Page 1 of Inappropriately Matched

Chapter One

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Clementine

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“Clementine Belle Williams, I will take away your trust fund, and you’ll have nothing. Nothing, I tell you,” I say, deepening my voice and mimicking my father’s words as I fling paint onto a canvas.

If my father thinks I care about the cottage in the Hamptons, the apartment in Japan, the cars, and holidays, I failed in my rebellion against excessive wealth.

Why does he think I live in a modest one-bedroom apartment with my fluff-princess Honeypot, in a decent neighborhood that I pay for myself as a matchmaker forLeashed to Loveinstead of living in the Williams’ castle-like home?

If he thinks he can threaten me into marrying—marrying someone I don’t know from an armadillo, someonehe’sgoing topickforme—he doesn’t know me at all.

Okay, he does, which explains why he faked a heart attack when he knew he wasn’t going to get his way. Yes, my father pretended to have an entire heart attack right there in his office.

I wasn’t buying it, and neither did my mom, who, bored with his antics, didn’t bother to look up from inspecting her nails when she told him to stop acting like a drama king and get up off the damn floor. She never intervened in our father-daughter battles, but she always called my father out when he played dirty.

But Roman Williams didn’t stop there. He threatened to take away my grandmother’s ring and give it to my arch nemesis of a cousin, Camilla. Ugh.

My grandmother gave that ring to me. Passed down generation to generation from the 1940s, it belonged first to my great-great-grandmother, given to her by the love of her life, a wartime hero.

My gran would tell me so many tales about her great-grandmother’s love affair. She was a daring, sophisticated spy, and he was a soldier. It’s how my gran and I bonded, reading my great-great gran’s letters and looking at the little trinkets she left behind.

And fine, the ring is worth a few million dollars now, but the history, the fiery passion, and the romance attached to it are priceless. Currently, it’s in a vault together with all the other Williams’ treasures, but when I turn twenty-three next year, it will come to me. Now my father wants to give it to Camilla, who goes around telling everyone she was my gran’s favorite. I’d like to favorite her eye with my fist.

Whoa, Clem, violence is never the answer, I remind myself.

My hand moves across the canvas with lightning speed. I’m no longer trying to capture a still of the bowl of apples in front of me. Instead, I’m now painting demon apples, with skulls on them and worms creeping out from their wrinkly exterior. This is going to be my masterpiece. I’ll call itClemFury.

Ugh! My frustration gets a fresh surge of energy. I grab an apple and take a huge, unladylike bite into it that hurts my jaws.

My father wants to play dirty; he’ll get dirty from me. I don’t know how yet, but I’m nothing if not inventive. That question about what you’d take with you if you were stranded on an island. Me.I will take myself because that is all I need. Just me. I’m capable of trading sand with the natives, and I’ll save the chief from a broken heart and build a ship and sail back to civilization.

Okay, that’s probably not how it would go down. I would get captured and put into a cauldron and feed a family of six thanks to never saying no to cake.

I’m still chewing on the piece of apple in my mouth when the sound of a jackhammer on steroids reverberates in the air from the building across from me. It’s so damn ear-splittingly loud even my organs quake.

Ugh.

Today is not the day, and I’m not the one. I’m sure it’s not even six in the morning yet. People are still asleep, for goodness’ sake. Not me, obviously—I am otherwise preoccupied with my meltdown and angry painting.

Gripping the apple with my teeth. I drag a grey cardigan out of my closet and fight to get my arms into the sleeves as I mutter curses at the cacophonous thuds all around me.

From a posh little basket, with red silk sheets and a cashmere throw, my French poodle, Honeypot, raises her head and gives me a ‘What now?’look.

“They woke you too, didn’t they?” I whisper, putting on my shoes. “Don’t worry, Mummy is going to sort them out. Oh, you’re coming with Mummy?” I say as Honeypot stretches and closes the distance between us.

“Bring your boxing mittens, pup. We’re going to beat up a couple of very noisy men. Okay, not beat up physically. I’m five-three, and you’re too adorable to get your paws fixed in a fight, but we’re going to give them a piece of our minds. You just bark to back me up, all right?”

Honeypot gives me three slow blinks, rolls her eyes, and squares me with another look that unmistakably asks, ‘What is this bitch up to now?’She slips in beside me as I fly out the door, and she struts her freshly groomed bottom with a superiority I could never muster in this lifetime. I love her so much, it hurts.

I march with purpose, out of my building, and across the street to the construction site, which has been going on forever and a day already now.

I don’t care about my sloppy look, either. My hair is a mess from all the hair pulling my father puts me through. My clothes should not see the outside of my apartment, probably not even inside my apartment if I had any pride. A shapeless T-shirt that was once white but is now beige with age and over washing, dotted possibly with a fresh sauce stain just above my left breast, to match the hair dye stains on it already. And my oldest, most comfortable pair of black leggings, literally held together by its threads. The cardigan is new, though, and will cover everything up.

Except why do I feel a cold, brisk morning breeze on my butt? Because the cardigan is one of those long in the front and short at the back styles and my threadbare leggings do nothing to ward off the cold. Great. Also, it’s too late now. I’m already on the battleground.

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