Page 93 of Fortress of the Heart

MARCO

I stare at her,uncomprehending her words for just a few moments.

“We’re supposed to be married,” she stammers.

When my brain catches up with me, I shake my head. “What the fuck?”

Though it’s pretty apparent, I don’t actually need her to repeat it.

“You’re engaged?” I bark as she flinches.

“We’re not engaged,” she says in a small voice. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Katiya, you better start explaining to me pretty quickly, I still have my dick out, for fucks sake. Now you’re telling me …” I shake my head, pulling my pants back on. This is an even bigger problem than I could’ve imagined. “You’re marrying that fucking douchebag?”

“I’m not marrying him!” she yells at me. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you if you’ll listen. I’msupposedto marry him by the time I turn twenty-four. We’re betrothed by both our families.”

“Betrothed?” I blow out, though I’ve heard it enough times. “You have to be fucking kidding me. What are we in the nineteenth century?”

“It’s how it still works sometimes with certain cultures and different families, you know that.”

I pull up my zipper and fasten my belt. “Jesus Christ.” I run a hand through my hair.

She stares at me with wide eyes. “What is that supposed to mean? Do you regret it?”

“You should have told me this before,” I growl.

“Why? Would you have thought twice about you sticking your cock inside me?”

“Watch your mouth.” I point at her.

She sits on the bed unmoving.

She isn’t fucking joking about not wanting to leave, I see it in her eyes. I realize I’m being difficult, and it probably isn’t called for. But what we just did, I took her virginity, and now she tells me she’s betrothed? What did I honestly expect anyway?

There are just too many obstacles, and our circles just don’t align. There’s a big fucking neon sign in front of my eyes telling me to stop.

“This is a little unfair given my predicament,” she says.

“You said you didn’t have a boyfriend, that he was nothing.” I’m fucking seething to even think about her and this fucking idiot. She’ll probably be back in his arms in an hour, and that riles me up, a lot. “Were you lying about him fucking you?”

I’m mad as hell.

She shakes her head. “No, I wasn’t. I don’t have a boyfriend, Marco. I never lied about that. You saw the blood. I’m not lying about being a virgin. Our families expect us to come together. I don’t have a choice, and it’s the reason I was going to Europe, to clear my head.”

“That’s why you don’t want to leave?”

“There are many reasons, but, yes, that’s one of them.”

“What are the others?”

She bites her lip and looks at me, I look away. The sight of her doing that, leaving that indent in her lip with her teeth, sitting up on her heels with my shirt on her body is too much.

“My family is a nightmare,” she sighs, “that’s a big reason. I have no say in my life. You don’t know what it’s like. You’re a man in a mafia world where you get to live how you want to with no questions asked, it’s different for women.”

I glance down at her, thinking about my little sister Valentina and my niece Bria, and she isn’t far wrong.

“What do they see that’s so special about this guy?” I ask her, trying not to bark but barely hanging onto my temper.

---