And all of that was why Malachi was suddenly back.
It was also why Papá was about to inform me that I was a matter of minutes from being engaged to the man I already gave my heart to, who already destroyed it.
“Given that you and the Duke already know each other quite well,” Papá went on with a slight edge to his voice, “I was more than receptive to the proposal brought to me by their Royal Highnesses. The arrangement is that you will be married next year. After the marriage, UMG will establish a second headquarters in Corwick, where it will become the sole provider of state-sponsored internet access. In return, UMG will provide the government with a generous rate for services and brand new, country-wide fiber-optic cabling systems to ensure that all of their fine citizens have free, reliable, and state-of-the-art access to the internet, so that not a single person is left behind due to lack of access to technology.”
“We are very thrilled about the opportunity to finally provide this to our people,” Andrew underscored, speaking to Papá in that same soft, warm English-Irish accent that Malachi has. “It will improve literacy, reduce the unemployment rate, and contribute to the creation of new jobs across the country.”
I couldn’t argue with their desire to provide people with free access to the internet. In this day and age, having that is critical, but… Corwick’s “free” internet access would be paid for with my own freedom. And nobody in the room appeared to be willing to touch that topic with a ten-foot-pole. Likely because they weren’t concerned with it, seeing as arranged marriages are commonplace in their world and that of my family.
There wasn’t anything I could do to change what I’d just been informed was my fate, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
“Papá,” I said meekly, cutting my eyes to him and then Mamá, who gave a small, pre-emptive shake of her head, “No quiero casarme con— ”
“No hables español para ocultar tus palabras,” he snapped in a far more severe voice than he’d been using up to that point. He cleared his throat and gestured pleasantly. “Use English so that everyone may understand.”
I wasn’t going to tell a king and queen to their faces that I had lost any desire to marry their son years ago, and looked at my hands while I rephrased my words.
“Your Royal Highnesses,” I said, cutting my eyes to Deirdre because she was definitely the lesser of several evils right then. “Are you sure this is what Mal—” I coughed into my hand as I meticulously reworded my question. “What the Duke would want?”
“Oh yes,” Andrew said placidly. “It was actually his idea in the first place. Malachi came to us, and then we reached out to your father.”
The tiniest flicker of hope came to life in my chest that maybe there were remnants of the old Malachi in there somewhere, and I met his eyes again. I searched for the warmth and safety I’d always seen for as long as I could remember; the warmth and safety that had made me fall in love with him when I was merely a child.
It wasn’t there.
Malachi hated me.
Something happened after he left for his last year of college ten years ago. I have no idea what it was, but it transformed him from that sweet boy into a sinister, resentful man. And one glance at the documents on the coffee table told me he was about to essentially purchase me from my father.
“Yes,” Papá underscored, reaching to pick up a pen and sliding both it and the documents toward Malachi. “So, if there is nothing further, mijita, we will go ahead with finalizing the engagement.” He sat up straight, chuckling as he gestured at Mamá. “I know your mother is eager to begin planning the many, many festivities.”
I dragged my gaze to Mamá, who looked at me with resolve, as if attempting to convince me I could handle this and not immediately dismiss it as something like a death sentence. After all, Graciela and Auggie were happy. They learned to love each other, and have a pleasant, happy marriage, and this is just the way it is for people like us.
But Graciela and Auggie had been strangers. They didn’t have a lifetime of love that had mysteriously disappeared into thin air and reappeared ten years later, transformed into hate. That’s what Malachi and I ended up with, and this was a freight train barreling toward me with shot breaks, because Malachi was now picking up the pen.
He swept his dark, slanted, assertive signature across each of the documents, and just like that, we were engaged.
It was nothing like I had dreamed of for years.
As if to underscore the stark contrast, Malachi set down the pen and reached into his inside jacket pocket. He produced a small, brown, leather box that looked about a hundred years old, and all but slammed it onto the coffee table in front of me. I knew an heirloom ring was inside. He didn’t get down on one knee. He didn’t slip it onto my finger. He didn’t even open the box.
This was a business transaction.
And Papá was pleased.
He chuckled again, clapping his hands together. “Muchas gracias y felicidades, hijo.”
Malachi looked at him with his dark eyebrows lifted pleasantly, and then spoke for the first time since I entered the room; the first time I’d heard his voice in ten years.
“The pleasure is all mine, señor.”
It was like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It sounded like the Malachi I had always known, but was also eerily dissimilar and foreboding. Deeper, velvety, but void of the soft warmth I’d always loved.
“Papá,” I couldn’t help piping up, “May I speak to the Duke in private?”
Papá merely chuckled again as he stood. “Of course, mijita. You are to be married next year. I hope you will speak to him in private often. You have lost time to make up for.”
I stared at my hands, clasping them at my waist as I stood and crossed the room toward the glass doors that opened to the lush, French-style courtyard behind the great room. I didn’t wait for Malachi to follow me, and I sure as hell didn’t put on the ring.
I stood next to the large, ornate fountain at the center of the courtyard and watched Malachi step through the door and close it behind him. He approached me, stopping at arm’s length in front of me, and slipped his hands into his pockets as he looked at me with a haughty expression.
“Malachi,” I began, boring holes into his eyes as he bored holes into mine, “are you at least going to offer me some kind of explanation for why you disappeared off the face of the fucking earth?”
“No,” he snapped, albeit maintaining a neutral posture for the sake of our parents who were assuredly watching through the glass. “I will not offer you a fucking explanation because you did not extend that courtesy to me.”
“What in the hell do I owe an explanation for?” I gritted out through clenched teeth. “You are the one who—”
“I am the one who offered you the world and my heart on silver platter, and you threw all of it back in my face,” he growled, closing the distance between us with a looming prowl.
He towered over me, and I inclined my face up toward his, all the while racking my brain to remember that horrifying, heartbreaking time when it was clear something happened that caused his sudden radio silence, but I didn’t know what. My memory is a threadbare, patchwork quilt, but surely if I did something to him, I would remember it.