I narrowed my eyes on the woman. Dressed in a simple floor-length black dress, she had her blond hair pulled into a delicate twist at the right side of her head. It took me a second to realize who she was because I hadn’t seen her in… Fuck, I couldn’t even remember how long it had been.
“Is that—?”
“Yup,” Barrick growled.
“What the hell is she doing here?” I bit out.
“Officially announcing your engagement.”
“Fuck.”
“There he is,” my father said with a chuckle, his eyes falling on me. He waved me forward, as if he expected me to fall in line with their newest scheme to try to run my life.
My eyes landed back on Darcy Hamilton, and I cursed my own past idiocies. Darcy was my high school girlfriend. And like most guys that age, I’d thought more with my dick than my brain. I thought because the sex was good and she pretended to love me, we would be together forever. I proposed on her eighteenth birthday, and even though we were young, both her parents and mine had actually endorsed our marriage.
Then I’d enlisted in the Marines. Darcy changed, and I realized she was trying to manipulate me just as much as my parents were. But it wasn’t until I lost my leg that I saw how shallow she really was. She dumped me, saying she wasn’t the type of woman who could spend her life caring for an invalid husband because she didn’t think I would walk again.
To be honest, she hadn’t broken my heart when she gave me back the ring. If anything, I’d been relieved I was able to get rid of her so easily. I’d spent the months of my deployment trying to figure out how to break off our engagement without stirring up more shit with my parents.
I walked through the crowd, all eyes on me. People I hadn’t seen in years and whose names I couldn’t remember for the life of me grinned, and a few patted me on the back, offering me congratulations. Climbing the stairs, I turned my full focus on my father.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded in a voice low enough that only the three other people on the stairs could hear me.
Darcy linked her arm through mine and laid her head on my shoulder, her blue eyes gazing up at me adoringly. I knew it was an act she was putting on for the crowd, and it irritated the hell out of me. All I could think was that my beautiful little kitten was thousands of miles away, hurting because she was scared she was going to lose her father, and these people had kept me from being with her because they wanted to announce my marriage to this spoiled little bitch?
Fuck that.
“Darling, we know you’ve been dragging your feet about setting a date for the wedding,” my mother said with a beaming smile for the crowd below. “So, we thought we would just take all the stress away and do it for you.”
“Darcy and I aren’t even together,” I gritted out. “I forgot all about her until just now.”
Darcy made a pained noise and pouted up at me. “Brax, don’t be mean.”
I shrugged her off and took two steps away from her. “I’m not in the mood to play any of your games. Tell these people the truth, and leave me the hell alone.”
My father clenched his jaw. “You will marry Darcy. It’s part of the merger her father and I agreed to. Your marriage will only solidify our new joint corporation.”
“Fuck your new corporation,” I told him. “I won’t be a pawn you can use to make more money with Hamilton. Tell everyone you were joking. Now.”
“Darling—” my mother started to scold me, but I turned to face the crowd to do it myself.
“Everyone, I’m sorry, but my parents have it wrong. Darcy and I are not getting married—”
“Until after Christmas,” Darcy interrupted, and for the first time in my life, I actually wanted to cause a woman bodily harm. “Because we want to move in to our new house and get the nursery decorated before the big wedding.”
Collective gasps and cheers went up at her basically announcing her pregnancy. What the actual fuck?
But as I opened my mouth to tell everyone it was all a misunderstanding, I saw cameras flashing in our direction and knew the story of Braxton Collins and Darcy Hamilton’s upcoming wedding and parenthood was going to be on all the trashy gossip sites by morning.
Barrick was right.
My parents were going to ruin my life.
Chapter 7
Nevaeh
My head was foggy when I woke up the next morning.
After talking to Braxton the night before, I felt like I could breathe a little easier again and was able to talk to my sisters and brother rationally. As rationally as I could while being pissed at each and every one of them for keeping Daddy’s illness from me.
Arella hadn’t wanted to put more stress on our parents, I got that, but they still should have told me. Having the entire country between us shouldn’t mean that our loyalty to each other disappeared. We were close, and yeah, we fought like crazy at times—especially Arella and me—but we’d always promised we would have each other’s backs.
Once I stopped bitching at them and they apologized contritely and promised it wouldn’t happen again, I’d gone back to my room and done some research. I found out that it wouldn’t matter if it were a child or a sibling that matched as long as the genetic match was a good one. According to Mom, Daddy and Uncle Shane were as good as it got from what the doctors told them. That was a relief at least.
Once I learned all I could on what to expect, and what Daddy should and shouldn’t be doing to prepare for surgery, I finally passed out in bed. That had been close to three in the morning.
Blurry-eyed, I glanced at my clock and saw it was almost noon. Groaning, I got out of bed and walked half blind into the bathroom to shower.
By the time I got downstairs in search of something to eat, the rest of the house had been up for hours, and it seemed we had guests.
Aunt Lucy and Aunt Layla were sitting in the kitchen with Mom, both of them drinking tea. Both of them were Mom’s biological sisters, but Aunt Layla and Uncle Jesse had adopted Aunt Lucy when she was a little girl and raised her as their own. We had a weird family, but I loved it that way. Normal just seemed boring to me, and boring was unacceptable.
“Happy birthday!” Aunt Lucy greeted as she stood and practically bounced over to wrap her arms around me. Both she and Aunt Layla were shorter than Mom and even more so than me. With her smaller size, Lucy didn’t look like she was a mother of two. She always laughed when people told her she looked like a teenager, and she said it was because her doting husband’s love kept her looking young.
I hugged her back, then accepted one from Aunt Layla.
“We’re going shopping,” Mom informed me with a smile. “I think you need a new outfit for your party tonight, don’t you?”
“I’m not really up to shopping, Mom,” I told her. What I really wanted to do was crawl into my dad’s lap and soak up his love for a few hours while we watched crappy old movies.
“Your dad went golfing with your uncles,” Mom informed me as if she could read my mind. “The younger kids are all over at Shane and Harper’s, and Arella is getting ready to go with us. So, hurry your ass up. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
Sighing, I looked down at my outfit. Skinny jeans with a hole in the left knee and the hoodie I’d stolen from Braxton the first week I’d moved in with him. It was my favorite hoodie, and sometimes I slept in it when it got really cold back in Northern Virginia.