Page 77 of Reluctant Heir

“No,” he says, surprising me. “Who can love someone after a few months?”

Yeah. Who?

“Oh,” is all I reply, unsure of where else to take this.

“But that doesn’t mean what happened to her is right.”

“What did happen to her, Connor? It seems you know more than you are letting on.”

“I don’t know for certain, but I have ideas.”

“Care to share with the rest of the class?” My hands drop, fists forming in the lap of the creamy material of my dress.

“Not until Iactuallyknow for certain,” he says, shaking his head. “My first order of business: go through this.”

He holds the file up, and I study it. Plain, yellow in color, and possibly containing all the answers I’ve come looking for.

“Don’t you think that’s unfair? Iactuallymarried you for you to get that information and then share it with me.” I throw his word back in his face.

He sighs. A different man would surely be rolling his eyes and staring at the ceiling in silent supplication that I shut the fuck up, but he’s not a different man.

He’s Connor, and he holds my eyes as he says one word, finally getting me to close my mouth and quit asking, “No.”

I’ll sneak into his office later and get it myself.

I’m curledup in bed on my wedding night, my eyes scanning the pages ofThe Great Gatsby,but I’m not retaining any of it. Lightning flashes through the curtains of my room, thunder echoes outside, and the day plays on repeat through my mind. The wedding, how soon it was over, binding me to Connor. The congratulations of people I didn’t know. The file Connor was now surely poring over that he told me I couldn’t have.

Damn him.

I deserve answers too.

I finally shut the book with a huff and stand, stretching. It’s late, my head is pounding, and I need something to drink, but I want more than the water sitting beside me on my bedside table. I stare at the ring that I set beside my cup of water and then look away from it.

I step out into the hallway, startled at the knocking that starts up downstairs. It takes me a moment to orient myself and realize it’s coming from the front door. It grows more insistent, the closer that I get, and I arrive in the entryway at the same time Connor and Geo come from opposite directions.

We look at each other for a moment before Connor motions both of us aside, and he throws open the door, a furious look on his face. It’s pouring down rain, and lightning crackles in the background, which is probably to blame for my raging headache. The pressure of storms shouldn’t be taken lightly.

My eyes focus in on the girl standing in front of us, soaked to the bone and holding a duffel bag. She has long red hair and large doe eyes, and she can’t be more than eighteen, twenty at the most. She looks frightened and cold, and I immediately rush forward, pulling her inside and out of the weather.

Water pools on the shiny hardwood floor beneath her as we take her in. Her bottom lip trembles, and she reaches with a shaky hand to push her wet hair off her shoulder and behind her ear.

“I’ll get towels,” Geo says, striding toward the kitchen.

I take the duffel from her, setting it down, and I rub her bare arms.

“Who are you?” Connor asks, raising one eyebrow and looking angrily in my direction.

I raise both of mine back, asking him silently what else he would have had me do. She was drowning out there.

“Fran-Francesca Amato,” she manages to say between chattering teeth.

“Francesca?” Connor repeats, glancing back at Geo, who is now walking toward us, holding a stack of towels.

Brigette appears behind him. Her apron is covered in flour, no doubt from when she was preparing food for tomorrow’s celebration. A dinner to welcome me to the families properly. Laughable really.

“Fernando’s sister?”

Francesca nods but doesn’t say anything. I wrap a towel around her shoulders and move her hand to grasp it at her neck, holding it there while I take another and try to wring out the wet ends of her hair. She’s got on a shabby tank top and jeans, which can’t feel good with the wet material chafing against her legs.

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