Chapter Two
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Coral
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I can't believe my father is doing this to me.
Me of all people. And all because I don't want to get married. I'm twenty-four years old. I want to be free to do whatever I want. Not be shackled to some man he picked out for me.
My father's argument? It's time we connect to other families to strengthen our bond and ensure our family name becomes a legacy.
Well, I don't care about any of that. I want to have fun with my friends, go to secret islands, and sunbathe while drinking delicious cocktails. I'm young and I don't want to be hindered with responsibility.
I lean forward, my arms on the wheel of my least favorite car. I would have preferred to drive my Ferrari, but my father—ugh—insisted I take my four-wheel drive because I'm going into the mountains. Well, I would rather not go anywhere, I told him, and he said I didn't have a choice.
At least I get to keep one of my possessions since my father had taken away my credit cards, locked my bank accounts, sealed my trust fund, and taken away the several thousand dollars I had lying around my room for emergencies.
I don't think I've ever felt this naked before. I don't have a dime to my name, and it's freaking me out. At least I have my clothes and shoes. Where would I be without them? I shudder to think.
My dad doesn't understand anything about me.
I don't want to get married. Never. Ever.
Ever. And now my plan to act out more than my usual quota of acting out since he told me I would be getting married six months ago backfired because what does my father do?
He sends me to a logging site owned by three of the most..
. ugh... men alive so they can teach me discipline like I'm a spoiled toddler.
I mean, I'm spoiled, but I'm grown woman spoiled. There's a huge difference.
And did it have to be them? If this were my fate and I had no way out, I would have preferred anyone else but them.
They're old. Boring as fuck. They live off the freaking damn grid like cavemen, and I swear the nine times I've seen them over the years, after a tumultuous childhood with them, they wore exact replicas of the clothes they wore the previous time.
Jeans so worn out the fabric was soft enough to mold to their obscenely muscled thighs, boots that were easily twice my shoe size, and faded t-shirts that clung to their biceps and showcased their immensely veiny forearms and calloused hands.
I hate their effortless ruggedness, and honestly, they aren't even handsome.
I have no idea why all my friends developed maniacal crushes on them from that one time when they dropped by to see my father while I was having a pool party.
But more to the point, I don't know why I have to have any dealings with them. Their fathers are my father's best friends. There's no reason for us to have any connections whatsoever.
And actually we're enemies.
When I was six years old, I asked them to marry me when I turned twenty-five because that was the age my mom married my dad. So that was the right age, surely.
Love is all you need, my mom always told me before she passed away six years ago. Except I chose to love the worst three boys on planet earth.
Yes, Masen and Samuel said yes, but Cedar gave me a big fat nope.
And because they're always together and do everything together and are inseparable and closer than blood brothers, unless it's a unanimous yes, then the two other yeses are canceled out by the no.
I didn't make that rule; they did when they became a collective unit.
So it basically equated to a no overall.
Of course Masen and Samuel escaped my wrath, but Cedar needed to know he made the wrong choice.
It wouldn't have been that bad if I hadn't bragged to all my holiday friends that they were going to marry me.
Then they made me go and ask them, while they stood and watched. And witnessed my sheer humiliation.
If Cedar didn't want to marry me, that was fine, but he was going to pay for it. It wasn't because I was vindictive or, heaven forbid, a psycho. I was hurt. My heart was broken. I wanted to marry all three of them. I loved them the same.
Thank goodness I outgrew them and got my head screwed on properly. Can you imagine if I married them and ended up living here? The nearest sight of civilization is five million miles away. I dodged a bullet. Three big ones.
I don't understand how they can be billionaires—honest to goodness billionaires—and choose to live here in this cabin in the mountains. Is there something wrong with them? There must be something wrong with them, surely.
The kind of money they have doesn't even come close to what my father has. They're the richest men in the world; they should be in bespoke suits in skyscraper offices with custom-made watches and shoes, and instead they're here. Here. In the middle of freaking nowheresville.
My gosh, it's hideous, the cabin, I mean.
Just a hulking mass of wood that seems to be a zillion years old and clearly built by hand.
The logs are dark and weathered, even the chimney jutting out from the side of the roof is slightly crooked.
The entire place is surrounded by giant trees; even the horizon is trees.
Please god, let there be indoor plumbing, because if the 'architects' were going for a box made of wood, they crushed it.
I might as well get this over with. I'm supposed to rough it for a week, but I'm sure I can make them send me back home in two days flat. They don't know what I'm capable of doing, and if peace and quietude are what drove them here, I'm peace and quietude's kryptonite.
They're going to beg me to go home.