Seven
T hree days into my new life and I was practically climbing the walls of the Keane estate.
When I was in the hospital I’d read my fair share of mafia romance out of sheer boredom and so I figured that, living the life of a mobster’s wife would be full of gun fights, kidnappings, and a healthy dose of BDSM from the attractive mafia man with a heart of stone—not that I wanted the BDSM or anything like that.
But the actual reality of it all was wildly different.
Every day at the Keane estate was damn near idyllic, like something out of a regency era novel rather than dark, sexy romance.
The mansion was just outside of the city, but looking outside of the window one would think they’d been transported to the English countryside. The expansive, well-manicured grounds were surrounded by a thick green forest that seemed to block out the view of everything except for the haze of high rise buildings in the distance.
My mornings always started with a long swim in the pool and me pushing myself until I was wheezing and shaky. I was determined to get some kind of stamina back—even if it killed me—and it was a good way to work out my worries about my impending second wedding.
After my swim I went to my omega classes where an ancient old omega, who’d long since stopped having heats, droned on about the intricacies of what she called ‘the fairer designation.’ She quite literally brought in an old school projector with pictures from the sixties, but I at least got the gist of it as she explained how to control pheromones and tamp down on emotions so they didn’t send every nearby alpha into a frenzy.
There were also some other things that sounded completely outdated like always submitting to your alpha and not going against your alpha’s orders—both things that I took with a grain of salt as I doodled in my notebook.
From there, I would go to my first meal of the day with Edison Keane, and by extension Rhodes McCreary. The first real thing I learned about my husband-to-be was that his second was always nearby.
While we were negotiating our contract, I figured that the two meals would feel like pulling teeth with the alpha when it came to conversation. After all, that first day by the pool Edison seemed reluctant to share any information about himself and his grumpy second-in-command had been forced to chime in.
But I was pleasantly surprised that Edison was actually a pretty good conversationalist. There was rarely a moment where we weren’t talking about something .
The first few days were about me. What did I like to do, what did I like to eat, what were my thoughts about XYZ… all things he probably could have read in my file but still asked as if he was curious to know.
Then, slowly, he started to tell me about himself. His time in college which he viewed as one of the best times in his life because he was free from the constraints of the Keane family, how he liked old black and white movies, and even if he didn’t outright state it, his affection for Rhodes.
“Rhodes was a menace from age fifteen to twenty-five,” Edison joked as we sat around the long, shiny dining room table, gesturing at Rhodes who he made sit and eat with us every day.
The man still hadn’t warmed to me any, his sharp features always remaining neutral whenever I was around, but whenever Edison looked at him, I was sure that his dark eyes warmed by a few degrees.
“Never met a rule he couldn’t break—I thought our RA was going to have a stroke by the time we moved out,” Edison finished, popping a grape into his mouth with a self-satisfied smile.
I laughed, trying to focus on the chicken on my own plate. It was getting increasingly harder to keep myself aloof from the man even though I kept telling myself that this was just a business arrangement.
“You seem put off by my talk of our university days.”
I shook my head, pushing a bit of pasta with my fork as I tried to figure out the most diplomatic way to say what I wanted to say. “I’m not—I’ve just never gotten to go because I was sick so it’s hard to relate.”
Silence hung awkwardly at the table and I could feel two pairs of eyes practically drilling a hole into the top of my head as I stared down at my plate. We almost never mentioned my time in the hospital and they had certainly never outright asked about my leukemia.
“What would you want to do if you had gone to college?” Rhodes’ question surprised me. He’d never actually asked me anything during mealtimes, leaving that completely to Edison.
My eyes shot up to meet his. I was half-tempted to ignore his question out of a petty sense of righteousness. He’d been basically ignoring me for the past three days, after all, so it would be fair of me not to talk to him either.
But my lips still opened and formed words. “Photography. I was supposed to go before I got sick and I never got the chance to go after because… well.”
I gestured around to the room. There wasn’t much time for me to attend college when my father was looking for a husband—or husbands—for me. I didn’t need a college degree to be sold off.
When Edison had offered to get me whatever I wanted, I’d insisted on getting my camera back from my parent’s house. Oona had offered to order the same model completely new, but it felt wrong to abandon the camera that had been my prized possession since it had been given to me as an off-handed gift when I was eleven years old.
Both of the men at the table seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before Edison finally spoke again. “Then you’ll go to college.”
He said it so decisively that Rhodes’ head snapped around so he could look at the other alpha, his expression incredulous. “How is she supposed to go to college? The Italians are just waiting for the perfect moment to snatch her back up.”
I tried to stifle the sheer excitement I was feeling because of his words. I’d all but written off going to college at this point. I knew Rhodes was right, but even just the chance had me sitting straighter in my chair as I tried to search Edison’s expression for any hint that he was playing with me.
It had only been three days since they’d brought me to the Keane estate, but I’d settled in more easily than I ever thought possible—even if I still sort-of considered it the lesser of two evils. Better to be here with Edison who smelled of fresh vanilla than Elio and his pack whose scents made me want to hurl.
