EMMA
I tuck my legs underneath myself, getting comfy on the couch while I sip my cocoa and watch Owen flick nut shells on the floor.
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with him, but he’s all sexy when he’s grumpy like this. I can’t take my eyes off him, which is… well, unhelpful.
Unhelpful because my head is all over the place.
Looking at this man is confusing. Hot as he is, he’s also a lot older than me. Plus, I still don’t know what the hell he’s doing with me here. It doesn’t really make any sense, and he won’t tell me a damn thing.
I sigh heavily as my eyes lower underneath the coffee table, eventually finding a stack of board games. I’m not really the biggest lover of games, but how else are we going to pass the evening? Especially since Owen isn’t talking.
At all.
“You wanna play?” I ask him as I pull out the first box. “These must be your games, right?”
He darts his eyes my way for less than a second. “Yeah, from when I was a kid.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, should we play one now? Unless you want to do something fun, like maybe go out for the night? We could go to a bar or something.”
He shoots me a side-eyed glare.
“Oh, so it’s okay for you to spend the whole night out, having fun, but not me?”
“You know why you can’t leave.”
I throw my hands in the air in frustration. “Actually, I don’t. You tell me nothing.”
“It’s to keep you safe.” I roll my eyes again.
Safe, sure.
“I don’t feel safe here at all,” I grumble back. “And the longer I spend stuck here, getting in my head, the less safe I feel.”
“Fine,” he huffs in a very unpleasant manner. “Whatever. Let’s play.”
I could keep this argument going to see where it leads, but I think Owen has been keeping his distance from me a little-like he doesn’t really trust himself around me.
That’s a real shame.
I don’t want him to trust himself around me.
I want him to lose control again.
“Pick the game then,” I say instead, trying my absolute hardest to keep myself calm and steady. “I don’t mind what we play.”
I watch intently as he flicks his eyes over the game until he breaks out into a smile. “Oh, this one’s fun. I used to play this with my parents.”
“Just your parents? You didn’t have siblings?” He shakes his head. “Wow, I have four brothers, so I can’t even begin to imagine how nice it must be growing up alone.”
“Well, there are positives,” he admits. “But negatives too. I didn’t have anyone to play with. Any kids anyway. My parents did their best.”
I smirk. “Being the youngest of five means no one plays with you.
You’re just tormented.”
Even now really. This whole wedding thing is definitely torture.
Owen takes one of the board games from me and starts to lay it out. I study him as he does, wondering about this man’s life. He looks like he carries a giant weight on his shoulders. Like there’s always a dark cloud clinging to him.
I wonder what caused that.
Maybe I shouldn’t care. I mean, this is the asshole that kidnapped me, but I’m intrigued by him.
There’s a weird bond between us that keeps on growing, even if it shouldn’t.
“So, what was your life like as an only child?”
I don’t know if he’ll answer me, but I have to try. Maybe he’s in the mood to open up, just a little bit.
“I don’t know any different, so it’s always been fine for me.” He rolls the dice.
I guess we’re playing the game now.
Cool.
“I was close to my parents.”
“Was?” I jump in. I didn’t miss that.
“Well, they died when I was younger.” He shrugs, but I can see this is something that troubles him. “Mom, when I was fourteen years old from Cancer, and my father died from a stroke when I was eighteen.”
“Wow… that’s rough.” I swallow hard. “Sorry you had to go through that, Owen. That must have really impacted you.”
He gives me a small smile. “I think it made me more driven. It’s made me work so much harder. When Mom passed away, I threw myself into my education and I got great grades. Then when my father died, I gave my all to the military. I rose up the ranks quickly and even won some awards.
Anything I thought I could do to make him proud.” I can see Owen light up as he talks about the military. “Why are you no longer a military man?” It doesn’t make much sense.
But then his expression darkens and I start to realize that I might have just stepped on something I shouldn’t have.
I back off.
The last thing I want him to do is stop talking.
“It just wasn’t for me anymore, that’s all. I wanted a change.” “Kidnapping women? That’s your change?” I smirk so he knows I’m teasing him.
“Protecting woman. Don’t forget I brought you here to keep you safe. This isn’t a kidnapping… this is me keeping you safe.”
“From who?” I cock a knowing eyebrow. “Until you tell me that, it’s hard for me to know what you’re talking about. It’s hard to know if you’re telling the truth.”
He tosses his head back and laughs. “Yeah, okay. Maybe you’re right. I haven’t told you anything.”
But even as he says that, he doesn’t continue and give me the answers I so desperately need.
It’s so frustrating.
“What about you?” Owen turns the spotlight around. “Tell me about your life, aside from the torment you got from your brothers, of course.”
