My Ex’s Dad’s Secret Twins (Forbidden Daddies #2)

The Arrangement

POV: Evie

My father asks me to marry a stranger at four in the afternoon. This feels inconsiderate. Life-altering decisions should at least come with tea and a warning, or possibly a priest.

Outside, rain is being thrown sideways across the windows like it has a personal grievance. Inside, the house has gone quiet in that particular Brennan way, like it’s trying very hard not to eavesdrop and absolutely failing.

That’s the first thing I notice. The house. Not my father or the papers. Not the fact that something is clearly about to go very wrong for me personally.

The silence.

Men stop laughing when something serious is happening here. Doors close softly. Staff become careful, efficient ghosts. Even the pipes behave, which is impressive considering most of the men in this house don’t.

By the time I reach his study, I already know something has shifted.

My father stands behind his desk, hands braced on the wood, staring down at papers he doesn’t need to read.

He knows every word; he always does. Seane Brennan doesn’t keep documents because he forgets things.

He keeps them because other men do, and because ink is easier to present than memory when someone needs convincing.

“Sit down, Siobhan.”

Ah, my proper name. That’s never a good sign. When things are going well, he uses my anglicized name, Evie. He only calls me Siobhan when he wants me to remember I belong to something larger than myself. Something structured and expensive.

I sit. The leather chair is cold. I place both feet flat, fold my hands neatly in my lap, and arrange my face into something cooperative.

His study smells like peat smoke, old whiskey, ink, and damp wool. There are four men outside the door. I counted them on the way in. Two near the stairs. One in the west corridor. One by the window alcove, pretending to read messages with the intensity of a man who definitely cannot read.

Inside: one door behind me. Two narrow windows to my left. French doors behind my father, leading to the terrace. Locked. Brass key in the third drawer.

I know this room.

That doesn’t make me safe in it.

My father looks up. “There’s been progress with the Italians.”

I wait. He likes silence. Says it makes honest men nervous and dishonest men careless. I’m neither, so I let it sit there between us and do whatever it’s planning to do.

“The Vitale family is willing to formalize the alliance.”

My stomach tightens, but only in a private, dignified way. “The East Coast holdings?”

A flicker of something crosses his face. Approval, maybe. Regret, maybe. With him, the difference is mostly academic.

“Ports, distribution, arbitration rights in three territories. Their northern routes stay open to us. Ours stay open to them. Ships that used to sit waiting will start moving again. Disputes that used to cost bodies will be decided in rooms instead of streets.”

“That sounds less like progress and more like surrender with better stationery,” I reply. “Or insurance. Depends on who’s expected to pay when something goes wrong.”

His mouth almost moves. Almost.

“It sounds like survival.”

There it is.

The word underneath everything.

My father builds walls out of alliances and calls them mercy. He believes bloodshed is a failure of planning. It’s a very elegant philosophy, until you realize sometimes you’re the thing being moved around to prevent the mess.

“How formal?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer quickly enough. Rain taps hard against the glass. The fire shifts in the grate. Somewhere down the hall, someone drops something and immediately regrets existing. Something inside me steps back.

“Marriage,” he says.

For a second, just one, I think he might be joking. I almost smile. Then I look at the papers again.

Of course. A contract, with my name on it.

“To whom?” I ask.

“Dante Vitale.”

I know the name. Everyone does, if they listen in the right places.

Dante Vitale. Only son of Alessandro Vitale. Heir to one of the most disciplined families on the American East Coast. Twenty-nine. Expensive habits. Temper issues. A man mostly described by what his father has stopped him from doing.

“What did he break?” I ask.

My father’s hand stills slightly. A small win. “This isn’t about Dante.”

“It rarely is with men like that.”

“Siobhan.”

I lean back. “I’m listening.”

“No,” he says. “You’re measuring.”

“I learned from you.”

For a moment, he looks tired. That frightens me more than his anger.

My father has always seemed built from older things.

Stone, soil, things that don’t bend easily.

Men lower their voices when he enters rooms without being told to.

Today, he looks like a man holding up something very heavy and pretending it weighs nothing at all.

“The alliance has to hold,” he says. “There are pressures you don’t know about.”

“Then tell me.”

“I’ve told you enough.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Yes.”

At least we’re honest about that.

He comes around the desk and sits across from me instead of behind it. That’s the second warning. This isn’t just business. This is personal.

I hate that.

“The Italians are structured,” he says. “Disciplined. Alessandro Vitale has kept his family intact for twenty years.”

“And his son?”

“His son can be contained.”

I tilt my head. “By me?”

“By the arrangement.”

I let out a small laugh. “Right. So this isn’t really about me.”

His eyes sharpen. “Don’t make yourself smaller than you are.”

“I’m not. I’m making him exactly what he is.”

“You don’t know him.”

“Neither do you.”

“I know his father.”

There it is. The real center of the conversation. Alessandro Vitale. A name that doesn’t need volume to carry weight.

