Chapter Ten
Maeve
“I don’t think you should see this,” I said, turning to face Draven.
We were at a wedding boutique, and he insisted on coming with me. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to choose a wedding dress for me, or if he wanted to be sure I chose one. I was not entirely sure how our wedding would go.
There was no way I’d invite my family. They were not high on my list of favorite people right now.
Draven explained what our engagement meant.
If I wished it of him, he could end my family.
The offer was there. I hated to admit it, but I was tempted to take him up on it.
He’d told me the truth about my family. They were not good people.
I wasn’t sure if I should tell Draven to end them or hand all the evidence to the police.
“You’re going to look beautiful in whatever you wear.”
There was something up with Draven. I frowned and turned to him.
It was strange that in a matter of months, I’d gone from being nervous around him to familiar. I closed the distance between us and took his hand. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you getting cold feet?” I couldn’t help but smile.
He could be getting cold feet.
“I’m going to marry you, Maeve. I don’t get cold feet.”
“Then what is wrong?” I asked.
He stared at me for a second, and it was starting to make me a little nervous. The intense way he looked at me made me think he had some bad news to share.
“You can tell me anything,” I said.
From the moment I found out I was going to be sold, I’d been terrified. I did everything I could do to get out of it, but nothing was good enough. It didn’t matter what I did. My fate was sealed.
There was nothing Draven could tell me that was going to shock me, unless he didn’t want to be married. That might hurt a lot more than I cared to admit.
“Sit,” Draven said.
It was bad enough he needed me to sit down, now I was nervous. I tried not to be.
Licking my suddenly dry lips, I took a seat and looked at him. Silence. This was not feeling good. I felt that tightening in my stomach, nerves working their way up my spine.
We were choosing a wedding dress. Draven already had a tuxedo, and he’d told me he was in the process of arranging everything for our wedding. Was he getting cold feet? No, I just had to wait and see what he had to say.
Draven was still silent and kept staring at me.
I waited.
What should I say to convince him he could tell me anything?
“You’re making me kind of nervous here,” I said.
He took hold of my hands and kissed my knuckles. “I don’t know how you’re going to feel about what I’m about to tell you.”
I smiled. “So long as you’re not selling me, and you know, dumping me, I think we’re going to be okay.”
“Have you ever looked at your family and felt like you didn’t quite belong?” he asked.
This was not the question I expected, and I wasn’t sure where he was leading, so I frowned.
“Well, I guess ... why?”
Draven pulled out his cell phone and moved in closer to me.
On his cell phone was a picture of me. I hadn’t even known he had taken it.
I was smiling at him, as I recalled the day he took this.
I’d been quite happy. Next, he flicked to a picture of my family, and I couldn’t help but admit I truly couldn’t see any resemblance.
“What’s going on, Draven?”
“I did some digging, and twenty-one years ago, a young couple entered a hospital—the same hospital as your mother—only their child apparently didn’t make it.
All the notes suggest this was a perfectly healthy baby.
When she was born, she gave out a hearty cry, and to these parents, there was nothing wrong with their baby.
Overnight, as the woman slept, she said she felt groggy.
A distant memory of a little girl screaming, and she doesn’t remember anything else.
When she woke up, her husband was there, the baby was gone, and the doctors said they had done everything they could. ”
“Draven, why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“You said that at no point were you ever allowed to be part of the family. There are three brothers older than you, and I believe twenty-one years ago, your parents lost hope. So, they blackmailed a doctor into stealing a baby,” Draven said. “My theory is right.”
“What?”
“You’re not a Taylor, Maeve.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to me.
I took it and opened it, but I didn’t know what I was reading.
“Your parents are Isabella and Luca Barbieri,” Draven said.
I don’t belong to my parents. I’m not a Taylor.
Draven was not finished as he pulled out a photograph of a young couple, and I am a little taken aback, as there are so many similarities to me.
My hair, apart from the silver streaks I had dyed through mine.
My blue eyes looked the same as the woman’s.
I had most of her features, and my dad looked kind.
“These are my parents?” I asked. “I was stolen?”
“Yes.”
