“Do you agree to the match?” he asks. “If so, I will have arrangements made and sent to you.”
“I agree.”
“If you have any questions, I’ll give you the contact information of my assistant, and you can ask him, as I’m a busy man.”
“Understood.”
FOUR
Mateo
“I can’t believedear old granddad finally got to you,” Maria coos as she straightens my tie.
“Fear not, dear sis, for tomorrow I’ll still be the man I am today.”
“Did you choose a pretty Irish lass as your mate to piss off our ancestors?”
“Most certainly, and stop using the term ‘mate’. It’s weird.”
“But isn’t that what she is? A mate? Someone to breed with? My own dear husband helps run the family business. What is your pretty nineteen-year-old bride good at other than spreading her legs? If she’s even good at that. She is a virgin, after all.”
“Do I sense a hint of jealousy?”
She chuckles. “Why would I care who you wed or bed, dear brother?”
“Because your own husband smells like mothballs.”
She frowns, her lip sneering above her left canine. “Don’t remind me.”
“If you’ll excuse me, it’s time I introduce myself to my bride.”
Maria gives me a saucy smile. “You mean you haven’t met her yet?”
“It was intentional. I don’t want her feeling as though she has control over me, is at all important, or that I give a fuck about how she feels.”
“Father trained you well.”
Her words sting more than they should, as my father was the perfect example of how not to carry on a family line. But there’s no point dwelling on the dead.
“I’ll see you inside the chapel,” I tell her, then make my way through the cathedral to the bridal suite, walking straight in without knocking.
A sea of white covers half the room with a shock of red at its center.
Her pictures hardly do her justice.
Ivy gasps when she sees me, her big green eyes full of fear and uncertainty.
“You are not supposed to be in here?” an obnoxiously feminine voice snaps, and from Ivy’s left, more red appears, storming toward me to shoo me from the room.
“You must be Herminia,” I say to the older version of my bride. Three other women are in the room attending to my wife, but they know better than to look at me.
Ivy’s mom comes over, tilts her head to the side, and smiles. “Call me mom.”
“I’ll call you whatever I like,” I say, pushing past her.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she teases.
“I’m the one paying for these quarters, so I have more right to the room than you.”
