“What do you want me to do?” I try to keep my tone even.
“Get married. That is the last thing I want you to do before I sign over the business to you.”
What the fuck?I couldn’t have heard him right. I look at him as if he’s just hit me with a fifty-ton truck.
“Grandfather, you’re not serious.” He can’t fucking be, and if he is, then this can’t be happening. Not after all my hard work.
“I’m serious as fuck, boy.” He raises his chin. “I want to meet your fiancée when I get back from New Orleans, and I want to see you marry her in the same church your father married your mother. If you can’t do that, then you have a problem.”
Fuck me and my fucking lies.
“This isn’t fair by any means.”
“Maybe not, but this is the way I’ve chosen. Especially since I’ve found another way of securing the Rivera legacy.”
Everything inside me goes numb. “What do you mean?”
“Your cousin Simona turns nineteen in a few months. She will take your place if you don’t get married.”
I stare back at him with my eyes wide, my jaw clamped, my heart doubling over.
Simona would be the next in line to own the business if I died or if there were some reason for my grandfather to change the rules.
“You're changing the rules—"
“Lorenzo has agreed to marry her.”
“Lorenzo has agreed to do what?”
“You heard me.”
“Lorenzo is nearly the same fucking age as you.” Lorenzo just turned seventy-five.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s a suitable candidate.”
I shake my head in disgust even though I can see what he means. Lorenzo is only suitable because his wife died several years ago, leaving him with three daughters who were married before I was of age. I just can’t believe this is the way my grandfather has found to bend me to his will.
“So despite all I’ve done, you’re going to force me to get married or lose everything?”
“I’m not forcing you to do anything, but if you want the business, I need a wedding. When you told me you were engaged, I turned Mary away. She would have made a good wife for you. She and her husband are expecting their first child now. That could have been you. Not to mention the amazing business relationship we turned away by rejecting the marriage contract.”
Mary is the daughter of one of our business partners who own an oil refinery. Our marriage would have been a good business deal, but I didn’t want to get married then, and I still don’t want to.
Men like me don’t get married. Men like me love fucking around at sex clubs like the Dark Odyssey with women like Megan, and more importantly, love fucking the same woman with his best friends.
“I don’t think marriage should have any bearing on the company transfer.”
“That is where you and I differ, Cristiano. Right now, all you are is a phenomenal employee. But I need the whole package. We are one of the oldest families in Chicago from the alliance that formed in Sicily over a hundred years ago. How will it look if you have no wife, no heirs, no family of your own? That is not what I want. That wasn’t what your father wanted either.”
At the mention of my father, my stomach clenches. He knows I would have done anything for my old man. Father spent his last days passing on all his knowledge to me. Even at his lowest points, when it was clear his heart was giving out, I knew his determination for me to do well in life kept it beating longer than it should have. My father showed the same determination to get me clean when I nearly lost myself to hardcore drugs.
Grandfather clears his throat. “I’m giving you three months to organize a wedding with your Evelina. If it doesn’t happen by then, I’m going forward with my plans for Lorenzo and Simona. These are my terms.” He opens the document folder in front of him and slides a sheet of paper over to me.
The fucking thing actually looks like the terms and conditions document we draw up for our contracts. But this is about my marriage. The first page is covered with conditions from numbers one to twenty. My gaze rivets to the first because it’s the one that hits me like a punch to my gut.
It says:
All assets belonging to Rivera Developments will be transferred for a probationary period after your marriage. In order for full transfer to take place, the marriage will need to last for a minimum of three years. After such time full transfer will be awarded.