Chapter Two
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Isabella
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I wobble about, trying to get my foot into a pair of heels, until my best friend, and the only sane person I know right now, offers me her arm to balance myself.
"Isabella, I love you, but do you think this is a good idea? I mean, the CEO of the Onyx Empire is a hardened criminal who moves around in the civilian world as if he were not the head of the most dangerous mafia family in the world."
Yes, because that had been my grandmother's plan all along.
She didn't even try to hide her maniacal glee.
Finally, her wish was going to come true: the Larsons will once again be associated with the titans of the underground world.
She believes my marriage to Pablo Moretti will put the Larsons on the map again, and then she dangled a couple of billions to make me do it.
How could I not bail my father out? The man is rotting in a jail cell somewhere in the Mediterranean because he didn't—well, couldn't—pay one of the major contractors building his absurdly expensive island resort.
So when I say, "bail out," I also mean that literally.
Also, he's not actually rotting. Not yet anyway.
"I don't have a choice, Sam."
Samantha Harold and I have been friends for eons, inseparable since elementary school. She's getting engaged next year to a wonderful man, and I couldn't be happier for her.
"When I wanted us to be married at the same time, this is not what I envisioned," she says, worry lining her beautiful face.
"I know. But my mom is having a very active breakdown right now. And my poor father. The authorities are trying to make an example out of him over there, and our lawyer says the only man who could bring him back is Pablo Moretti, so clearly there is also some mafia stuff involved. I can’t believe this is my life right now.
" I try to swallow the quiver in my voice.
"I just have to get Pablo Moretti to marry me.
He will, right? I mean, of course he'll want to marry me.
He's in his late fifties, and I'm a hot twenty-four-year-old, right?
My breasts are perky," I say, holding them in my hands.
Okay, maybe not perky-perky; they're more than a handful and a bit heavy, but my nipples still point north, so that's something.
"And my ass..." I turn around and look over my shoulder at my butt, clad in a pencil-tight black skirt. "Could do with a little less cake, but it's there," I say, slapping it. "What more could he want?"
"Bell, you're flawlessly gorgeous," Sam says. "And look, for a fifty-three-year-old, Pablo Moretti is... my gosh, hot," she adds, then shows me her phone.
I haven't even thought of what Pablo would look like, not that it mattered, but my gosh, Sam is right; the man is hot and handsome. And a crime king. And I have to get him to marry me.
"I just want you to be careful,” Sam says.
"I will."
"What's the plan?"
"Well, I tried to speak to him directly to ask him out to dinner and failed. According to his PA, I can only see him with an appointment at his office. So I guess I'm going to seduce him right on his desk into a marriage proposal."
All my thoughts fire rapidly in my head. If I stay long enough to ponder the situation, I'll take up hourly drinking and cry a river in my bathtub.
"Okay, wish me luck," I tell Sam.
"Break a leg. Or a dick? Wait, you still haven't told me exactly what you're going to do."
"I'm going to ask him very nicely to marry me. At the slightest hint of hesitation, I'll... take off my clothes?"
"I mean, maybe don't take off all your clothes. Try a button first. Maybe ease into it first, you know. Flirt a little before you ask him to marry you. Sit on his desk. Cross your legs. Just be flirty."
"Just be flirty, got it."
"And don't forget you are the girl who sent three boys hate notes for five years solid. That kind of perseverance is legendary. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
Ah, Sam. She knows exactly all the right things to say to me when I need it most. And yes, I am that girl. Legendary. Sam hugs me tightly, and we part ways outside my apartment building.
It's going to be fine. I might even end up liking my new husband. He's definitely good-looking enough to ogle.
The skyscraper rises above the rest of the city like a king, while the sun glints off the gleaming glass and steel lines.
No time to chicken out. I square my shoulders and march through the revolving doors.
The lobby, of course, is polished marble with distinctive chrome accents and a whole freaking waterfall feature in the center.
I ignore the knot in my stomach trying to strangle my breath. Don't fall, I remind myself repeatedly as I head straight for the security desk. "I'm here to see Mr. Moretti, please. My name is Isabella Larson," I tell the smartly dressed security guard.
"Ah, yes. Ms. Larson, Mr. Moretti is expecting you," he says, a little too amused for my liking. Do I have spinach in my teeth? I discreetly run my tongue over my pearly whites before I remember the last time I ate spinach was maybe three months ago, and all I had this morning after an extensive teeth-cleaning session was coffee. Whatever, maybe he thinks I’m amusing to look at.
"Go right up to the seventeenth floor, Ms. Larson,” he says almost chuckling.
"Thank you," I say, frowning. I wish he would share the joke.
I think I may have blacked out for a bit because how am I suddenly on the seventeenth floor? It takes me a moment to get my bearings and the reason I'm here. Right. To secure a billion-dollar husband.
"Hello. My name is Isabella Larson. I'm here to see Mr. Moretti, please," I tell the first receptionist I see.
"Mr. Pablo Moretti?"
"Yes, the CEO of the Onyx Empire?” I say as a question. “Why, are there more than one?" I add, a lame joke, but I'm freaking falling apart here.
"Funny you should say that," the receptionist laughs.
"I'll take it from here, Miranda," an older woman interrupts, suddenly standing at my side. She smells so good I want to sniff her.
"Ms. Larson. This way, if you please."
"Thank you," I say, and follow a little too closely just so I can smell her again.
She swings open the double doors of what can only be the boardroom.
And inside the boardroom are three men. Six feet three.
Dressed in bespoke suits that hug their ripped bodies like a clingy lover.
Chiseled features so defined they look like gods.
Dark hair, dangerous dark eyes fringed unfairly with thick glossy eyelashes, and lips currently spread into a grin that sets my heart on fire.
Oh hell no.