“Well, it wasn’t all the time. Sometimes my brothers were nice. They definitely wanted to protect me. Especially my oldest brother. He was always a lot.”
“Oh yeah?” Owen chuckles. “I bet he would hate me then.”
I let out a little laugh. “Yeah, maybe. Only because of the kidnapping, though. I think if you’d met under other circumstances, everything would be fine.”
He says nothing, which makes me wonder if he’s panicking. I need to say something quickly to make things better.
“But my brother, Fionn, is a lot younger and a lot more understanding. I think you would get along well with him.”
This is fun, but it’s also reminding me that it will never happen.
Owen will never get to meet my family, obviously.
I shouldn’t care. Even with everything that’s been happening, I shouldn’t.
But I do.
I do care more than I should.
“I really wish the one person you could meet is my mom, but she died when I was younger.”
“Oh my… that must have been really hard.”
Hearing that from Owen means a lot because from what he’s told me, he can understand. He doesn’t have his parents either.
“Yeah, it was hard. Even harder now with my father being so determined that I marry Rickie Flynn Junior, even if I hate the guy and have said that like, a million times.” “Rickie Flynn Junior?” Shit.
As soon as Owen repeats after me, I realize that I’ve gotten so carried away with talking to him that I didn’t realize I was giving away the name without thinking about it.
I have no more leverage.
“Erm, yeah. Do you know him?”
Owen shakes his head hard, but I don’t think he’s being truthful with me.
I think he does know Rickie and he doesn’t like what he knows about him.
I’d also kinda like to think that it’s a bit of jealousy as well, but I might be projecting here.
He just might hate Rickie, and I get that.
“So, Rickie Flynn Junior is the arranged marriage.” I don’t know if he’s talking to me, or muttering to himself, but I’m not able to answer him either way. “Your father wants you to marry that man to solidify mob bonds. That’s…”
He clucks his tongue and turns away from me, but he isn’t hiding the energy shift. The whole room is flooded with iciness, and I feel like I’m totally to blame for it. I don’t know what I did wrong. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”
“Huh?”
I heard him, but I need to see his face as he says this.
I can’t explain why I need to see his face, but I do.
“I know this is what your father wants,” he tells me as he finally meets my eyes. “But you don’t always have to do what other people tell you. You can make your own choices.”
“Ha, and there was me thinking that you’d met my father before.” I give him a pointed look. “He doesn’t easily take ‘no’ for an answer. I’ve tried. I’ve told him over and over again that I don’t want to marry a man who’s all wrong for me. I grew up with him and Mom, who were eternally in love with one another. They showed their love every single day, and that’s what I want.” I throw my hands in the air in frustration. “How can he not think that’s what I want.”
It’s honestly really frustrating.
I hate the fact that I don’t seem to have a voice in my family. It’s always been that way.
“You are a grown ass woman, Emma. I wouldn’t want to see you forced into anything.”
I offer him a one-shouldered shrug. “Well, I don’t think I have any option really. I’ve been running and hiding as much as I can, but I can’t do it forever. I can’t always run… I can’t always hide especially when I don’t want to give up my family forever. They might not be the easiest people in the world, but that doesn’t mean I want to live a life without them.” Finally saying that out loud hits me hard.
It makes me realize how true that statement is.
I’ve been running, I’ve been avoiding them and it’s got me nowhere.
I still want them in my life. I already lost my mother, I don’t want to lose the rest of them as well.
But how can I have it all?
“Emma, you do have a choice. You always have a choice.”
“But how?”
It’s hard to keep my frustration inside.
This has been bubbling up for years.
Decades.
Maybe for as long as I have been alive. Especially ever since my mother passed away. I’ve felt pretty much alone since then.
“There is always a choice. There will always be someone out there who’s better for you than Rickie Flynn Junior. Someone who will care for you and treat you right. Someone who will love you in the way that you deserve to be loved.”
I stare at him with wide open eyes. What the hell is he talking about now?
“Do you think there’s some knight in shining armor about to come and sweep me off my feet? Someone that’s so great my family will be happy to put off the wedding to Rickie fucking Flynn when it’s going to help my father with territory or whatever? I don’t see that ever happening. At this point, I don’t think my father will ever change his mind.”
“Well, I don’t know about all of that,” he admits, making my heart sink further. “But there is always one option… me.” My jaw slackens, my mouth hangs open.
Did he just say what I think he did?
Am I losing my mind here?
Did Owen just offer himself as an option? As in, he likes me, and he would marry me?
This must be a dream. There’s no way this could be real.
Even if I wish it was.