There’s still disbelief in her eyes. It will take her some time to accept this. Like the stages of grief. She’ll go through denial, anger, and bargaining. She’s mourning her life as a single woman. “So if I say no to your proposal, there’s no hotel deal?”
“You won’t say no to my proposal.”
“See? This is why we won’t suit. I don’t like some alpha macho man coming in and telling me what to do. I think for myself, thank you very much.”
“I’ll keep you so sexed up, so blissed out on orgasms that you won’t care that much about how commanding I get. In fact, I think you’ll learn to love it.”
“I’m not some housewife who cooks and cleans.”
“If I wanted a cook or a maid, I’d hire one. I want a wife.”
“It sounds like you want a sex slave.”
“Work all you want during the day. Manage Bradley Hotels. Manage my restaurants and clubs and hotels. I won’t stop you. At night you submit to me.”
Her face blazes with heat. Vanilla. At least her past experiences have been vanilla. I guessed it right at the club, but she’ll experience the full range of kink with me. And she’ll like it. I’ll condition her to like it. Praise her when she comes, praise her when she cries.
Pleasure and pain.
“Why are we even talking about this?” She probably means for her tone to be demanding. Instead she sounds breathless.
“This is a negotiation.”
“It doesn’t feel like one. It feels like you’re telling me everything you want.”
“That’s right. There should be something in it for you. Besides the orgasms. Besides the limitless wealth. Besides the title of duchess. There are women who would like to marry me, you know. I’m considered a good catch in high society.”
“Then why don’t you marry one of them?”
“Because I want you.”
Emotions streak across her clear blue eyes. Confusion. Longing. And finally, resignation. She thinks I’m fucking with her. That she won’t be able to save her family’s company.
She stands abruptly. The chair rolls away from her, pushed by the force of her movement. “This meeting is over. Our secretary will show you out.”
Part of me wants to insist that she understand the truth. Another part of me wants to strip her naked, to reduce her to a quivering woman who begs to come. Patience. I don’t have very much, but I’ll grant her a little. Very little. “I’ll wait for your phone call.”
She glares at me. “I’m not calling you. We’re never talking again, most likely. Our short acquaintance is now over. And we are never, and I mean never, ever getting married.”
Chapter Three
Isabella, three months later
Lace itches along my arms. A corset restricts my breathing. Garters dig into my thighs. I’m held together by yards of lace and ribbon and satin.
My father appears at my side. He smiles in that real way that crinkles his eyes. “You look beautiful, Isa. I’m so proud of you.”
He means it. This is what makes him proud. Not streamlining Bradley Hotel operations. Not overhauling our financial systems. It’s this. Marrying well.
That’s what makes him proud.
After Francisco left the building, I ran the numbers again. I called the banks again. I rattled the cage of every investor we know, but no one had that kind of liquid money to invest. And so I made the phone call to Francisco, the one he knew I would have to make.
“Thank you, Daddy.” He’ll never know what it costs me to say that. To swallow my fear and my pride. I studied comportment alongside my multiplication tables. Not one of the five hundred people in the cathedral will see the abject terror vibrating inside me.
His cufflinks are gold. I gave them to him on his birthday three years ago. I wonder if that’s why he wore them today. Or if he wore them because they have the Bradley Hotels logo on them. That’s his life. His baby. It’s also the reason I’m walking down the aisle in Paris, France, in the country that will be my new home. Francisco owns his own private plane. He travels extensively, but his home is a chateau in the countryside.
“You’ll be a good wife to him, won’t you?” His expression is odd. Concerned, even.
“Of course,” I say.
“Of course,” my father repeats, looking relieved. “You’ve always been a good girl. And he’ll be a good husband to you.” The last sentence is muttered, almost to himself. As if he’s trying to convince himself that it’s true.
Someone calls to him—I don’t see who—and at that moment my brother appears at his side. He’s unrecognizable from the man he was in that meeting. There’s no bluster, no fight. “You look beautiful,” he says, and then he pitches his voice lower. “Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. Not for Bradley Hotels. We’ll find another way.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “I’m about to walk down the aisle.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not?” There are a thousand reasons not to back out. My family’s reputation, for one. The business I’ve worked so hard to save. But I find myself leaning closer to my brother.
“I should have stopped this.” Guilt darkens his expression. “I shouldn’t have been such an asshole in that meeting. I’ve heard things about this guy, Isa. Crazy things. That he’s controlling. That he’s a freak. And if I don’t try to stop you—”
“You can’t stop me. This is done.” I give him my most confident smile. Francisco said some things during our private meeting. He used the word submit. At night you submit to me. If that’s what my brother is afraid of, then it’s not important enough to risk the collapse of the company. A hundred thousand jobs. I’ll trade my body for a hundred thousand jobs.
Even if a knot of fear is forming at the pit of my gut.
“He might—”
The wedding planner interrupts him. She flits around us like a butterfly, making little tweaks to embroidered gauze over my skirt, the tendrils of blonde hair around my face.
Natalie. Her name is Natalie.
She’s murmuring into her headset, so it takes me a moment to realize she’s talking to me. “Are you ready?” she says in a whisper-yell.
I give her my serene smile. I learned it from my mother when I was five years old. Practiced it in front of the mirror with Estee Lauder lipstick on my lips. It’s not only Bradley Hotels on the line. If we were to fail, my younger brother and sisters would suffer. Robin is old enough to take care of himself, but the rest are still in middle school and high school. “Of course.”
Robin nods, defeated. “You look beautiful,” he says again, and then he goes to take his place inside the sanctuary. My dad ends his conversation and turns back to me.
Natalie beams at me. “You’re the calmest bride I’ve ever seen.”
It’s not the first time she’s told me that. Cake tastings and flower samples. Every inch of this wedding has been planned and purchased. It’s the event of the season.
The lights dim in the alcove, the way they do before the opera.
It’s our cue. Electricity moves through the air. It makes the hair on my arms stand up. I hear the muted opening strains of “Canon in D.” A door opens, and we emerge into the main hallway. The flower girl goes first. A distant cousin. I’ve met her twice. Then my bridesmaids. Most of them are family friends. I’ve known them forever, but we don’t hang out. My actual friends, the ones from college or people who work at the shelter—they’re in the audience. They warranted an invite, but not this particular honor.