“What did he offer you?” I ask.

“Stability.”

I roll my eyes. “Men always call it stability when women are involved.”

His gaze holds mine. “You think I don’t know that?”

The answer comes up fast: no. And then I stop it, because he does know. That’s what makes it worse. If he were careless, this would be easier. If he were cruel, I could refuse and feel righteous all the way out the door.

But he isn’t. He’s careful. Especially with me. That’s why I’m still sitting here.

“I’ve kept you out of as much of this as I could,” he says.

I don’t respond.

“You think I don’t see what you do? The way you listen. The way you read people.”

“That sounds useful. You should marry me to a ledger.”

“This isn’t punishment.”

“No,” I say. “Punishment would at least be honest.”

His expression closes. For a second, I recall being a child outside this door with a glass of milk because no one had remembered dinner. He’d opened it, dismissed three armed men with a look, and taken the milk like it had been meant for him all along.

We’ve always been very good at pretending.

“You can say no,” he says.

That lands harder than anything else. Because it’s true, I could say no, and it would fracture everything before it even forms. It would humiliate him. Force him to spend blood instead of strategy. Tell every watching family that the Brennan house doesn’t hold.

No is possible.

It’s just not survivable.

I look at the contract again, my name beside Dante’s. It feels… premature.

“What happens if I agree?” I ask.

“The engagement is announced quietly. You travel with me for the introduction. The wedding follows.”

“How romantic.”

“You would remain protected.”

“By the man I marry, or the man who controls him?”

His jaw tightens. Good.

“Dante isn’t the power in that family,” I say.

“No.”

“Then this isn’t a marriage to him.”

“It’s a marriage into them.”

“And if he’s cruel?”

My father hesitates. “He won’t be allowed to be.”

“He doesn’t seem like someone who asks permission,” I point out.

My father doesn’t answer.

I stand, because sitting suddenly feels like agreement. I move to the window. The fields stretch dark and wet beyond the estate walls. The road curves out toward somewhere else. Somewhere not here.

I could leave. Properly. Quietly. With planning. I have contingencies. My father made sure of that, even if he never asked what I did with the lessons.

Behind me, he says, softer, “Evie.”

I turn. He’s holding a pen.

“I’m asking,” he says.

That does it. There are worse things than being ordered. Being asked is one of them.

The question slips out. “If Mam were alive?”

He stills for a moment. “She wouldn’t agree,” he says.

I believe him. “And you’re doing it, anyway.”

“Yes.”

“Because it’s necessary.”

“Yes.”

I sit and take the pen. It’s warm from his hand. I should read every clause, I know that. I was raised better than blind signatures. But the decision isn’t in the paper.

It’s here.

In the way he won’t quite look at me. In the fact that he’s asking.

I sign.

Siobhan Brennan.

That’s that, then.

My father takes the contract. His thumb rests beside my name for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

I swallow down something that might be anger. “Don’t be. Be right.”

The door opens without him calling for it. Of course it does. Timing is everything in this house.

“Dante’s here,” my father says.

Of course he is. Because why wait for consent when you can schedule it?

I smooth my skirt, adjust my posture, and prepare to meet the man I’ve just legally agreed to tolerate.

Dante Vitale walks in like a man arriving late to something already paid for. He’s handsome, which is, frankly, the least interesting thing about him. Dark hair. Expensive suit. The sort of ease that suggests consequences have historically been someone else’s problem.

He glances at me. That’s all. One glance. Not assessment or curiosity. Not even polite interest. Just checking a name off a list.

“Miss Brennan.”

“Mr. Vitale.”

“Dante.”

“Not yet.”

His attention sharpens slightly with irritation. Good to know where I rank.

* * *

When he’s gone, I look at my father. “Tell me I’m wrong,” I say.

He doesn’t answer immediately. “You’re not wrong to be cautious.”

That’s an aggressively careful sentence. But I nod, because there’s nothing else to do.

Upstairs, my room feels exactly the same as it did this morning, which feels offensive. I lock the door. Then unlock it. Locked doors are only comforting if you trust what’s outside them.

I have a copy of the contract gripped between my fingers because I need to see. I know it’s too late, my signature is already on it, but I need to know what I’ve done.

I sit and read the first page. Then the second. It’s exactly what I expected. Protections. Obligations. Terms dressed up nicely enough to pass as civilized. Nothing shocking. Nothing kind.

I should feel afraid. I don’t. Instead, I just have the odd sinking feeling that something is off. Like a beam in the wrong place. Like a door that opens onto brick. Like a solution that doesn’t match the problem it’s supposed to solve.

I stand and move without thinking. Door. Balcony. Window. Adjoining study. Four exits.

I pause. I don’t remember when I started counting exits. That feels like something I should remember.

I do it again.

I’ve agreed to marry a man who didn’t even look at me. I’ve entered a system I don’t fully understand. And somewhere downstairs, my father is hoping he hasn’t mistaken sacrifice for strategy.

I hope he’s right.