Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 116471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
I had erased hopes of my own wedding from my mind as much as it was possible.
The moment the dance floor opened for everyone, Giorgia was ushered toward her brother to dance with him. I watched her with a small smile, fighting the desire to move toward the dance floor and dance. Giorgia and I had full-fledged dance-offs at home, but I had never danced in my wheelchair in public.
“Would you prefer to leave?” Danilo murmured.
I quickly shook my head because I wanted to be part of our world. I wouldn’t hide.
Giorgia met my gaze across the room and motioned for me to come her way.
My eyes widened. By now, the music had switched to fast pop songs. When I didn’t follow her invitation, she hurried toward me with a grin and held out her hand. “Let’s dance.”
I let her pull me along toward a corner of the dance floor, then she released me and began to jump and twirl to the music. I could see people watch her with raised eyebrows over her display of careless joy. Giorgia was curvy, too curvy by our beauty standards, but it didn’t stop her from enjoying herself. Emboldened by her confidence, I moved my wheelchair to the music until everyone else faded into the background.
I’d carve out my own bubble of happiness.
16 years old
Danilo was tense. Tenser than usual, that was. Since Dad’s death, he’d constantly been on edge. I still remembered a more easygoing Danilo, but that had been way before Dad’s death, before his fiancée had been kidnapped and then later run off with her kidnapper.
We moved into an accessible executive suite in the best hotel in Minneapolis a day before my brother’s engagement. The view over the Mississippi River and the city was spectacular. The hotel had two bigger suites, but they weren’t accessible, so we chose this one, and it offered enough space for us. Danilo had to sleep on a sofa bed because the suite only had one bedroom. The carpet was very fluffy, which made moving along with my wheelchair a bit strenuous and gave my arms a good workout.
Danilo’s face was hard, almost foreboding. Not the face of someone excited about his engagement. His second engagement, this time to Sofia, his ex-fiancée’s little sister. She was only a month older than me. I really liked Sofia. She was kind, and she still talked to me like she did before my accident.
“Are you excited?” I asked him.
He looked up from his phone, where he’d no doubt been checking work emails. “Excited?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes with a teasing smile. “About your engagement.”
Danilo shook his head. “I don’t see why I should be. This is my second engagement, and I’m only concerned about making it to the wedding this time.”
I hoped he didn’t share his thoughts with Sofia. She struck me as an emotional person who seemed quite happy about her bond to my brother. “I would be excited if this was the day before my engagement.”
Danilo put down his phone, reluctance passing across his face. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
I wheeled closer. “My sentiments toward an engagement that’s probably never going to happen?” The moment the bitter words left my mouth, I wanted to slap myself. I didn’t like it when I turned bitter. That Cincinatti had broken our families’ promise that we’d marry had stung, and my options were slim, but my happiness didn’t depend on marriage. At least, I tried to tell myself this as often as possible, especially now that I was at an age when most other girls were already promised. Sweet sixteen. I wasn’t sure who’d invented that term, but they’d probably never heard the jibing comments of older female relatives who made sixteen sound like the tipping point before you turned rotten and unmarriageable. I often felt left out. When girls my age talked about how guys checked them out, I always felt a pang. I’d had boys give me flirty looks before, but they hadn’t been part of our world where everyone just seemed to look at my wheelchair and not the person inside. It frustrated me, but I wasn’t sure how to change people’s perception.
“No,” Danilo said slowly. He stood and squatted before me like he often did when we had something unpleasant to discuss. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what was going on. “The Miones and I came to an understanding.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. Sofia was a Mione, but I didn’t understand his strange behavior if this was about his engagement to Sofia.
Danilo met my gaze and took my hands. Now I was really concerned. “Pietro, Samuel, and I agreed that you would marry Samuel.”
Samuel Mione.
Future Underboss.
Ice prince.
I had only talked to him once, and the memory washed over me like an icy flood.