I stare down at my lap, not sure what happened or why I’m feeling like this, like I’ve been both stabbed and burned and left to rot on the side of the road, but at least Prime found a wife… thanks to me.
CHAPTER 9
PRIME
Icrack open a bottle of good bourbon and pour two glasses. I drink from one and place the other at the end of my desk in front of Deanna.
“When I agreed to this, I didn’t know I’d be playing matchmaker and wedding planner.”
“And yet here you are, doing both fantastically.” I sink into my chair, fighting off the headache blooming behind my eyes. “Tell me again about the flowers?”
“Fuck off, Prime.” She sighs, paging through her color-coded booklet. “You could at least showsometiny bit of interest in your own stupid wedding.”
“I could—“ I raise my glass. “But I don’t.” And I drink down a warm splash.
Truth is I’ve been actively avoiding any mention of my upcoming marriage to Valentina. I’ve barely even spoken with my future wife since the interview. We had a few conversations about logistics, about child-rearing, about how money and livingarrangements will work, and I’ve found her both eminently practical, extremely smart, easy to deal with?—
And somehow still all wrong.
It makes no fucking sense. Whenever the idea of being with Valentina comes up, a headache pounds behind my eyes and I have to pour myself a drink.
Which is why I’m on my third ever since Deanna sat down to go over day-of details.
“Well, if you don’t care then I’m going to figure it all out with Valentina.”
“Does my future wife have opinions?”
“Surprisingly not really.” Deanna fiddles with the binder. “I mean, she likes lilies, she has a dress in mind, she wants to make sure all her uncles are present?—“
“She has uncles?”
“God, Prime, at least pretend like you know the woman you’re marrying.”
“What’s the fun in that?”
She knuckles her forehead, scrunching up her nose in that pained wince she gets when I’m being extra annoying, and my chest contracts with a strange tingle in my guts. I love that look on her, the way her eyes crinkle, the cute lift of her full mouth, the smell of her arousal rising in the air?—
Fuck. Drink.
Ice pings against glass as I hunch over my desk.
Deanna shows me a preliminary guest list and a possible seating arrangement. Despite myself, I have to offer a few guidelines, mostly to make sure she doesn’t accidentally start a mafia war by placing two blood enemies across from each other. Because while this marriage is for show, it has to be agoodshow, at least convincing enough that everyone believes I really am settling down and trying to be more established and legitimate.
I have to keep reminding myself why I’m doing this. Why I’m hitching myself to Valentina and going through with what’s so clearly a bad fucking idea.
Augustus Fontana’s smiling, blood-covered severed head going cool in my lap.
“Why are you giving me that creepy smile?” Deanna taps her pen against her lips.
“Nothing. No reason. Just remembering the noise you make when you come.”
“Jesus fucking—“ She takes a breath and turns the binder around. “Here, cakes, pick one.”
I make it through another half hour of this and one more glass before I’m done. I fall wearily into the chair beside Deanna and study the curve of her mouth as she talks appetizers.
“How come you never have a boyfriend?”
She startles like a deer. “What now?”