Also, the idea of going out into public and being kidnapped—or re-kidnapped I guess—made my stomach twist uncomfortably and I really would have rather avoided it, college or not.
“Then you’ll go with her, Rhodes,” Edison said as if that was the simplest solution, leaning back in his seat with a smug grin. The alpha was clearly pleased with himself as we both stared at him as if he’d grown a second head.
“ What ?” My voice, combined with Rhodes’, bounced off of the fancy wooden rafters of the dining room.
Edison wasn’t perturbed by our outburst. No, if anything, it seemed to please him even more to see us so shocked. “Who better to take care of my wife than my closest subordinate? I’d trust no one else, of course we’ll have to get married first before you can go to classes…”
“How am I supposed to watch her and you at the same time?” Rhodes cut in, his dark eyes wide with panic as he swung a look over at me, silently asking me to help him.
I should have let him fend for himself, but something about the outpour of emotions from the normally stoic alpha spurred me into action. “I’m sure you can, I don’t know, put one of your other guys on me while I go to class. It doesn’t have to be him.”
Go to class. The words sparkled on my tongue as excitement swelled low in my belly. Edison made it sound so easy, like it was a foregone conclusion that I would go to college if I wanted to. He didn’t understand that I’d fought with my parents for four years while I was in the hospital to let me go back to college once my leukemia was in remission and even then they’d still told me no.
Because once I was healthy again my value would return and by then I would be almost too old to sell off. They couldn’t wait for me to finish college before trying to get the most money they could out of potential suitors.
My lip curled up with scorn and it took me another beat of glaring at my food for me to realize that both of the men had fallen silent.
“Perrie?” Edison’s voice was full of concern and I jerked up to look at him.
Shaking off my sour thoughts, I offered him a weak smile. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
“I was just telling you that if you want to go to school, it’s best Rhodes go with you. I trust Rhodes to keep you safe—if we use any of our other security teams then it will be just that, a team. As someone who always travels with a large group of people, I have to tell you that it’s not ideal. You’ll stick out even more on campus than you already would as you are.”
Just the idea of being followed around by a ton of people on a college campus made me grimace with distaste.
Flicking my gaze over to Rhodes who seemed to finally have resigned himself to our mutual fate, I sighed. “Fine. He can come with me.”
“Thanks, princess, for letting me attend to you. Your servant feels so privileged,” Rhodes mumbled sarcastically before stabbing his chicken viciously with his fork.
Edison ignored the alpha’s grumbling and sat back so that one of the attending staff could take his empty plate from him. “Good, then we’ll get you enrolled for the fall semester in a few weeks. That should give us just enough time to throw together a wedding.”
“A wedding?” I asked, sounding a little dumb.
“Yes, just like I told you before, you need to wear my name in order to go out in public without me. It’ll shield you—and I’d like for it to be legal sooner rather than later in case Amante gets any ideas.”
I’d blown right past any mention of the wedding in my excitement about going to college and the reality of it settled in now as Edison watched my face, measuring my reaction with those gold eyes of his.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just go to the courthouse? Seeing as someone crashed my last wedding wouldn’t it be safer that way?” I pointed out dryly.
Edison’s huff of laughter made my insides twist and I shoved the sensation down. It had no business in this conversation and my inner omega who’d become increasingly vocal in my mind needed to settle down before I put the both of us in an icy shower after lunch. “It will just be for the branch families. I’m afraid if we were to elope they would spend the next twenty years complaining about it and I can assure you that you don’t want to hear that.”
“Can you even plan a wedding in three weeks?” I had no part in planning my last wedding to Pack Ricci, leaving my mother to do it all. I had no idea how long it took to plan a wedding and Miranda Chandler’s tastes had been garish and far too pink for my tastes.
Edison smirked. “Pet, I’ve had this wedding planned since I signed that contract with your father. We could do it tomorrow if you wanted. I think you’ll find I’m very proactive when it comes to something I want.”
His eyes shifted like molten gold, his words holding a double meaning that I didn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole.
“So when will it happen?” I asked, nibbling on my bottom lip. I’d agreed to marry him, and truthfully, he was the best choice out of the options I’d been given, but for some reason my brain still craved the starry-eyed romance that I read about in books.
He smells good at least , the little voice in my head whispered. So, so good .
I couldn’t even disagree with it because Edison’s vanilla scent made my mouth water just to even think about it.
My omega instincts wanted me to climb into his lap and press my nose into the column of his neck and take one long drag of his scent—but I wasn’t sure instincts were enough to go off of.
At the end of the day we were going to sign what was, effectively, a business arrangement. One that would last forever as I was pretty sure that Edison would never agree to a divorce.
“You just need to pick the colors and your dress, then I can set the date,” Edison said, oblivious to my increasingly panicked internal monologue.
I blinked, surprised at his words. “You’re letting me pick my own dress?”
