Alexx Andria - The Marriage Clause

But even roses needed tending.

And Katherine had broken her contract by running. I could be a dick and just drag her off the plane, reminding her that our marriage was a business arrangement that neither of our fathers would allow to be dissolved, but that tactic would only make things worse between us.

“Sweetheart,” I murmured, settling my hand on the small of Katherine’s back as we fell in behind the attendant. I caught her subtle stiffening at my touch and I prepared myself for an uphill battle, dragging a wagon filled with cement—oh, and the wagon was probably on fire.

Katherine gave the attendant a tight smile and lowered into the luxury seat. “I can’t believe you. How dare you chase me down like a fox after a rabbit. I’m not your fucking property,” she said, crossing her arms and skewering me with the heat in her eyes. “How did you find me?”

I paused, accepting a champagne flute from the attendant, then answered, “Alana told me. She also said you quit your job at Franklin and Dodd.” She’d been working there for over a year.

“Damn you, Alana,” Katherine muttered, exhaling an irritated breath. “I knew I shouldn’t have told her where I was going.”

“True enough, but why did you quit your job?” I asked with a frown. “I thought you were doing well in their marketing department.”

Katherine ignored my query and simply shook her head, disappointed in her friend’s loose lips. I couldn’t blame her, but she should’ve known better. I’d never understood their friendship to begin with. Alana was the stereotypical rich girl, raised with wealth and privilege. She was somewhat clueless and out of touch.

I thought Katherine kept Alana grounded, but I had no idea what benefit Alana provided Katherine.

Katherine rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the furrows in her brow. “Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered before leaning back against the headrest, her jaw tense. “I should’ve just bailed and not told anyone.”

“Probably.”

She narrowed her gaze. “Thank you, peanut gallery. Nobody asked you.”

“Does your father know?” I asked.

She cut me a short look. “Of course not. He wouldn’t understand any more than you would.”

I swallowed the insult of being lumped in with her blowhard of a father, but in truth, while Bernard Oliver had more in common with my own father, Giovanni, I was nothing like either man.

“Why California?” I asked, settling in for the long flight, trying to make conversation.

“Because it was on my bucket list. And it was far enough away from everything associated with my life in New York. And yes, that includes you.”

I barked a short laugh even though I was starting to bristle at her constant jabs. “So you picked San Francisco in January? I hope you packed warm clothes, because you’re going to freeze your pretty little ass off.”

“I’m well aware of the weather. I’m not made of glass—I’m sure I’ll survive. Besides, nothing could be worse than a New York winter.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The marine layer creates a thick fog that eats into your bones. I think I prefer snow.”

“The point was to get away from you. Anyplace would’ve been preferable as long as you weren’t there. Even a swamp. And before you start pointing out that I’ve never been to a swamp, so I can’t make that assumption, just stop before you start. You’ve screwed up my entire travel plan, and I’m really not in the mood to hear your mansplaining bullshit.”

I knew her well enough to recognize that she wasn’t playing.

“You know, I would’ve thought two years was long enough to lose your quills, but if anything, you’ve only gotten worse,” I said, reluctantly ditching any hope I might’ve had that we could pick up where we’d left off all those years ago—back when she didn’t think I was the devil. “Jesus, Katherine, I thought I’d given you plenty of space to do your own thing so we could make this work when the time came to marry.”

She stared me down, shaking her head as if I were an idiot. “That right there is why I could never marry you, Luca. You gave me space? We broke up because you were caught messing around, and to add insult to injury, your actions were plastered all over one of those stupid paparazzi rags. You broke my heart and humiliated me.”

“I told you that was a misunderstanding.”

“And I told you, you’re full of shit. I won’t be one of those women who simper at your feet and believe whatever nonsense you happen to be dishing out.”

I bit my tongue. Arguing with her about the past wasn’t going to solve anything, but I did point out, “I never asked you to be that woman,” because it was true. A simple and vapid woman would bore me to tears. In all the years I’d known Katherine, boring was never a word I’d use to describe her.

That photo had been unfortunate, but I’d learned a valuable lesson. Don’t let cute starlets sit on your lap when you’ve had too many whiskeys and not enough food. The paparazzi had snapped the pic because of the girl, not because of me, but it’d sold quite a few tabloids. It was pretty condemning, considering she’d been kissing me...and she was topless.

My father had been outraged, my mother had been mortified and I’d lost the woman of my dreams.

In all, it’d been a shit day.

“Why’d you wait until now to call off the wedding?” I asked. “Seems if you were still pissed about that incident, you would’ve called it all off before this dramatic exit.”

Katherine’s blue eyes flashed with ire at being called dramatic. She couldn’t help it—it was the red hair. The Scottish heritage was hard to tamp down. “Because you aren’t the only one with obligations. I wanted to call it off then, but my father interceded.”

By interceded, it was a fair guess he threatened to cut her off if she didn’t go through with the wedding. Bernard believed in brute force to get what he wanted. When our households were joined together, the connections in the business world would grow exponentially. An arranged marriage today wasn’t all that different from an arranged marriage back in medieval times.

It was all about the power exchange, the advancement of a family’s reach and influence.

“I wasn’t given much of a choice. I was a semester away from getting my degree, and I wasn’t going to let everything I’d worked for go down the drain because you chose to be a jackass.” She drew a breath and blew it out, adding with a shake of her head, “Honestly, I thought I could go through with it, have a marriage in name only, but these last six months... I realized I can’t. And I won’t. I’m not going to live my life to someone else’s standards. So...I’m out.”

“It won’t be that simple,” I told her, distracted by a whiff of her hair as she purposefully turned away and a wash of memories hit me hard.

Hemlock trees and sage, the heat of summer, coconut-scented sunscreen mingling with her signature white-citrus-and-cucumber body spray and the feel of her beneath me as I took her virginity.

I could still feel her tight wetness clasped around me, the way she shuddered and gasped as I gently pushed myself deep inside, breaching her lithe body for the first time.

She’d been eighteen; I’d been twenty-two.

The way she’d cried out, her teeth worrying the full pink flesh of her bottom lip, seconds before she came on my cock, her sweet sex clenching around me, greedy for more.

In spite of the slight chill of first class, sweat dampened my forehead as I took a deep swallow of my champagne.

Jesus, now was not the time to think of that memory if I wanted to keep my head on my shoulders.

“I’m not looking for an easy way out. I just want out,” she said.