I looked at him and felt sick. “What does this mean? I mean, does that mean you want Lilliana?” I asked. I had an engagement ring on my finger. “Do they even know I’m alive?”
“Not yet. All I have to do is make the call.”
“But you’ve been in contact with them?” I asked.
“Yes. I told them I might have known something or found something. I didn’t want to get their hopes up,” Draven said.
I couldn’t help but smile. Draven was a good man, especially where it counted.
“And now?”
“It’s up to you,” Draven said. “Do you want to get to know your parents?” he asked.
Did I? A lot of time had passed. A long twenty-one years, where I had been living with a family who had never wanted me.
I was a means to an end. This explained everything.
Why they had constantly kept me apart from them and refused to be seen with me.
It all came rushing back, and as it did, anger unlike anything I had ever felt overcame me.
“I can’t believe they did this,” I said.
I got to my feet and started to pace in my wedding gown. Well, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be my wedding gown. It looked pretty. Right now, I didn’t know what was going to happen.
“The next decisions are all yours,” Draven said.
I turned to look at Draven, and all I could think about was the damn trade. I spent so long hating it, wanting to stop it, and all this time, I shouldn’t have even been there. My sister— no, Lilliana—should have been there, not me.
“Do you still want me?” I asked. “Do you still want all of this?”
That anger was fast turning to despair. I didn’t think I could feel this way. Tears filled my eyes, and I didn’t want to cry, because I had put on some eyeliner and mascara.
Draven got to his feet and moved toward me so fast, it took my breath away. His hands cupped my face, tilting my head back, and forcing me to look into his eyes.
“Look at me, Maeve.”
“Is that even my name?” I asked.
“It is,” Draven said. “They were going to call you Maeve Isabella Barbieri.”
Instead, I was Maeve Taylor.
“I love you,” Draven said.
I knew my eyes must have gone wide, because I was in shock. He loved me.
“There is no one else I want. I couldn’t give a fuck about the trade. I didn’t want it, Maeve, but the moment I saw you, learned about you, watched the way you had this fire inside you, I knew I would never want anyone else. You’re it for me.”
And then he kissed me. This was not a gentle kiss. This was passionate, almost wild, consuming. Without words, he was trying to tell me exactly how he felt, and I loved it.
I put my hands on his shoulders.
“This is not going to change me marrying you, Maeve. You’re going to be mine, and I’m not letting you go.
I will let you get to know your real parents, because you have a right to that, but if you think I’m going to let you go, you’re mistaken.
” He held my face and stared into my eyes. “I love you.”
“And I love you too,” I said, feeling the strong emotions he evoked inside me. I loved him and wanted to be with him, and only him. Cupping his face, I kissed him hard, feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and I didn’t even know why.
I loved this man. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, and even better, I was not the blood of the family that had turned against him in the past.
****
Draven
The Taylors attempting to kill their own flesh and blood didn’t make sense to me. The way they were as a family started to ring alarm bells. Considering they were a fucked-up family, all with some real serious issues, they were actually pretty tight. It started to bring up questions.
I had a feeling if Lilliana had been born in time, they would have fought the trade.
The way they were with Maeve, their complete lack of care.
They hadn’t tried to talk to her or keep in touch.
They had simply passed her off like she was nothing.
Like she wasn’t their flesh and blood. To a certain extent, I could understand why they would keep her at arm’s length, but it just didn’t sit right with me.
Learning the truth, I felt for Maeve. I felt for Isabella and Luca Barbieri.
They had lost a precious daughter. They had three other children, but there had been a small headstone for the one they lost. It was heartbreaking, because through my digging, I found they were good people, an amazing family.
Their eldest son, who was eighteen, was off to college to study to become a lawyer.
Their other two, a girl and another boy, were kind souls, also working their asses off at their education.
Isabella owned a food blog, while Luca had several mechanical businesses. They were not hurting for wealth, but they were also not greedy for more. They were happy. Maeve would have been a perfect fit.
Everything about my woman was the opposite of her family.
Now, as I stood in one of the basements where I had rounded up the whole Taylor family, Maeve had a choice to make.