Page 18 of Twins for the Mafia Heir

I was just supposed to be buying time until I could find a way out. I was just trying to keep anyone else from getting hurt. But…

I can’t do this. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t-

Achilles’s hands reach out, grasping my trembling ones. “It’s too late for cold feet now,” he says tightly. He’s gritting his teeth so hard I can see muscles jumping in his jaw.

It’s too late for that, and he can see it. Maybe he’s afraid I’ll make a run for it, or maybe he’s trying to tell me we’re in this together, but he squeezes my hands tightly and doesn’t let go as the priest begins his speech.

My vision is swimming and my ears are ringing so hard I don’t hear a single word of it. Not until Achilles’s mouth starts moving, and two impossible words come out.

“I do,” he says, defiant and hard. The words might as well be poison he’s spitting out.

“I do,” I immediately echo, too afraid I’ll miss my cue to actually wait for it.

There’s an awkward silence. I can actually hear the priest swallow before he clears his throat.

“You… You may now kiss-”

“Get out,” Achilles snaps, making the priest and I both jump again. The old man is all too happy to obey. He closes his Bible with a slap and scurries out the door without a look back.

I wish I could run too, but Achilles is holding my hands so tight he’s almost grinding my bones together. Abruptly, he drops them and turns away from me.

“Don’t be such a spoilsport,” Fantasia huffs, standing from the couch.

“Don’t,” Achilles warns, pinching the bridge of his nose. The rain pounds harder against the windows behind him, like the sky itself is protesting what’s just happened.

Fantasia glares at him, her patience for his righteous indignation waning. “Go buy some rings tomorrow,” she orders,turning toward the door. “The wedding banquet is at five tonight.”

As soon as she’s left the room, I stagger over to the couch and finally let my legs collapse underneath me. The adrenaline is leaving my body, sending a tingling through my fingers and brain.

I did it. I married a man who hates me under the eyes of a woman who would’ve been just as happy to kill me as she was putting me through this farce.

I fight to take a long, slow breath, then another. Achilles is dealing with this trauma by pacing the entire length of the drawing room and back. I wish I had any feeling at all in my lower body so I could do the same.

Then again, I might just start running instead of pacing, and never ever stop.

Eventually, Achilles does have to sit down so we can sign the stack of legal forms Fantasia left behind. I put pen to paper- and my hand spasms, leaving a jagged slash of ink.

I almost gave myself away again by writing my own name.

Bizarrely, I’m relieved by that. This didn’t happen to me. Not really, nottechnically. This happened to Raleigh, who’s already married to the love of her life. Every paper I sign with her name is meaningless.

And I’m relieved all over again that Raleigh has never taken an active role in the management of the Warwick estate. There’s no record of her signature anywhere to give my forgery away. I’m shaking too hard to properly copy anything anyway.

Achilles’s impatiently drumming fingers pause. He’s noticed my hesitation. I quickly scribble a line of flourishes that vaguely looks like Raleigh’s name, then pass the certificate and pen over to Achilles. He signs his name with a much neater row of spirals before he shuffles the paper aside and grabs the rest of the stack.

And that’s our marriage license, signed. According to that single piece of paper, Achilles is married to an already married woman he’s never actually met. I try to hold that truth close to my chest, but it gives me little comfort when I’m still the one physically here, playing out the role.

The rest of the papers on the table belong to a prenup, with a date already written at the bottom that claims it was signed days ago. I wonder if I can use any of these documents for my own good later down the line. Once we’re done signing them, Achilles folds them savagely and tucks them into an inside pocket of his blazer.

“Let’s get some air,” he says.

Without waiting for an argument, he stands and hauls me up along with him.

He leads me across the ground floor of the manor toward the back of the house, and at first I think we’re going for the kitchen and the route we took in last night. Will Fantasia still punish me if it’s Achilles who decides to run off? Something tells me she would. But Achilles would never leave Sidony of his own volition. I’ve seen them together barely twice, and I know that in my bones.

Instead, we end up on the back porch of the house. I thought the lawns and hedges at the front were extensive, but back here there’s also room for a duck pond crowned by an enormous fountain, a grove of trees, and a tangle of paths leading off into a garden. Beyond all of this green, the metropolis of London sits, looked over by a turbulent sky.

It’s still raining, and it’s so cold that it cuts straight through my light sweater and into my marrow. I shrink back toward the house, but Achilles pulls off his blazer and wraps it around my shoulders. I’m shocked, but I don’t pull back again.

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