Page 6 of Broken Mercy
This can’t be happening.
“I know it’s a lot and it’s sudden,” Riley says into the quiet. Annie appears at my elbow, lacing her fingers through the crook of my arm. I lean on her, breathing hard. “I’m sorry we didn’t do this a better way, but it was only decided recently… and oh… you don’t look so good. Are you feeling okay?”
My head swims and my vision goes blurry. Sweat pours down my face. “Your cheeks are really red, Tallie jan,” Papa points out.
Then Brenden’s moving. He sweeps aside Annie, tugs me toward a chair in the shade, and sits me down. He fans my face with a stack of napkins and orders Papa to get me cold water. “You’re alright, darling,” he whispers, standing much too close while Annie and Riley fret around me. Cousin Alexan lurks, watching, curiously detached. “I’ve got you now.”
I groan because yes, yes, that’s the exact problem: there’s an arrangement, there’s a plan I wasn’t a part of, one that involves my fucking future, and I am going to be his, and he’s got me, whether I want him to or not, this thieving stranger, and apparently my future husband.
CHAPTER 3
BRENDEN
“I’ve never made a woman faint before.” I flick open a gold lighter, snap the flame into life, and close it again with a sharp click. “I’m not sure it happened how I would’ve liked though.”
My sister snorts and pours two glasses of wine. I flick the lighter, close it again, over and over. These days I’m never comfortable unless my fingers are moving. I hate sitting still, despise the thought of spending my days hanging around quietly reading or shuffling through parties shaking hands and making small talk. I need motion, some goal, something to aim myself toward like an arrow.
“I don’t think it was your charm that did it.” Riley hands me the glass of wine and sits heavily on my sofa. She sighs, stretching her legs.
“No, it was probably the Davis’s freaking heat running in August. Poor girl looked like she was melting.”
“Ifeltlike I was going to come unglued.” Riley gestures for me to join her. “You’re making me uncomfortable. Sit down at least.”
I ignore my dear sister. Flick, click, snap. Over and over. “She didn’t seem to like our plan.”
“We didn’t get to talk to her about it. Her sister and father rushed her out of there.”
“They were worried about heat stroke.”
“Can’t blame them. Her face was bright red.”
I don’t bother mentioning that her cheeks were that same color after she came on my tongue.
Riley would not approve.
Frankly, I wouldn’t blame her.
I wasn’t in that office to meet my future wife for the first time. It only happened to work out that way. Flick, click, snap.
“How are you feeling about all this?” Riley acts like she’s not interested in the question, like she’s only being polite, but I know my sister better than that. She’s probing. It’s what I’d do in her position.
“Honest truth?”
“I prefer the dishonest kind. Yes, Brenden, honest truth please.”
“I don’t want this.”
She tilts her glass in a slow circle. “But?”
“No but. That’s it.”
“Come on, you know why it’s happening. Maybe this is going to be good for you.” Riley’s face brightens. “She’s really pretty, right?”
“If you’re into that sort of thing.”
“Beautiful women?”
Flick, click, snap. I don’t bother answering. Tallie’s been stuck in my head since I kissed her in the office on a whim after brushing her perfect, olive-toned skin with a priceless lighter. I hope she’s still got her matching pair. Flick, click, snap. Maybe her fingers are touching it right now and she’s remembering the way my mouth felt between her legs and she’s thinking maybe it won’t be so bad marrying a twisted, failed, broken man like Brenden McGrath?—
