Floor-to-ceiling windows. Mountains cutting into the sea. Light dancing on money.
I was supposed to be impressed.
Instead, I paced with cognac in my hand, half a bottle sweating on Enzo’s expensive table.
My knee wouldn’t stop bouncing. My head wouldn’t shut up.
Undiagnosed ADHD on ten.
Patience on zero.
Everything inside me wired tight.
Naomi had been ducking me since the last time I had my face buried between her thighs. No calls. No texts. I knew she was alive because I had people watching, and I knew she had a man now. She cut me off like it was my karma.
Part of me respected it.
The rest wanted to put my fist through the glass.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the rug, grandson,” my grandmother, Jezare Delacroix, said to me.
She sat beside my mother on the leather sofa, both dressed as if this were church and war at the same time. Pearls. Perfect posture. Quiet worry.
Across from them, Nico lounged. “Relax,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine,” my mother said, her accent heavier when she worried. “You have not slept. Sit down, bébé.”
“I’ll sit when my grandfather gets here.”
“This meeting was supposed to happen last week,” Nico said, checking his watch. “The bride buying you extra time should’ve made you grateful.”
“I don’t thank anybody for putting my life on hold.”
The bride.
That was all they called her.
Not Yuna. Not a woman. A position.
The door opened.
My uncle Adrian stepped in first, expression sharp.
“Where are Marcel and Yuna?”
“Ils arrivent,” he said.They’re arriving.
I rolled my shoulders back. “Good.”
My grandmother folded her hands tighter around her rosary.
I finally sat. Lawyers already lined the table with contracts. Two stacks. Delacroix et Laveau.
The door opened again.
Everybody stood except me.
