“Marlon Wynter is a man who values his business above all else.”
For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her, but I quickly pushed the feeling away. I wasn’t going to marry some girl—I didn’t want to marry anyone—but I also didn’t want to anger my father any further. Maybe there was a way I could agree to marry her but get her to be the one to refuse to marry me. Surely, that wouldn’t be hard. I wouldn’t want to be married to me.
A seed of a plan planted in my mind. “Fine, I will marry her, but under one condition.”
“What is that?”
“She must live with me for thirty days first. If at the end of the thirty days, or at any point in between, she tells me she wants to go home, then the agreement is off. I won’t marry a girl who doesn’t want to be married to me.”
He ducked his head in a slow nod. “That sounds reasonable to me. I’m sure the Wynters will also be in agreement with those terms.”
My father reached out his hand for me to shake, and I took it with confidence.
The girl would be begging to go home by the time I was done with her.
Chapter Three
Hallie
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“HALLIE, OUR NEED TOforge an alliance between our two families is greater than ever.”
A weight depressed the bottom of my bed, and I knew my father had sat down. I remained where I was, curled up on my side, facing the wall. I wished he’d go away. I didn’t want to talk about family politics—not now—not ever.
I’d barely left my room since Harvey’s murder at our wedding. I didn’t know how I was supposed to react. It wasn’t as though I’d loved Harvey, but what I’d pictured as my future had been snatched away from me in a split second. I hadn’t even been able to partake in my favourite pastime of reading, unable to focus long enough to get through even a single page.
I’d attended Harvey’s funeral a few days after the shooting, and had stood at my father’s side, my hand in his, dressed in black instead of white this time. The Cornells had huddled together on the other side of Harvey’s grave, his father, his younger brother, Leo, and his elder brother, Tam. They, too, all wore black, though Tam had also been in the same suit at our wedding, so I doubted it was anything different for him.
Harvey’s mother, Elena Cornell, had her face pressed against her husband’s chest. She clung to him as though she’d collapse if she let go. Her shoulders shook, and her fingers were curled into claws. My heart had ached for her. A part of me wished I could feel some kind of grief like she did, so I could play the grievingalmost-wife, but I didn’t know how I felt. I was numb inside and still in shock at everything that had happened. I’d sensed the gaze of the elder brother on me, staring at me as though I was the one who’d murdered his brother. Did he blame me for Harvey’s death? He hadn’t hidden his opinion of our families joining together.
A terrible thought went through my mind. What if Tam Cornell had something to do with his own brother’s murder? Would he stoop so low to prevent the wedding from happening?
I shook the thought from my head. There was no question as to who was responsible for the shooting. It had been the Gilligans. Tam Cornell wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the idea of our families joining to become the most powerful organisation in London.
“That the Gilligans have gone to such lengths to prevent it from happening, proves it’s the right thing,” my father continued. “They fear us becoming one unit, Hallie. They know we’ll be too strong for them.”