Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Name one,” I invited, leaning against the bathroom door jam.
“Okay. You didn’t discuss it with me first.”
“Fucking Dulles,” I grumbled.
“What was that?” she asked, turning to face me, brows raised, daring me to repeat it.
“Nothing. I am not going to be the kind of husband who runs every little minor detail by his wife.”
“And I am not going to be a wife who tolerates a husband who doesn’t respect her enough to ask if she wants a bunch of strangers in her… home.”
That word was hard for her.
I figured it would get easier as time passed.
“They’re not strangers. They’re Family.”
“They’re your Family,” she shot back.
“They’re yours now too. Whether you like it or not.”
“I’m getting really fucking sick of that phrase. If you wanted someone who was just going to take whatever shit you shovel at her and thank you for it, you married the wrong woman. You could have ordered in a wife from some other country who would have been happy to live in your fancy apartment and spend your money. But you chose me. And I won’t be a doormat that you walk all over, Primo.
“I get that you’re an egotistical asshole and maybe it is going to take me putting my foot down a few times to get you to understand where I stand here. So this is me putting my foot down. I am not going to be paraded around your fucking family like a trophy of your cunning deal to get one over on the Costa Family. Entertain your guests by your fucking self.”
With that, she whipped up the blankets, climbed under, and turned off the light.
She wasn’t wrong.
I’d chosen her for her spirit.
And I couldn’t exactly be pissed when she tossed all that sass at me, could I?
I made my way into the shower, still steamy and smelling of sweet, girlish scents. And my pathetic ass took deep breaths and felt my cock hardening again at the thought of her running the soapy luffa up and down her arms, her legs, over her breasts, her stomach, lower.
On a sigh, I reached down for my cock, stroking one out to the idea of my wife who was just one room away. But it might as well have been across the country or the world since she would rather roll around naked in a cactus patch than have my hands on her.
It was going to be a long fucking marriage.
And now I had to figure out how to tell everyone who knew and respected me why my new wife would not be attending a social function with me.
The whole mail-order bride thing was starting to sound better and better.
But it was too late.
I was stuck with Isabella.
And sometime in the middle of the night when she rolled onto me with a soft, mewling sleep sound, then let out a little sigh as she wiggled into place, liking me more in sleep than she did while awake, I realized that while she wasn’t happy with the situation, and despite the frustration she was causing already, that I was satisfied with my choice.
Eventually, she would be my wife in every way that mattered.
I just had to be patient.
Admittedly, though, that wasn’t a trait I was known for.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Isabella
I was being obstinate.
I recognized that about the whole situation.
I may as well have crossed my arms and stomped my foot about it when he’d told me.
There was even a chance that he wasn’t a complete and utter asshole about it, that he just didn’t realize that you were supposed to talk to your partner about things like functions, especially ones in what was supposed to be their home as well.
I couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that he was doing it to parade me around. And I didn’t like that. I didn’t like what it said about how he valued me, or what it said about my Family.
On top of all of that, it would have just been incredibly uncomfortable for me. Everyone at the event would know I’d been, for all intents and purposes, forced into the marriage, that Primo had conned me into it. I didn’t want them to sneer at me, or look down on me, or even to pity me.
I just didn’t want to interact with them at all.
At least not so soon.
I was surprised, though, that he didn’t mention it again in the morning as we each made our separate breakfasts, even though we both ended up making almost the exact same thing.
He did mention that his brothers would show up at six with the supplies for the bar, so I figured the party would be starting sometime around seven or eight.
It gave me the whole day to go about taking my bags upstairs, arranging everything where I wanted it in my closet and the bathroom cabinets.