If I do this—if I marry her—I'll have everything I've ever wanted and nothing at all. She'll be my wife in name, but not in any way that matters. Not in her heart. And when this is over, when Desmond is dead and the threat has passed, she'll leave me. She'll go back to her life, and I'll be left with nothing but the memory of what it felt like to call her mine.
It’ll be a thousand times worse than when I left when we were eighteen. When I knew what it was like to want her, but not to have her. When I thought that it was just puppy love, that I’d leave and grow up and be glad I hadn’t made a mistake that could have ruined my entire life.
But Annie could never have been a mistake. And walking away from her was the worst decision I ever made.
If I don't do this, she might end up married to Desmond Connelly, trapped in a nightmare she can't escape from. If I marry her now, that option is off of the table for him, at least.
“There’s a priest right here,” Annie says softly, gesturing at the man that Diego is still holding onto. “He can marry us.”
I finally turn to face her, studying her expression. She looks so certain, so determined. And underneath that, I can see the fear. The desperation. She's not doing this because she wantsto marry me. She's doing this because she's terrified and out of options.
And I’m going to say yes anyway—because I’m a fool, because I love her, and because I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to her.
"Okay," I hear myself say. "Okay, we'll do it."
The relief that floods her face should make me happy. Instead, it just makes my chest ache.
"But we need to set some ground rules," I continue, forcing myself to stay detached despite everything churning inside of me. "This is temporary. Once Desmond is dead and you're safe, we end it. Quietly, quickly. No one needs to know it ever happened."
"Agreed," she says immediately.
"And Ronan—" I stop, thinking about the man who has given me everything—my brother in all the ways that matter. "He can never find out about this."
"I know," Annie says softly. "I wouldn't ask you to keep this from him if we had any other option. I wouldn’t have asked you to keep any of it from him."
"I know you wouldn't." I take a deep breath. "Alright.”
The priest is muttering something in Gaelic under his breath as Diego shoves him forward at my gesture. I look at the older man. “Get your things together. Get ready for another ceremony.”
The priest looks as if he wants to bolt, but his eyes stray to the gun in my hand. He nods, pale as parchment, and scurries to grab his Bible and the stole that fell off in the scuffle.
I look at Diego, who is standing there impassively, waiting for my instructions. “Diego, I need you to witness something."
His eyebrows rise. "Witness what?"
"A wedding."
Diego stares at me like I've lost my mind. "Boss?—"
"Don't," I cut him off. "Just do it. And Diego? This stays between us. No one else knows. Understood?"
He studies me for a long moment, then nods slowly. "Understood."
The priest is nervous and sweating, his collar askew, his hands shaking. He looks at me fearfully as I come to stand at the altar with Annie, wishing more than anything that we were doing this somewhere else.
Not in a decrepit, crumbling church, with Annie in a bloodstained wedding dress that another man forced her into.
"You're going to marry us," I tell him, my voice cold. "Right now."
The priest's eyes widen. "I—I can't. Mr. Connelly paid me to?—"
"Mr. Connelly is gone, and a dead man," I interrupt. "And you're going to marry me to this woman, or you're going to precede him into the afterlife. Your choice."
He pales, his gaze darting between Annie and me. "But I took his money. I agreed to?—"
"You agreed to marry an unwilling bride to a man who kidnapped her," Annie says, her voice hard. "You took money to participate in a crime. So I'd suggest you cooperate now while you still can."
The priest swallows hard, then nods. "Yes. Yes, of course. I—Dearly beloved?—"
