Chapter 2 #2
Still, he ignored me, and my chest tightened. The heat in the room kicked up a notch. I cleared my throat and raked my teeth across my bottom lip. Maybe he liked bold women, and I needed to take the first step?
A little shaky, I leaned into him to breach this cold barrier he was already setting up between us. For the sake of our families’ alliance, I slipped one hand into his and patted his chest with the other.
My colorful fade nails, which matched my dress, made a striking contrast against his shirt. It was a perfect example of the type of people we were. Dreary versus upbeat. Hollow versus exuberant.
This close, the cologne wafting off his shirt collar filled my nose—a delicious blend of cardamom, musk, and leather with a touch of tobacco. I wished I’d made it myself, though I’d add a hint of spice to fuse it all together and make it an aphrodisiac snare for the melancholic.
His calloused hands mashed mine, my fingers painfully twisting one atop the other, before he peeled them off him one by one, bending them back until I hissed.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
“No touch. That will make for an interesting wedding night,” I grumbled, cradling my fingers.
“There won’t be one.”
“What?”
Now I wouldn’t call myself a hussy, but I liked sex, good sex, and the hunk I was about to tie myself to looked like he could make me a screamer if he got over himself long enough to put in the effort.
Considering his personality, it was probably the best thing about him.
So for him to cut that out of the deal in only four words was a bit of a blow to my lady bits.
He was joking. He had to be. What kind of man refused sex?
Unfortunately, before I could get to the bottom of that absurd reply, the mayor finally decided it was time to get down to business.
He greeted us both, listing out our personal information as was French custom.
My betrothed and his family perked up at the sounds of their names, but they fidgeted and shifted their weight the longer the mayor droned on through the mandatory reading of the civil law articles in French.
“I can translate for you,” I whispered.
It was something I was used to with my family already. Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, English, Japanese, and even some Mandarin—I was your gal.
“No need,” he grunted from the back of his throat, without throwing even a flick of side-eye my way.
“Your loss.”
Nothing about this was what I’d hoped for.
Sure, it was an arranged marriage, but I’d thought we’d find some common ground we could build on, or at least some level of zinging passion.
He was giving me nothing. Rien, nada, zilch, tada—because, yeah, I’d even put in the effort to learn some Gaelic for him, and he couldn’t even be bothered to look down at my fantastic figure in this dress, let alone my face.
Movies and books made romance seem so easy.
Boy met girl. Sparks flew. Boy wooed girl.
Then poof, happily ever after. My parents were a prime example.
It was love at first sight as they told it, both struck hard by Cupid, with an arrow planted so deep there was no getting it out.
One look was all it took. Yet Cillian O’Leary hadn’t bothered to give me even that.
I worked my lips from side to side between deep breaths and swallowed down the bitterness gathering in the back of my throat.
So I wasn’t going to have a love story for the ages like my parents.
We could still be happy together. I’d wear him down.
I was good at that. I’d work that delicious body of his until he couldn’t remember his own name, and I’d do it again and again until all he knew was me. It could work. It would. It had to.
The mayor’s speech ended abruptly on a question, one addressed to Mr. Cillian Donal O’Leary, who, of course, couldn’t understand a thing.
“This is where you say ‘Oui’,” I gritted out from the corner of my mouth.
He repeated the word. Then it was my turn. We signed the wedding register and the business contract between our families. The mayor shook my new husband’s hand in congratulations and exchanged cheek kisses with my family.
That was it. I was married to a stranger, with nothing to show for it except a piece of paper. Not even a wedding ring.
“Anything else?” Cillian asked after the mayor steered for the door.
“Now we start our lives as husband and wife.” Did I really need to explain this to him?
He’d been married before. He knew the drill.
“How about dinner? We can get to know each other. My family has reservations, but if you want something more intimate, there is this fantastic little place nearby that—”
“Count me out.”
Three little words had never made me feel as small and insignificant as I did right then, as he turned away from me like he hadn’t been crushing my hopes since he’d entered this room.
Slack-jawed, I grabbed his arm. Given Adrien’s aversion to touch, I should have known better, but I needed something to hold onto when everything I’d ever hoped for in a spouse was slipping through my fingers.
Love? Go fish. Kisses or hand-holding? Nope, shards of glass were friendlier.
A drop of affection? My blood was warmer.
Someone I could count on? I might as well mix sulfur and sodium nitrate together to incinerate a hole through my chest. And I could keep wishing for friendship.
He was never going to be my person. Ten minutes in his presence, and that fact couldn’t be any clearer.
“What did I say?” His glare pinned my hand where it rested on his arm.
“You’ll get used to me,” I said with the same courage I normally used to bulldoze my way through life.
“Don’t care to. If the heavens be good, we’ll never see each other again.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I’ve never been a believer.”
“Better start, sweetheart.”
He twisted out of my grip, then strode out of the room and out of my life, as if we weren’t bound together for better or worse until death do us part.
My cheeks flushed with embarrassment as the rest of the O’Learys followed suit, none looking particularly contrite, except for maybe the one with curly hair and a face covered in freckles. He gave me a what-can-you-do shrug and left too.
My eyes watered, but no tears fell. He wasn’t worth them, and in some twisted way, neither was I. Story of my life.