The older woman set a white veil over her head and made minute adjustments. “You could be marrying someone poor.”
“You’re joking, right?”
She stilled for a moment and seemed confused by Sacha’s question.
“When I was a girl your age, I’d have given one of my kidneys to marry a member of the Lombardi family.”
“Yeah, well, you can have him—kidneys and all.”
She hated the idea and what it stood for—the house, the wedding gown, the ceremony—paid for by the blood of those her father terrorized or controlled.
Looking around her room of eighteen years, she shuddered.
Gauzy, baby blue curtains flowed from the canopy of the bed. Plush, navy carpet covered the floor, and a small, ivory-colored sitting table sat in the corner, filled with the latest, most expensive perfumes and makeup from all over the world.
Her entire life reduced to expensive, shallow playthings. A pampered girl expected to fulfill a role—a duty—to ensure her father’s manipulations and crimes carried on to the next generation. No hopes or aspirations of her own.
Despair clawed its way inside and tugged at her heart. Did she want to resign herself to untold years of being arm candy to someone who held all the cards? An eventual family head who wouldn’t value her opinion or thoughts? His main expectation, she spread her legs and bear his offspring?
She knew that’s what he expected. Though she tried to keep her distance every time he met Pops in his office, she could never keep his oily, hungry eyes off her skin.
If Mamma was still alive, she’d have never allowed this to happen.
She investigated the floor-length mirror again. The image reflected disgusted her.
Where once her curls frizzed into a fuzzy halo, they now lay perfectly coiled and tamed. There was so much goop on her face, it felt like a mask covering the girl inside who screamed, desperate to peel and claw her way through—to escape and live her life, not someone else’s.
“Don’t frown.” Gerald fanned her face. “You’ll create lines in the foundation under your eyes.”
“And if I smile too wide, my face might crack and show a real, flesh and blood person underneath.”
“Brides.” He pranced around, adding more powder to her face. “They’re so dramatic.”
She shifted her legs. The designer shoes made her heels ache, and she wanted to tear them off and throw them out the window, or better yet, at his bald head.
“Well, it’s time.” Larue grasped Sacha’s wrist and began hauling her toward the bedroom door.
“Wait.” Sacha tugged against Larue’s hand and dug the balls of her shoes into the carpet.
“For what?” The woman’s lined face regarded her with a shrewd glance. “The music’s started, honey. It’s time to dance.”
But I don’t want to dance, she wanted to scream. Her dream was to write the music, not be a captive to the notes.
“Stop.” Panic made her voice crack. “I need a moment.”
“Ah, too late for that.” Larue tugged her forward, then grabbed the knob. “Duty calls, and you must obey.”
That’s the absolute truth, Sacha realized.
Obligation did beckon, butdidshe have to heed its orders?
If she stepped through that door, she’d find herself married to Lorenzo, the fat, pimple-picking man who’s stare made her want to take a shower every time it roved across her flesh. He was twenty years older, but that wasn’t the worst part. When he looked at her, there was always a dark, dangerous glint in his eye, as if he was examining a dragonfly and trying to determine what he wanted to rip off first: the legs or the wings.
And it wasn’t any use saying no or putting her foot down. Promised to his family before age ten, she never had a chance. Whether she wanted to or not, Pops would see her joined with the creep, even if both families had to drag her into the aisle in chains.
Around the age of fifteen, the hard truth of her father’s pre-arranged marriage to Lorenzo came to light. She’d cajoled, begged, and tried to compromise her way out of it.
Pops never budged, and told her it was for her own good, and that of the family. Her father, a king in the inner circles of the mafia, now offered his princess to the highest bidder and felt no remorse.
