Shattered Vows: An Arranged Marriage Standalone Romance (Tarnished Empire)

On day one, my phone didn’t ring.

On day two, my phone was still eerily silent.

Of course she didn’t call. She could barely make a damn meeting, let alone call me. I gave her those two days, which was more than enough. I waited patiently. And although I tried to be, I was not a patient man. I’d been running an empire since a young age. Now, I ran the country behind the scenes in more ways than one.

Businessmen like me didn’t wait. No one even considered trying to make me.

And now I did just for this girl who was barely a fucking woman. She didn’t know the first thing about being an adult, and now I had to wait for her to make the fucking decision of a lifetime.

I ran the damn empire. I’d turned filth to gold and I’d made what was illegal legal. I’d Rumplestilskinned it all and I would do the same here.

I didn’t wait for people. She should’ve known better than to make that mistake.

“You’re going to need to go easy on her,” Dante tried to tell me on the drive to her grandmother’s.

“Go easy on her? That’s all I’ve done.” I gripped my suit pants in anger and then consciously opened my fist so as not to make wrinkles in the fabric. I’d even went and researched oils for her and bought her one for a funeral. God knows why. It wasn’t like we were friends and still I wanted to see those sapphire eyes of hers look at me without anger or frustration just for a moment like they had on that jet.

I was going fucking crazy.

I grunted and told Dante, “She needs to realize I’m not going to baby her.”

“She didn’t grow up in this world.”

“So she keeps saying.”

“She’s got her life and–”

“She’s got new responsibilities now. None of us picked our lives, Dante. We stepped up to the plate when we had to. Her town is relying on her, whether they know it or not. She needs to grow up or decide to stay a child. Either way, I can’t coddle her when her decision is one an adult has to make.”

I opened the window and breathed in the salty breeze.

Dante chuckled at me, and I swear to God, I wanted to resort to what I would have done years ago and punch him. “She’s getting to you and you’re not even married yet.”

“Fuck off.” I turned the watch on my wrist one time and then again, trying to temper my anger.

As we pulled up to the house, I glared at my friend. “Stay outside, jackass.”

“Oh, that’s good for your security.” He rolled his eyes but he was already texting someone. They’d have eyes on the perimeter as always.

“Like you’re going to save me from her anyway,” I grumbled because we both knew my physical safety wasn’t at stake: it was my mental health. She was going to drive me insane. All my muscles tensed as I walked up the path.

She swung the door open before I even knocked. “What are you doing here?” She was a little breathless and sweaty, with her hair in a messy knot on top of her head.

“Am I interrupting something?” I raised a brow and peered around her but she pushed the door to a crack so I couldn’t see past.

“Look, can we talk later?” She bit her plump bottom lip.

What the hell was she doing in there? Then I glanced down and saw the sports bra, the way it hugged her curves, the sweat dripping down her toned stomach.

My dick twitched, and I took a deep breath. I didn’t want her, I told myself. Even with her long, tanned legs and ample amount of ass to grab. Even if I’d had her once, she wasn’t my type now.

Now, a legal partnership was on the line.

I wouldn’t muddle deals or fuck them up in any way. My father had enough dirty deals for all of us. I’d looked much more into the company and my father’s relationship with it. Mario Armanelli had always been a weasel. Although he’d never had a romantic relationship with Maribel, he’d swindled his way around this partnership and offered her protection in exchange for illegally bringing in products through her ports.

He’d screwed her over again and again. It was no wonder she hadn’t trusted me. So, I’d make it right by changing this company into one that would flourish. I just had to prove it to Morina and become the majority shareholder. It meant leaving my libido out of the equation.

Easier said than one when, for some reason, even with all the complications and her attitude, my dick had an obsession with her. It jumped just as she stood there, glaring at me.

It didn’t care that her maturity level was that of a teenager with wonky beliefs and that she was ten plus years my junior. My dick was only interested in the fact that she’d answered the door in booty shorts and a bra, leaving little to the imagination. “You always answer the door in next to nothing?”

She reached her hand up in front of her face, closed her fist, as if grabbing something, and then pulled it down, letting out a whooshing breath.

“Are you pulling on air?” I asked, not amused.

She grumbled, “Dante would understand.”

This conversation was off to a great start. “Morina–”

“I don’t want to argue with you.”

“I don’t want to argue with you either.” Good, we could be adults. “I’m just here to discuss everything. Can we talk now?”

She looked a little concerned before she closed those big doe eyes. Her long dark lashes rested on her high cheekbones before she stepped back and said over her shoulder, “Bradley. We’ll have to hang out tomorrow.”

“Baby, third base is not a home run,” Bradley, a tall blonde guy, said from her living room as he rolled up his yoga mat. “And we never actually got to yog–”

I walked around Morina and stared at him. The whining abruptly halted.

“Bastian, right?” He pointed at me and squinted as though trying to remember. “You’re the suit that wanted a smoothie the other day.”

I nodded. Then my gaze ping-ponged between them. “Morina and I have a complicated relationship, one that goes way back.”

“Not that far,” she grumbled.

“Morina, piccola ragazza, don’t discount our relationship.”

“Relationship?” Bradley looked puzzled.

Something burned in my stomach. I couldn’t place the feeling. I hadn’t had it in such a long time. It could have been frustration, pure and white hot with the fact that she’d been fucking around with a guy and had the audacity to call him here but couldn’t be bothered to call me.

Or maybe it was that damn little green fucker called jealousy. I wouldn’t place my bets on it quite yet though.

Still, the man was tall, well built, and seemed to know his place around Maribel’s home. He ambled through the living room, straightening a few things as he waited for me to give more information.

“Well, Morina is supposed to be my fiancée, Bradley,” I announced. “Which means she probably isn’t going to be giving you any homeruns any time soon.”

Her jaw dropped and Bradley’s practically hit the floor.

“Mo.” He turned to her immediately. “Baby, you’re free-spirited and go with what moves you. I get that. I love that about you, Mo. And you’re hurting from your grandma passing, but you’re not alone. You can’t marry a suit on a whim, Mo. That’s not–”

“Bradley.” I cut him off with just his name, an emotion flowing through my body that I wasn’t quite sure I could control even if I wanted to. “My fiancée and I need to talk. Please leave us.”

It was his turn to look between the both of us.

Morina didn’t immediately do anything. Her sports bra rose and fell rapidly with each breath she took and maybe I’d shocked her a bit with what I’d said. Straightening suddenly, she combed a hand through that long wavy hair of hers and motioned him toward the door. “I’ll call you later, okay? It’s complicated.”

“You know I’m here for you, whatever you need.” He caught her gaze and held it, showing me he probably would have gone toe to toe with me if she told him in that second.

“She doesn’t really need anything from you that I can’t give her myself,” I found myself saying.

Making allegiances in this town might have been harder than I originally thought.

The man studied us a second longer, murmured to Morina to call if she needed anything and then walked out the door.