Page 82 of The Strength Of A Woman

“Sounds good,” I say softly, and with that, we turn around and keep strolling.

14

CALLUM

The light hitsat a different angle, and the evening creeps in with tones of burning red and dark navy, glazing the old buildings, calling everyone to dinner tables, making the history of this town go on.

This place has been a crossroads of architectural and culinary influences, but its history doesn’t belong to the past.

Leilani and I are making history tonight in our secret, gentle way, which is a big change.

She’s coming out of her shell, showing me her beautiful smile and eyes burning with life.

I can’t stop staring at her when she’s not looking, although it’s hard to avoid her eyes.

They’re attracted to mine like magnets.

She feeds on my soul, or whatever part of my soul she glimpses in me.

Callum O’Hara hasn’t always been the way she perceives him tonight.

I wasn’t always paying attention to a woman’s needs.

I was younger, wilder, and I tasted life with the force of a hurricane.

Women were never a mystery to me.

I always knew what they wanted and what they needed, even when they said they wanted something else or pretended to be someone else.

But we never connected in a meaningful way.

Perhaps because I knew them so well, there was no room for exploration, no space for feelings, no time for intellectual conversations.

We fleetingly consumed each other the way you’d consume a snack at midnight, in secret, experiencing guilt, and trying to forget about the unwanted effects on your body the following day.

At some point, going the way of an arranged marriage came into play. My father spoke to me about it. He was a good salesman who knew how to sell anything to anyone by highlighting the benefits.

He and my mother were not exactly the product of an arranged marriage, but it looked that way.

They were lucky to have fallen in love before their families considered bringing them together.

My mother died young, and I was the only child, something my father deeply regretted.

There was no time to make and raise another.

Because of that, he never insisted on convincing me that the arranged marriage is the way to go, but he talked about its benefits as I just said.

I could get a young bride, someone I could initiate in the pleasures of life. Someone I could have children with, and many of them, if possible.

We also talked about the business side of it and how we could forge alliances.

But unlike Giorgio Gallo, he never believed those alliances would last for long. Therefore, he didn’t think the price we had to pay for them was justified.

He would’ve much preferred for me to find a woman suitable for our family, someone from a family like ours.

He always liked to point out that someone from outside might become a problem, and he was right.

Things can get quickly complicated with a woman who doesn’t understand how we run our lives.