Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 110771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
God, does she.
“Hey, Marco?”
I stop at the edge of the patio, so close to my escape that I can taste it, when she calls out and stops me. I turn around and look at the kid who should be more concerned with going to the movies with her latest crush, than getting engaged to a man who is double her age.
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to be a good boy?”
“What?”
“Well, if I’m not supposed to talk to other guys, then you shouldn’t talk to other girls either,” she reasons.
“You won’t be of age for us to marry for five years, Helena,” I try to explain.
She shrugs. “It’s five years for me, too, and if you think about it, I haven’t even had time to date like you have. Seems to me, that should make five years easier for you.”
“Why am I suddenly getting the feeling you’re going to be a hard woman to deal with, Helena?”
She shrugs. “I like it better when you call me Ena.”
“Precisely why I won’t do it that often. I want you to appreciate the times it happens.”
She rolls her eyes, but crosses her arms at her chest, letting me know silently that she’s not about to be distracted. “You haven’t answered. Are you going to be my good boy?”
“I’m not a boy.”
“So, that means you’re not. That hardly seems fair. If you can date other women, then I can, too. It’s only right.”
“You want to date women?”
“You know what I meant,” she huffs.
I nod because I do. She should be able to date. She’s too damn young for this contract. That doesn’t change the fact it has been signed now and this is my new reality. Helena is going to be mine and she’s got spirit and developing beauty that definitely appeals to me. She wanted this marriage and if I’m going to claim her, I don’t want there to be some asshole out there with a claim on what belongs to me.
Fuck, how did things get so complicated.
“I’ll wait for you, Ena.”
“You promise?” she pushes. One day I will have to teach her not to question me. I shake my head.
“I told you I won’t lie to you. I’ll wait for you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeat.
“Marco?”
I’ve already turned to leave again, but her voice stops me. I could be imagining it, but I think I hear panic in her voice.
“Yeah?” I look over my shoulder at her. She does look anxious.
“I’ll see you soon?” It’s a statement, but she makes it sound like a question.
“I’ll be seeing you,” I tell her. It won’t be soon. I need Helena to grow up—especially if I’m going to be living like a damn monk while I wait for her.
Shit.
Chapter 1
Helena
Two Weeks Before Helena’s Seventeenth Birthday
“He’s avoiding me, Melina!” I cry, throwing myself on her bed. I’ve been at her house for three days and I’ve not so much as seen Marco one time. “Soon, it will be exactly one year since I’ve laid eyes on him. One whole year!”
“I know, honey.”
“He told me that he would be seeing me. Did he mean he’d see me at the wedding altar in five years? What does he want from me?”
Shit. I know I’m whining. I’m pissed though. When I convinced my father to set up the contract with Marco, this was not what I had in mind. I don’t understand it. I know I’m younger than him. Okay—a lot younger. I didn’t see that as a problem. Most of the adults I know the men have younger women. It doesn’t bother me. In truth, I’ve never been attracted to boys my age. Then again, I took one look at Marco the summer before I turned sixteen and other men kind of ceased to exist.
“Helen—”
“Doesn’t he want to see me?”
“Marco is… different.”
I frown at her. “He’s a man who has agreed to marry me. You would think he would at least want to see me! It has been a freaking year, Lina! A year! I could have grown a third eye and horns on my head.”
“I think he knows that hasn’t happened,” she laughs. I don’t see anything funny about any of this.
“Oh yeah? I could have gained six hundred pounds!”
“Honey—”
“Don’t honey me. I love you. You know I do, but I do believe your brother is an asshole.”
“All of them are to be honest. I’m not sure why you ever set your sights on Marco to begin with.”
“He’s hot,” I mutter.
“Gross,” Melina says, scrunching up her face in revulsion.
“What? He is!”
“He’s also my brother.”
“So? That’s your bad luck. He’s not mine and the man is smoldering hot. It’s more than that, though. He’s always watching over you. He cares about you, and it shows. Remember that time when you were sick when you were fourteen? I’d never seen any man take care of someone like that,” I murmur, and I hadn’t. I was fifteen going on sixteen. I’m a little over a year older than Melina. I remember watching the way he cared for her, how sweet he was to her, and I was so envious. I know that’s when I fell in love with him. The way he’s ignoring me makes me think any emotion I have at all for the man will be gone before we ever get around to a marriage. I’ve spent my whole life being ignored by my father. The last thing I want is to be ignored by a husband, too.