“I’m sure they look lovely together, Papa. I’m also glad I’ll see Angelo around and hear all about his relationship with Emily directly from him.” I inspected my muddy nails casually as if my parents could see me. I paced around the garden, taking a break from potting and fertilizing my radishes. Ms. Sterling was pretending to read in the pavilion next to me, her nose stuck in a historical book as thick as her glasses, but I knew she was eavesdropping. In fact, I figured she’d been snooping every time anyone opened their mouths in the house—cleaners, gardeners, and UPS deliverymen included. I’d be shocked to discover she hadn’t heard our kiss, then our fight when Wolfe shooed me away.

My cheeks heated just thinking about last night. Senator Keaton had yet to leave his room this morning since returning from escorting his guests to his private jet while I was asleep. I’d be content not to see him the remainder of the weekend, month, and the span of my lifetime.

“How do you mean?” my father demanded.

“Why, Papa, I have the best news. My new groom has decided to send me off to college. Northwestern, no less. I’ve already taken a tour, and I’m filling out an application today. He was so supportive of that decision,” I uttered, noticing with satisfaction the thin smile tugging at Ms. Sterling’s lips as her eyes remained on the same page for long minutes. I was sure my father was well aware of the fact that Angelo, too, applied for a masters at Northwestern. He was good at connecting the dots.

A few days ago, I’d sighed and complained to the garden around me that I needed more pots and a new watering can. The day after, new ones were waiting for me in the shed. She could be nosy, but she was definitely not as bad as my husband-to-be. “He even expressed his support to my pursuing a career. Now I just need to figure out what I want to do. I’m thinking a lawyer or maybe a cop.” That last touch was laying it on thick. My father hated lawyers and cops more than he hated child molesters and atheists. With illogic rage that burned in his blood.

I’d been my parents’ puppet for so long, clipping the strings felt scary and forbidden. I wore long skirts and dresses I absolutely detested because they liked them. Attended Sunday mass regularly even though other church girls usually disliked me for having better clothes and nicer shoes. I even refrained from kissing boys to appease my strict folks. And what good did it do to me? My father sold me off to a senator. And my mother, despite her deep pain and disappointment, was helpless against him. But that did not stop her from discouraging me to pursue the same route as her.

She didn’t want me to study and get a job.

She wanted me to be as stranded as she was.

“Is this a joke?” My father choked on his drink on the other line. “No daughter of mine will work,” he spat.

“Your future son-in-law doesn’t seem to share the sentiment,” I singsonged, momentarily putting my hatred toward Wolfe aside.

“Francesca, you have the breeding, the beauty, and the wealth. You were not born to work, Vita Mia. You’re rich in your own right and more so since you’re marrying a Keaton,” Mama cried out. I didn’t even know the Keatons were a thing before all this. I’d never bothered to ask anyone, least of all my future husband, since money was the last thing on my mind.

“I’m going to college. Unless…” It was a crazy idea, but it made sense. A cunning smile touched my lips, and my eyes met Ms. Sterling’s from across the garden. She gave me a barely noticeable nod.

“What?” my father snarled.

“Unless you tell me why you gave Wolfe my hand. Then I’d consider not going.” Mainly because then I’d have the full picture. I very much doubted I could change my fate at this point, but I wanted to know what he’d gotten me into to see if I could dig my way out.

My father snorted, his glacial tenor stabbing at my nerves. “I do not discuss my business with women, much less my own daughter.”

“What’s wrong with being a woman, Papa?”

You sure acted like a pussy the day you gave me to Wolfe Keaton.

“We play different roles,” he clipped.

“And mine is to make babies and look pretty?”

“Yours is to continue the legacy of your family and leave the hardworking jobs to people who need them.”

“This sounds a lot like you don’t respect me as an equal,” I hissed, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder and stabbing the trowel in the mud and wiping my forehead simultaneously.

“That’s because you’re not my equal, my dear Frankie.”

The line went dead on the other side.

I planted twenty pots of flowers that day. Then went to my room, took a shower, and started filling out my application to Northwestern. Political Science and Legal Studies, I decided, would be my major. In all fairness, I always thought gardening was my calling, but since my father infuriated me to no end, sticking my major in his face was worth going through years and years of studying something I doubted would interest me much. I was Petty McPetson, but I was gaining an education, and it felt good.

