“—really, I would never have thought I’d raised such an ungrateful daughter. I’ll pick where we eat since clearly, you don’t care.Monthssince we’ve gotten to go out, and this is how you behave—”
I let her voice trail off again as she leads us down the sidewalk to a restaurant with a terrace and a fountain, the smells of fresh bread and cooking meat wafting out as we walk inside. My mother asks for a table for three outside on the balcony. Personally, I’d rather eat inside in the cooler air, but I don’t bother voicing an opinion. It won’t matter now or later, and I should probably get used to it.
“You need to think about how you’re behaving, Isabella,” she says sternly when the waitress leaves, after depositing three icy glasses of water with condensation already dripping down the sides at our table, along with a glass of white wine for my mother. “This is going to be a long process—the gala, your engagement, your wedding—and it would do you some good to be grateful for all your father is doing for you. Forus.”
“I’d be grateful if he’d let me pick my own husband.” The words come out without my meaning for them to, sharp and biting. “How, exactly, am I supposed to be happy about being married to someone I don’t know? This is the year two thousand and twenty-two,mother, not the sixteenth century. And yet you’re all parading around, acting like royalty, treating daughters like commodities—”
“Enough, Isabella.” My mother doesn’t need to slap her hand down on the table or shout; her words are sharp enough without it. “If I’d thought this was what would come of letting you read so many books—” She lets out another huffing sigh through pursed lips, her lipstick a reddish ring on the edge of her wine glass. “This isn’t going to change, no matter how you flail and complain. I had my own reservations when I was married to your father, younger than you are now. Not quite as—blatant as yours. But I was nervous. Afraid. Your grandmother didn’t prepare me much for marriage outside of letting me know it was my duty. But I accepted my role. And your father was kind, and he’s been a good husband to me. A good father to you and Elena. You’re doing yourself and him a disservice by fighting against this the way you are. I know he’ll pick someone who will treat you kindly, as well.”
She reaches over and pats my hand lightly, as if that might make this all better. “For the next several months, Isabella, everything will be about you. Enjoy it. And for goodness’ sake, order a salad.”
I see Elena bite her lip, but she wisely says nothing. I keep quiet, too, ordering the shrimp and strawberry salad on spinach when the waitress comes back, even though I’m dying for something heartier like the turkey and feta sandwich that Elena orders, with rosemary fries. She’s not currently being slimmed down for marriage, so she eats what she wants, while my mother orders a chicken salad with balsamic on the side and looks approvingly at me when I make my choice.
Agood daughter.That’s all she wants, all I’ve ever been, but now I feel like I’m going to explode. I know an outsider might see me as ungrateful, like she does—chafing at expectations, upset about being taken to buy a dress with a five-figure price tag, being offered family heirlooms as my jewelry, being treated like a princess. But it all comes with strings, golden ones, chains manacling me to a life that I’m only just now seeing the true boundaries of. The things I’ll lose out on, never experience.
All this is just a symbol of a marriage I don’t want, all for a man who will get my oh-so-precious virginity—and I get no say in any of it. I barely got to choose my own dress. One by one, those flimsy choices will be whittled away over the coming days and weeks and months until there’s nothing left. Only a name—Isabella Santiago, and the man who will claim it. Who will consume me until I’m nothing but an extension of him.
The thought makes my throat tighten, my eyes burning with tears that I duck my head to hide, shredding a piece of bread on my plate instead of eating it. My mother is chattering away with Elena about some florist shop she wants to visit for gala decorations. My sister is obligingly carrying on her half of the conversation, but I feel like I’m going to be sick.
The red dress swims into my vision again, not the one I chose for the gala, but the other one. The sexier one. The one that belongs to a woman who would never let others make her choices for her, never let them take her power away. A woman whohaspower to begin with, power of her own.
I haveonething that I’ve been told all men want. That theycrave, with such violence that I require high walls and locked doors and armed security to keep them from stealing it. A possession so valuable that my father can sell it to the highest, most powerful bidder and get whatever he wants in return.
A possession that, if I were brave enough, I could give away instead.
To someoneIwant. SomeoneIchoose.
If I have the courage to take the risk.
6
NIALL
By the time I land in Mexico, I feel even more tired and irritable, wanting nothing more than a stiff drink and a soft bed. I have to go straight to the Santiago compound, though. There’s already a black SUV waiting for me outside the airport terminal, several black-clothed and armed security surrounding it.
It’s more than I’m used to back home, and I feel a small, unusual trickle of discomfort down my spine as I get into the car. I have a motorcycle rental arranged for after the meeting, and I’m eager to be on the back of a bike again, rather than enclosed behind doors and now, dark-tinted glass. I’m not currently armed, and seeing the firepower around me, I hope I don’t have cause to regret it.
Focus on the job.That’s all I need to do. Success means more than just going home to a happy pair of brothers at the head of the Kings’ table. It means a seat of my own there. In their move to shake things up and start a new era for the Irish Kings, Liam and Connor decreed that it wouldn’t take a family name or inherited wealth to sit at the table any longer. A place there isearnednow instead. While one could well argue that I earned that spot long ago, my dalliance with Connor’s wife meant that he insisted I needed to prove myself yet again. Liam didn’t argue, and I couldn’t exactly blame him. The brothers rule together now, and while I might have earned my place at Liam’s side long ago, I now need to prove myself to Connor as well.
It irks me and chafes at me, but there are some things in this world not worth fighting. This is one of them. Especially when I feel confident that I can do the job I was sent here for and return home to a stronger position—and hopefully a more peaceful mind.
The Santiago compound is impressive; I can’t deny that. High clay-colored walls watched by security rise up out of the desert like a fort, with a grand mansion just beyond it built with cream stucco walls and terracotta-colored shingles atop the roofs, a pebbled courtyard in front of it with twin horses rearing and spewing water atop a stone fountain. Everything is natural tones—different stones, clay, pebbles, and wood, with hints of gold here and there belying the wealth of those inside. It’s all the more apparent when I step inside, greeted by another cadre of guards on either side of two tall, poised men, one quite a bit older than the other, but both clearly related.
“Ricardo Santiago.” I step forward, offering a hand, as the older man moves forward to greet me. “Niall Flanagan.” I glance around the room. “Quite the military-esque entourage for one man visiting, don’t you think?”
“I’d expected a group,” Ricardo says flatly. “And I can’t be too careful these days.”
“Well, they only sent me.” I give him a tight smile. “But hopefully, I can do the job of an entire contingent.”
“Let’s hope so.” Ricardo gestures toward the younger man standing just behind him. “My son and heir, Ángel Santiago.”
Ángel, who is the spitting image of his father sans the mustache and grey flecks in his dark hair, smiles as tersely as I am as he steps forward to shake my hand as well. “A pleasure,” he says, but his tone indicates that he’s unsure of just how much of a pleasure it will really be.
“Let’s go to my office,” Ricardo says. “Without the entourage, as you put it.” He gestures down the tile-floored hall, and I follow him and his son all the way through the stately house to a pair of tall wooden French doors which open onto a spacious office with a patio and small garden beyond the smaller, glass-framed doors behind the desk. “Have a seat.”
Ángel goes to stand next to his father, who sinks down behind the desk as I take a seat in one of the wood-and-leather chairs in front of the desk. The doors close heavily behind me, and I feel a small bit of relief at the fact that there’s no longer half an army of armed men surrounding us.
Back in Boston, I’m Liam’s security, and Jacob is Connor’s. There have been times when we’ve had more around us when matters were tense between families, but it’s never felt so formal. This feels as if I’ve walked onto a military base, and it makes me feel anxious and uncomfortable.