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And his legs were thick and muscled in his tight-fitting black suit pants.
When my gaze landed on his large hand, still holding my injured one, I gasped out loud.
Tattoos. They covered each of his fingers and the back of his hand, disappearing under his suit jacket.
I recognized them.
My eyes snapped up to meet the electric green eyes that had haunted my every thought since last night when they stared down at me as the mysterious man had pushed into my body. Now they stared down at me with amusement and something else burning in them.
“No,” I whispered taking a step backward. His hand tightened on mine, and I winced in pain, recoiling from his touch.
His eyes darkened and the crowd watched on silently as things got uncomfortable.
What did they expect to see at the wedding of an arranged marriage?
“Quiet now, Little One,” Nicolas commanded in a deep voice. “Father, get on with it.” He turned to the priest standing next to us and I tore my eyes away from my future husband and jumped when I looked at the little old man.
“What?” I asked, shaking my head in confusion. I was silenced when Nicolas stepped forward, eliminating any space between us, and took my other hand in his as well, tightening his hold on both. I winced again and clenched my teeth to keep from outright screaming in agony.
He was intimidating me with his size and power.
A move I recognized from my father’s catalog and a piece of my soul broke.
Every hope and a small bit of warmth that I’d felt today at the arrival of each of his small, kind gestures wilted away as I realized I was marrying a man who was so much like my father.
So much so, that he’d somehow beat the century-old tradition of the Rosetti family and was the one to steal my virginity last night, while letting me believe he was the priest.
The real priest, an old man twice the age of my father started his rambles about marriage and unions, but I couldn’t focus on what he said. I stared down at my hands still held tightly in Nicolas's and tried to stay conscious.
My body rebelled against the idea that I’d laid with my soon-to-be husband last night without even knowing it. I couldn’t wrap my head around why he would lie and trick me when he couldn’t even bother to attend the dinner before that.
He had even talked about my future husband like he was someone else entirely.
“I do,” Nicholas snarled, staring down at me when I forced my head back to look up at him.
The priest went on and then paused, waiting for me to agree as well. But everything swarmed around in my head at lightning speed, leaving me breathless and confused.
A hiss from the front row caught my attention and my head snapped to my brother Carmine. His face was red and tense as he stared at me, and veins on his temple and neck bulged, but he didn’t say anything.
I saw my father move just slightly in the seat next to him and I caught the glint of the metal torture device he carried around in his pocket where it was pressed against my brother’s ribs. It emitted electric shock like a taser though it looked like a small fork, designed to replicate the divot repair tool that golfers used to fix the grass when they dug it up. It was inconspicuous until he used it.
And then it was gruesome. Only once had he stabbed me with it, and it had been the worst pain of my life.
“I do.” I gasped, “I do!” I didn’t even bother to try to act like I was saying it to my husband, I stared directly at my father until he released his hold on my brother, who sagged in his chair as the electricity stopped pulsing through his body.
Nicolas followed my stare down to my father, who just raised an eyebrow at him with a smirk.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the priest said, and it permeated through the fog of panic in my brain. “You may now kiss your bride.”
I whipped my head back to Nicolas as fear and uncertainty rushed through me.
He wouldn’t.
The man let go of my hands as he stared down at me with intensity burning on his handsome face.
I didn’t just call the man handsome, did I?
“Wife,” He said with a sneer and slid his large hand around the back of my neck and tilted it back further as he lowered his face to mine.
