Page 13 of The Irish Arrangement

Fuck, she was something else.

“You’re going to be my wife,” I said. “I’ll fuck you right here against this wall and force the union on you through consummation.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me my stepsister doesn’t appeal more.”

She doesn’t even compare.

“You will be my wife.”

“No.”

I tilted my head to the side. “You will be my wife long enough so you can give me an heir.”

Her brow furrowed. “What?”

“All I need is a goddamn heir. Nothing more. I don’t give a shit who my wife is so long as I get an heir.”

She licked her lips, taunting me to taste her mouth right here. To nip at her and make her hiss. Anything. Everything. I was two seconds from ramming into her right here in this courtyard.

Her phone pinged, and she glanced down at it, still tense with confusion. When she blinked quickly, she shook her head and mumbled something to herself, something so low that I couldn’t understand.

“What?”

“I…” She met my gaze again, troubled yet calculating. “You need an heir?”

“That’s what I fucking said.”

Her throat tensed and flexed as she struggled to swallow. Pale and seeming more scared, she lifted her chin defiantly.

Goddamn, she was ballsy. She had gumption, facing me like this. If she could put up a fight like this, not too timid and frightened to give me all she got, it would be all too easy to slam into her cunt and overpower her. To conquer her. To claim and possess her.

“I’ll marry you under one condition.”

I laughed once. How cute. She thought she had any grounds to negotiate with me? I realized that Shane couldn’t have been honest with her about why she had to marry me, and I was slightly intrigued about what motivated her to show up at all to a wedding when she had no clue who her groom was.

“A condition?”

She scowled at my mocking tone. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

So, she was told nothing? It didn’t matter. “Declan Sullivan.”

Arching one brow, she reacted as though she’d never heard of me before. It wasn’t hard to see how Shane—and Keira—had likely cast her and Nora aside. The man hadn’t ever acknowledged a second daughter. Her ignorance about who I was made sense.

“I will marry you on one condition.”

I crossed my arms, curious. “Go on,” I goaded her without any intention to agree to her criteria. I was in charge here. I was the boss. Not her.

“If I’m not pregnant within… six months, I can leave you.”

Leave? She would marry me if she had a way out?

I stared at her, trying to understand how she’d come to that conclusion. She really didn’t know much about the Mob ways of life. Couples didn’t split and get divorced. That was too trivial, a waste of time. When you married, you married for life. To the death.

The idea of my third wife not sticking around forever was a joke. She would be mine until she died. But it wasn’t up to me to educate her about that fact now.

“Six months?” I asked, pretending to consider it.

“Yes. If I don’t give you an heir, then I can leave.” She nodded once, as if repeating her scheme made more sense the second time she heard it out loud.

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