“What!” Emerie shouts.
I fucking knew it. His mind had come to a conclusion, and in doing so, it throws me under the bus.
“What do you say, Calder?” he asks, gaze coming to me. “Think you could marry into the Campbell family to seal an alliance between families?”
Fuck me. This isn’t what I wanted. I never wanted to be married. I didn’t want a family.
Holding Grant’s eyes, I nod. “I’ll marry her.”
It’s not like I couldn’t just keep it on paper if I wanted to.
Then again, Emerie was beautiful. She would be mine. There’s no way I’d be able to keep myself from wanting her especially if she was in my bed.
two
EMERIE
It was illegal and very, very bad to commit murder, but right now, that’s exactly what I wanted to do.
I wanted to kill my father. The man was a bane to my very existence. A thorn in my side. The Scrooge who ruins my Christmas vibe. I love Christmas, and yet instead of doing any of the things I love this time of year, I’m doing something I never thought I’d be doing.
Marrying a man I didn’t know.
As if marrying me off were a transaction to get him what he wanted.
Reggie Campbell, my father, thought I was clueless. That I didn’t know what he did for a living. That I didn’t know he was a crook.
Please.
He was stupid for thinking I’d be unable to figure out what he did with his business adventures. To make it worse, he wasn’t that good at keeping it hidden. More so, he was running the business to the ground.
The men who work for him were just as much idiots as he himself was.
I should have known better when he picked me up from the local children’s hospital. I love volunteering there and making the children smile and laugh. It’s the only reason I wear things like my Christmas sweater. Though my heels were hot. I love heels. Didn’t matter to me if they were closed-toe or not. I couldn’t resist wearing heels. I had a variety of colors for all sorts of occasions.
But it’s surely not an outfit I’d think to wear when getting married.
After Calder Blanche agreed to marry me, my father arranged for us to go straight to the courthouse. I think he already had everything in place and was making sure this happened.
He has something up his sleeve, and I know it. My only concern, though, is why the other two men agreed to this arrangement.
I mean, Calder is hot. Not just good looking, but drop-dead, fan your face sexy. The way he wore his hair styled, along with the way he dressed in a suit, the button at his throat undone, yeah, he could easily turn heads without issue. I’d totally have gone for him any other time. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t know what he’s getting into when it comes to this scenario. I’m not going to just bow down to him.
Why my father had to do this to me, I’ll never know. It’s not like he loved me. I was just a reminder to him of my mother. A woman who left me with him and took off with some guy she barely knew. I hadn’t spoken to her since, and Father Dearest doesn’t mind reminding me of this fact anytime he gets the chance.
I wasn’t allowed to have a life unless he approved of what I was doing. I’ve always had one of his goons on me, even when I was in my apartment. They rotated in and out.
The only thing I was lucky to have is my job at the elementary school. I worked part-time there helping as a teaching assistant. I wanted to work full-time, but Father forbade it. I fought with him to be able to volunteer as I do. All he wanted was for me to be at his beck and call twenty-four-seven. I didn’t want that.
“Is everyone ready?”
I lift my gaze to the judge who walks into the small chapel. Who knew a courthouse could have a chapel, granted it wasn’t really much of a chapel. It was very similar to what you’d find in a hospital. I didn’t even think courthouses had one, but this one does. I guess some people need to pray before going before a judge.
“We’re ready,” my father confirms, shooting a look in my direction.
I tried to protest and even plead with him on the way over, but it was pointless. He wouldn’t listen to me.
What is he up to?
