Page 46 of Condemned to You

Hamilton POV

“I need a guarantee there is no one else that is catching her eye,” I said.

Luca didn’t seem to ask what I was referring to which meant he must have already known.

“Luca was a fool to pass you up,” Bethany says. She tries to convince me that for us to get out of our misery, we should get married, that my father and her brother will be happy, and that we will be free.

Unable to hold back my frustration, “I did like you Beth. Really. But it doesn’t take a fool to know when someone’s heart belongs to another. I put the pieces together. I get why you tried to entertain me. Dangle me on your arm so Luca wouldn’t suspect you were fucking Emilio.”

Shocked, Bethany stays silent.

“It was clear Emilio didn’t like me. Hell, he even came to threaten me if I ever touched you again that he’d carve my eyes out. I figured that was supposed to be a message from Luca, but when your brother showed up to my father’s house wanting to set up an arranged marriage – it threw me off.”

“Luca wanted us to marry?”

I nod, “His words were ‘Keep the alliance strong.’ It was set to happen and I tried to contact you but you just … disappeared. I got worried and went to Luca. He said you were in Arizona for business.”

I watch Bethany shift on her feet and uncomfortably gulp.

“Luca never told me about the arrangement,” Bethany confesses. “I brought up the idea to him but he shut it down.”

I rub the back of my neck.

“Hamilton?” She urges knowing I am holding back something.

My eyes meet hers as my hand drops back to my side. “I called it off.”

She lightly gasps in surprise. “Because of Emilio’s threat?”

“No,” I reply. “It was my call.”

She gave me a questioning look. “I’m going to need more details on that.”

“My father wanted me to go through with the marriage not because he cared whether I liked you or not. Locking in Bethany DeCarlo was securing his power on the city. I knew exactly who you were at that pool party. It was all planned out. Get close to you. Make you fall in love.”

With a laugh of disappointment and a look of hurt in her eyes, “So you were just like everyone else. Using my name to benefit your own.”

“That was my father’s plan. I didn’t care as long as that meant he was off my back. Then I got to know you. And I thought you deserved better than that. After a few days, I told my father to call it off but he refused. You don’t go back on a deal with Luca DeCarlo.”

“So then how did you do it?”

“I started asking around. Everyone confirmed backing out was a bad idea. That you didn’t want Luca sending Emilio to offer the consequence of doing that. Emilio doesn’t come to warn, he sets out for blood. That’s when the pieces started clicking. Emilio said he’d carve my eyes out if I saw you again. That’s a warning. For someone who doesn’t give warnings, that had to mean something. So, I confronted him.”

Her eyes widen. “You, confronted Emilio? About the situation?”

“That was the scariest 5 minutes of my life,” I confess, still shaken up by the memory.

“What did you tell him?”

“I was able to convince him not to cut my tongue off right then and there.”

“How?”

“I told him if he wanted me to keep quiet then he’d have to convince Luca to drop the marriage thing.”

The look of confusion on her face is replaced by a distasteful glare. “We would have made a good team.”

How could she look at me like that? I smile sarcastically and shake my head, “I’m not made for your kind.”