I scoff. “It wouldn’t exactly have been genuine,” I remind her. “Those kind of things…they, well, require emotion.”
Her face falls and she looks to the side. “I know,” she speaks quietly. The silence that follows is deafening.
Maybe she wishes I felt something more. I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t. Not right now anyway. If I allow myself to feel…I think all I would feel is sadness that my mother wasn’t here today, mixed with relief that she wasn’t here today.
My mother wouldn’t want to see me marry a woman I don’t love just for the sake of allying our family with someone like Eivor.
Soren…well, he’s not such a bad guy, but Eivor? I think my mother would hate him more than she hated her own husband.
She would know what it’s like to marry someone you don’t love.
I have vague memories of her telling someone she used to love our father but realized what kind of man he truly was.
I wasn’t supposed to hear that conversation, but despite my young age, I had understood it very well. As I had already begun to learn what kind of man my father was as well, and he wasn’t the type of man I wanted to follow in the footsteps of.
I had hoped Carmine would do better than him.
That’s harsh. I don’t care. Right now, he’s acting quite a bit like our father when it comes to this whole marriage thing. It’s exactly what he would have done if he hadn’t despised the idea of giving Eivor Fiorelli any more power than he already had.
That’s the difference between them, I guess. A difference of two lines next to each other. They don’t touch, but they’re awfully close.
“Are you ready?”
Damian’s voice cut through the silence. I didn’t realize the door had even opened.
“We’re ready,” Rosalie speaks for me.
I grab my coat and watch as she puts hers on before we follow Damian out of the room and down the hallway to the back entrance of the cathedral.
Damian checks the back parking lot before we pile into a small limo that Eivor paid for to get to the reception. Damian isn’t the driver.
He sits in the seats ahead of us, though, and keeps an eye on things.
“Are we sure about using the same reception hall after what happened?” I ask. Honestly, I’m asking both of them, not just Rosalie.
“The window has been repaired,” Damian explains. “You’ll both stay away from the windows for tonight.”
“Besides, they got one of the guys who was in the car,” Rosalie reminds me. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get something out of him.”
“We?” I ask with a chuckle.
“Well, no, because Carmine isn’t letting me at him, but maybe he’ll let you after the reception. You’re brothers, after all,” she suggests.
I nod slowly. “Yes, he did promise me after this that I can talk to the shooter, or the driver. Whoever it is.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Damian cuts in.
“Why not?” I ask. “It’s not the first time I’ve interrogated someone.”
“I can’t be there,” he retorts. “I have to stay with Rosalie.”
Rosalie glances between us. “He’s done just fine without you this far,” she reminds Damian.
I gain a little bit more respect for her in this moment.
Still, I can sense Damian’s anxiety, and I wonder if the sexual exchange between us has anything to do with it.
The last thing I need is him trying to keep me from my job. My family. Carmine is already doing a damn good job at trying that.