I hunched over my oak desk when something in the air changed. I didn’t have to lift my head to know what it was.

My fiancé was here to check on his prisoner bride.

“You have your first dress fitting tomorrow. Go to bed.”

From my peripheral, I could see he was not wearing a suit. A white V-neck shirt that highlighted his tan, lean but muscled body and dark denim that clung low on his narrow hips. He looked nothing like a senator, acted nothing like a politician, and the fact I couldn’t box him this way or the other unsettled me.

“I’m filling out my application to Northwestern,” I replied, feeling heat coating my face and neck again. Why did it feel like he dipped me in liquid fire every time his eyes were on me? And how could I make it stop?

“You’re wasting your time.”

My head snapped up, and I granted him the eye contact he’d been looking for.

“You promised,” I growled.

“And I shall deliver.” He pushed off my doorframe and stepped into my room, sauntering toward me. “You don’t need to fill out an application. My people have already taken care of that. You’re about to become a Keaton.”

“Are Keatons too precious to fill out their own college applications?” I could barely keep myself from snapping at him.

He plucked the documents from my desk, balled and slam-dunked them in the trash can by my desk. “It means you could’ve drawn dicks in all shapes and sizes on the document, and you’d still get in.”

I shot up from my chair, putting some much-needed distance between us. I couldn’t risk another kiss. My lips still stung every time I thought of his rejection.

“How dare you!” I thundered.

“You seem to be asking this question a lot. Care to change your tune a little?” He shoved one hand into the front pocket of his jeans and picked up my cell phone on my desk, scrolling through it with his thumb with easy monotony. My parents forbade me from having a passcode. When my mom gave me back my phone, protecting my privacy was low on my to-do list, seeing as the majority of it had already been taken anyway.

“What are you doing?” My voice turned eerily calm and shocked at the same time.

His eyes were still on my phone. “Go ahead. Ask again. How dare I, right?”

I was too stunned to form words. The man was a savage in a suit. He taunted and aggravated me at every turn. My father was a stubborn jerk, but this guy…this guy was the devil who returned to my nightmares every night. He was hell wrapped in a heavenly rugged mask. He was fire. Gorgeous to the eye, lethal to the touch.

“Give me my phone right now.” I threw my open palm in his direction. He waved a dismissive hand my way, still reading my text messages. Angelo’s text messages.

“You can’t do that.” I launched at him, raising my arms to reach the phone. He raised his arm, grabbed me by the waist with his other hand, capturing both my wrists and plastering my hands to his lower stomach over his shirt.

“Move, and you’ll see what your anger does to me. A friendly hint: it thrills me and in more ways than you’d like to know.”

A part of me wanted to defy him so he would push my hands down. I’d never touched a man down there before, and the idea of it excited me. My life was already in shambles. My morals were the last things I’d clung to, and frankly, my fingers were tired from holding them.

I moved on principal, and he smirked, scrolling down my texts and tightening his hold on my wrists. He didn’t make good on his promise to put my hands on his manhood.

“Are you going to answer lover-boy?” he asked conversationally.

“None of your business.”

“You’re about to become my wife. Everything about you is my business. Especially boys with blue eyes and smiles I don’t trust.”

He dropped my hands, pocketed my phone, and cocked his head, scanning me through his scorn. I wanted to cry. After yesterday’s humiliation, not only did he not apologize, but he also taunted me twice today—both by throwing my application in the trash and by reading through my messages.

He confiscated my phone as though I was his daughter.

“My phone, Wolfe. Give it.” I took a step back. I wanted to hurt him so bad, it hurt to breathe. He stared me down, calm and quiet.

“Only if you delete Bandini from your contacts.”

“He’s a childhood friend.”

“Out of curiosity, do you fuck all your childhood friends?”

I flashed him a sugary smile, “Afraid I’ll run off and have sex with Angelo again?”

The tip of his tongue darted out to lick his lower lip sinisterly, “Me? No. But he should be. Unless, of course, he wants his dick cut off.”

“You sound like a mobster, not a future president.” I jutted my chin out.

“Both are positions of extreme power executed differently. You’d be surprised how many things they have in common.”

“Stop justifying your actions,” I said.