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Chapter One
RONAN
After losing my father in a gunfight, I knew I had to step up. I alsoknew marriage was at the top of the list,but I was busy doing a lot of other things until my mother got in the fucking way.
“Do you really expect to marry for love?” My mother’s words the night she got me to agree to this, sealing my fate with the Ferreri as their son-in-law replay in my head.
“I know what I must do.” And I did. I’m on it.
My mother has driven me nuts in more ways than I care to remember. Going out of her way to play fucking matchmaker for me to marry Barbara Ferreri is just the cherry on top.
My father would be proud of my fiancée and irritated by my trying to dodge this wedding. He was my mentor. My mother is my nemesis, and my sister… well, my sister is my heartbeat.
I look at her in the rearview mirror, watching her look at something on her phone. She is wearing a simple denim skirt and a stylish bright blue blouse that compliments her gray eyes. Without her dark irises, she could easily pass for a ghost.
She lifts her eyes to meet mine, catching me watching her. She manages a small smile but I know her well enough to know something is making her uncomfortable.
I focus on the deep breath she takes, then her fidgeting, and then her pretending to be too involved in what she looks at on her phone. “Riley…”
“What do you think of this track, sweet pea?” Barbara slips herself into the moment as if her presence is not enough of a pain in the fucking ass.
I say nothing to her. I detest that stupid pet name. I have warned her more than once, but she’s decided to keep it since she thinks it’s getting under my skin.
“Babe?” She cocks her head to look at me from her seat next to me.
I don’t hate her. I hate the situation I’m in and the fact that she is using every opportunity she gets to aggravate me, spoiled brat that she is.
She knows she is in a powerful position and she knows why I’m doing this, we both do. But I stand to gain more, so she is taking advantage of that.
“I want to make a video so the publicist will have something to post.” She waits for me to answer, but all she gets is fucking silence. I’m everywhere in the media because of her. I’m sleeping, she takes pictures. I’m eating, she makes videos. Everything is for show. Once, Riley showed me the page, and even I almost believed we were in love.
Her team had planned everything to perfection. It was shocking.
“Ronan?” She snorts. “It was the pet name, wasn’t it?” She chuckles dryly. “Okay, what do you want me to call you, and what will you be calling me? Because we have to agree on something here.”
“Barbara, that’s what I will be calling you,” I reiterate like I have done every single time she brings up this issue. “Find something you want me to call you,” I breathe quietly as I feel her smiling beside me.
“I already have something I think will be the perfect…” Riley giggles from the backseat and I catch her staring at me through the rearview mirror. Every single thing is funny, amusing, and intriguing to her.
I screw my brows at her, and she shrugs.
“I never thought the day would come when I would see my big brother using a pet name for a lady,” she shakes her head, clamping her lower lips to tamp her smile.
“You owe me one then for making that day come,” Barbara lifts her phone, and my teeth clench when I realize she is making a video.
“Take the next turn,” Riley points at a turn, and I nod.
I’m trying to remember who convinced me to join them for this damn cake tasting. Barbara or my mother?
“That one,” Barbara stops recording and gestures toward a three-story pastry store, and I pull up in front of it.
I can taste the sweetness they whisk up in there simply by looking at the colorful building. I pull up next to a sedan, and a customer emerges, grinning and clutching a brown carry-home bag with the store's logo printed on it.
However, Riley's fidgeting again, so I corner her once she climbs out of the car.
“I’m fine,” she answers before I start, which means she is not.
“Who said I was going to ask that?” I slip one hand into the pocket of my jeans and puff my chest.