“Why wouldn’t I let you? Unless you want to wear that frothy monstrosity from the other day, I’m sure Oona hasn’t put it into the incinerator yet—”
“No!” I hurried to say, my eyes widening. “I just figured that since you had it all planned out that the dress would have been chosen too.”
“Well, I have no idea about wedding dresses and Oona would have strung me up by my toes if I suggested she pick something for you.”
“Thank you.” My voice was quiet as my mind was already racing to think about what I would actually want to wear to my own wedding.
At least this time it actually felt like my own wedding.
Rhodes, who’d been silent since his last snarky comment, cleared his throat. “We’ve got Perrie’s first day of self-defense in twenty minutes and she needs to change.”
I’d forgotten all about it during what had turned out to be a completely illuminating lunch, but his words also gave me an out that I desperately needed right now.
Standing abruptly from my seat, I turned before Edison could see my expression and hurried for the door.
“Perrie?” His voice stopped me.
I turned, trying to smooth my expression into something not-so-embarrassing.
“What colors did you want for our wedding?”
Our wedding. The words curled up my spine like soft hands. They shouldn’t have thrilled me as much as they did and yet I nearly grinned at him like a lunatic.
I thought about his question for a moment, my lips opening and supplying the answer before my brain could catch up and save me. “Gold.”
Both of the men blinked with surprise before a slow smile spread across Edison’s face.
“Done,” he said to my back as I hurried out of the room.
“Oof!” I grunted as I was slammed into the mat for what felt like the hundredth time since I’d entered the mansion’s gym.
The space was full of treadmills, weight-lifting equipment, and wall to wall mirrors that showed off every twitch that I made as Rhodes stood over me and offered me his hand. I wanted to slap it away, but despite my pride I probably wouldn’t be able to get up on my own at this point.
“What part of keeping an eye on every part of my body do you not understand?” Rhodes asked as I wiped my palms on the fancy pair of leggings that Oona had given me before sending me off to be tortured by this man.
Rhodes the silent had turned into Rhodes the devil.
As soon as I entered the gym he’d given me all of thirty seconds before he was swinging at me with pad covered hands.
The next hour had been a mix of him verbally telling me how to defend myself against some unknown assailant… and actually being that unknown assailant.
“The part where you told me to keep an eye on every part of your body.” I rubbed my behind, wondering if it was going to be black and blue by the time we were done with this lesson. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that when you move in a damn blur and I only have two eyes.”
That last part was muttered under my breath, but I knew he could hear me because the ghost of a laugh left him in a huff.
Because of course he couldn’t actually laugh at me. That would ruin the mystique he was trying so hard to keep up.
I’d only seen hints of humor on Rhodes’ face during the meals that we shared with Edison. The head of the Keane family seemed to have a talent for drawing a sunnier disposition out of the man, and if I had my way, I would develop that talent too.
But then he gave himself a shake and Mr. No-Expression was back again. “You have to be able to see and dodge everything, Perrie. You know what that one famous line is: if you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball.”
I frowned, confused. “Is that some kind of mafia reference?”
Rhodes’ stern expression slackened into a shock that he wasn’t fast enough to hide. “No, why would that be a mafia reference? It’s from the movie Dodgeball ? The cinematic masterpiece?”
When I shrugged, he looked at me like I was insane.
“Ben Stiller? Vince Vaughn?” He kept trying.
“I dunno, what year did it come out?”
“2004.”
Then I offered him the most evil smile I could manage. “ Oh , I was two then.”
I knew exactly what movie he was talking about. Romey had developed quite the addiction to early 2000’s movies and had spent the majority of his teens showing them to me while I was stuck in the hospital as a captive audience.
I preferred Legally Blonde if I was being completely honest. Elle Woods was infinitely more interesting than a bunch of dudes throwing balls around.
“Christ on a cracker.” Rhodes scrubbed a hand over his face as I reminded him yet again that he was fifteen years older than I was. “You knew exactly what I was talking about the entire time.”
“I did indeed, grandpa,” I teased.
I may have been kidnapped on my wedding day by Edison and Rhodes, but watching their eyes widen when I made them feel old was becoming a bit of a sick obsession of mine.
A girl had to get her kicks in somewhere, right?
The corners of Rhodes’ mouth twitched upwards so fast that I was sure that if I blinked I would miss it.
“So you do smile at someone other than Edison,” I gasped, scandalized.
Then the smile was gone again and he was back in Teacher-Terminator-Mode, his foot kicking out and sweeping behind my legs, sending me sprawling onto my back again.
Dark eyes met mine as he leaned over me, his face unsmiling but I could see a hint of mirth hiding just underneath the surface. “And what did we learn, kid?”
“To keep my eyes on your feet,” I groaned, glaring up at him.
“Indeed. Now, get up and let’s try S.I.N.G again.”
I was definitely right. My ass was going to look like a very sad stained glass window by the end of today and it was only my first lesson.
It was quickly seeming like my dreams of becoming the next Karate Kid mob wife were just that. Dreams.