Accidentally Married To The Mafia Boss

Chapter 1 - First Look At A Mobster

Chapter 1

It's my wedding day.

Everything is happening just as I've always dreamed.

I'm dressed up in the finest wedding gown from Kleinfeld's. The cameras are flashing. My laced veil is trailing behind me and I haven't tripped on it once.

For once in my screwed up life, this day is unfolding just as I've always planned. 

After what seems like forever, I hear footsteps behind me. It's my groom. Maybe there will be tears when he sees how beautiful I look.

Someone taps my shoulder.

I turn around.

The photographer is the one who tapped my shoulder. He shrugs. He looks confused.

No, this isn't happening.

I glance frantically in the direction of the stairwell where Kevin was supposed to appear.

There's no one there.

Oh. My. God.

WHAT KIND OF A GROOM DOESN'T SHOW UP TO HIS BRIDE'S FIRST LOOK?

I'm furious, and I'm about to smash this bouquet of white roses into the nearest photographer. Kevin Monroe, I'm going to wrap my French manicured nails around his neck and choke him for this.

I'm running through the halls of the wedding venue, holding my Monique Lhuillier (purchased on sale at Kleinfeld two weeks ago) over my knees and nearly tripping over the satin Manolo Blahniks that are in no way broken in.

All I hear is the sound of my ragged breathing as I knock on the door to his dressing room.

Knock, knock.

KNOCK!

Dammit, Kevin!

Leave it up to poor, pathetic me to hitch myself to a runaway husband.

I pray this mascara is waterproof as I lean my forehead against the wooden door. He can't leave me at the altar before we've even walked down the aisle! What will my family say?

They'll probably ask me — who gets married on Valentine's Day?

If my dad were alive, he'd say; statistically, people who get married in the big V day are twice as likely to get divorced. I know this, but this was the only availability at the Gotham Hall in Midtown, New York, which I could book with only three months' advance notice.

It seems fitting almost, for the girl who never got a valentine, not even a card in elementary school from her teacher, or a single rose during the high school valentine's day dance, or even a glance from a college boy anytime in the vicinity of that romantic holiday— to get married on Valentine's day. It's like, the universe had decided that finally, I've had enough microwave dinners in front of the TV on this holiday. I would finally have a little bit of romance in my life.

I'm a chemist by trade. I dropped out of medical school when my dad died. I couldn't work at the teaching hospital where he died, and I decided that I enjoyed benchwork more anyway. I've always been painfully shy, even before my dad was riddled with bullets while trying to save a trauma victim in the ER lobby. No one looked at me the same way after that happened. It's always, poor girl. Did you hear about what happened to her dad?

My mom, who remarried and is now pregnant — paid for this wedding with part of my dad's life insurance. Everyone was so eager for me to marry Kevin Monroe, the easy-going lawyer son of the infamous Big Joe of Big Joe's Pizzaria.