevent the devastation.
The momentum leaves me sick to my stomach.
“The fact that you think I’m jealous about this situation is a testament to how insane you are. ”
He crosses to me, sucking away the rest of the oxygen in the room with every step.
He’s close enough that I can see every shade of gray in his mercurial eyes.
“If you think this is insane, imagine how much worse I can be if you push me. Hmm? But don’t worry, so long as you behave, I promise I’ll be good to your sister.
” His voice lowers. “So very, very good.”
I flash a cold smile. “If you go through with this, I’m going to spend every day making your life a living hell.”
For a moment, I think he’ll reconsider. But the bubble of hope pops in the next instant, leaving me numb and empty.
“As if it isn’t already,” he says. “There’s nothing you can do to change it. Now, be a good little pet like I know you can be, and accept this situation is one you can’t change.”
I grind my teeth together.
I resist the urge to plant my fist in his face.
Only barely.
Talking to him is getting me nowhere. I’d have more productive conversations with a rock wall.
I follow him to the study on the second floor, and it occurs to me that he could be at my family’s estate. Why meet with us here and not at the fancy new house he acquired? Was the estate part of his deal with my father? How fucking connected is my father with these people? What the fuck did he do?
Aiden opens the door to find Elizabeth and Father sharing heated words on the other side.
Their conversation cuts off abruptly as soon as we enter the room.
Elizabeth gives me a look like she is resigned to her fate, and I redouble my vow to do whatever it takes to stop this before it’s out of my hands.
There has to be something I can do or some other deal we can make to excise him from our lives.
I’ll never forgive my father for putting us in this position.
I feel like I’m missing a big part of the picture.
Something crucial. I’ve been so focused on tracking down leads about our mother that I’ve let this clusterfuck surprise me.
I should have been paying closer attention.
I want to hold on to that thought as Father and Aiden begin to finalize the arrangement.
I need to figure out why it unsettles me so much, but my head fills with fuzz from panic, and it’s as though my whole being becomes lighter, like I could float away at the slightest breeze.
My brow and palms grow slick with sweat, and the room around me, as well as its occupants, fades under a white haze.
I have enough awareness to realize it’s an anxiety attack before I’m catapulted into a memory I only visit in my nightmares.
It’s as though I’m in two places at once.
In reality, I’m next to Father and Elizabeth, but at the same time, my thoughts are assaulted by the sound of my screams. As Aiden speaks to Elizabeth, asking her questions about her preferences for the small, intimate wedding ceremony he has planned—how can it possibly be intimate if he wants it at the St. Louis Cathedral?
—Father answers over Elizabeth, who merely rolls her eyes and maintains her silence.
Does she even want this? Or is she going along with it so she doesn’t upset him?
I sink into a chair in front of the fireplace as the memory swells inside my thoughts, growing bigger and bigger, a wave gaining strength and speed as it hurtles toward shore. The string connecting the two moments is the overwhelming sense of powerlessness. I’d been powerless to save my mother.
And now, I feel powerless again. Powerless to stop Elizabeth from being forced to marry O’Connor. My nails dig into the leather of the chair to hold on to the present.
That night, I’d arrived home late from a long day of classes.
I was supposed to be home earlier to help my mother prepare dinner for some politician or another—I can never recall who it was, though the police have already ruled them out as suspects.
I’d been too late to save her. I’d found her in a discordant tangle at the foot of the stairs.
Listening as my father arranges Elizabeth’s marriage to Aiden isn’t exactly the same, but my nervous system doesn’t understand that.
All it knows is that something terrible is happening, and it feels like there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Like I’m going to have to watch as everything implodes right in front of me all over again.
Why have a wedding in such a big church if there won’t be many guests?
Why have a service at all? It doesn’t make any sense.
O’Connor doesn’t seem like the type, and Elizabeth is so checked out that I’m not sure she’s even paying attention.
Have we really changed so much in the past year that I don’t know what to say to her to get her to object to this? The devastating answer is… yes.
But Aiden barters this deal with the controlling air of a king, and my father—much to my surprise—agrees with every point. They’ll be married in the church, by a priest, this coming Saturday.
My heart trips over itself, my pulse pounding a staccato rhythm in my ears.
I stifle a gasp as the memory repeats in my head, over and over and over.
Blood-red stains my vision. They are so distracted by their negotiations that none of them seems to notice my spectacular spiral into a mini breakdown.
I’ve grown better at hiding them, I think.
So much so that I can go through it while sitting less than six feet away and not have them realize a thing.