“That’s our signal.” Luna takes my arm in hers and guides me over to the table, where my name is written on a plain white name card next tohis. Within seconds of my ass hitting the seat, Carlo is next to me.
“Fancy seeing you here.” He gives me that devilish smirk, the one that used to make my panties wet just seeing it.
My fingers curl around the butter knife in front of me.God, I wish I were a violent person.Someone who wouldn’t mind spilling blood all over this perfectly-dressed table. I wonder whether the party planner chose the color scheme or if this was Carlo’s doing.
I shake my head.Nope, he didn’t do this. He wouldn’t do anything for my benefit.
“What are you getting out of this?” I ask him.
“Out of what?” he says.
“This whole marriage deal? What are you getting out of my father?”
“You,” he tells me.
I laugh. “You did not agree to an arranged marriage for nothing, Carlo. What is the deal?”
“We’re creating an alliance between two organizations. But you didn’t ask that. You asked whatIget, and what I get is you,” he says it like it’s something he actually wants.
“And you expect me to believe that you want me?” I almost giggle at the thought.
“I don’t give a fuck if you believe it or not, Antonia. It’s the truth.”
Can you die from anxiety? Because I think I just might right now. I don’t know if I can do this. How can I go through with this wedding?
What other options do I have, though? I could run. But I’d be found before I even hit the state lines.
Death is probably the only way out, and I really don’t want to take that route. I won’t let anyone push me to even consider it.Screw Carlo. And screw my father.
“I want the ugliest dress you have,” I tell the sales woman currently pulling out options for me to try.
“You want… uh…what?” she asks.
“The ugliest thing you have. I want to look as unattractive as possible on my wedding day,” I reply.
“Babe, you could wear a potato sack and still look hot.” Luna laughs before turning to the saleswoman. “Ignore her. She just has prewedding jitters.”
“It’s not prewedding jitters. I don’t want to look nice forhim.” I pout.
“You do know there will be pictures of your wedding in every tabloid across the state,” Georgia says.
“I don’t care.” I cross my arms over my chest.
“Yes, you do,” she tells me. “And if you don’t, I care enough for both of us. So we are going to make sure you look like a damnknockout, and that fool is going to be tripping over his own drool.”
“Oh, good. Hopefully, he breaks his neck and I become the world’s fastest widow.” The thought makes me smile as I visualize Carlo falling down the steps at the altar.
“You don’t mean that.” Luna sighs.
“No, I don’t. Because knowing my father, he’d sell me off to someone else anyway. What’s the saying? Better the devil you know and all that bullshit.” I shrug.
I walk over to the rack of dresses. Like many other little girls, I used to dream about my wedding day. The dress, the flowers, the prince who would whisk me off to a castle in an enchanted forest.
Okay, I might not get that fairy tale, but I can at least have the dress.
“Have you got anything Cinderella-style? Big skirt? The bigger, the better. Lots of layers?” I ask the saleswoman.
“I have the perfect one. Hold on.” She disappears into the back of the boutique.
