Darker than Darkness

Part 13

Haseena

I was a child when my dread for the loveless notion that was marriage began and eighteen when I realized I wasn't going to ever get married.

The idea of being tied to a man did nothing but fill my head with tempting images of throwing myself off a cliff and that was before I'd realized my fate as a woman born into the world of organized crime.

When my-then-father first proposed the idea of an arranged marriage, I killed the man I was to be betrothed to, and lost my virginity to the first man that wasn't terrified of my -then- father.

Leonardo Ademaro had thrown a fit when he'd found out, but unlike he did with most things, he came to accept my decision and eventually, grew to protect it.

He'd turn down any man who was brave enough to ask for my hand and cut ties with anyone who tried to force it.

Which is why this would throw him over the edge.

That is if I did it correctly.

If I wanted to truly hit Leonardo Ademaro where it hurt, I needed to sell this fake marriage like it was real. Meaning whatever half assed marriage Anubhav was proposing, wasn't going to cut it.

"How much longer are you going to stand there looking obtuse?" If impatience was an annoyingly handsome asshole, Anubhav would be the face of it. Sure, it went against his unbothered nature but so did this marriage document he was nodding towards. "Sign it."

"Calm your tits," I mumble brining the back end of the pen to my lips and attempting to skim my eyes over the words. "I'm not signing this until I get a little more than being allowed in your personal space." The deadpanned look I send him makes his eyes narrow.

But I'm not backing down. We'd need to sell us as a couple, not as a pair of enemies who couldn't stand to be in the same room as each other.

After a long moment that's occupied by him as he drags his gaze from the pen in my mouth to my eyes, his narrow even further. "I'll consider it."

"You'll consider it?" Now it's me narrowing my eyes at him in frustration.

The blissfully arrogant look across his face doesn't falter as he adjusts his cuff links. "I'd be a lot easier to accept your terms if you weren't so-" his eyes move back down to the pen in my mouth and I briefly wonder if he's going to physically shudder to drive his point further. "Disgustingly unsanitary."

"How sweet of you." I smile, but even then I find myself forcing it as I drag my gaze to his empty fingers. "You'll also need to eventually wear a ring."

He levels me with a deadpanned look, one that's almost offended. "I don't wear useless jewellery." Ignoring the watch on his wrist, I realise that this is yet another distinction that sets us apart.

While he was boring with his skin void of any accessories, I found a piece of myself in every piece of gold that I wore on a regular basis.

I hold up my hand and watch the diamond glint in the light. An engagement ring large enough for any bystander to gasp over sits atop my ring finger. So dramatic and extra that I already begin to feel the dread that comes with standing there and nodding along to anyone that begins to dawn over it. "If I'm weighted down so are you."

I expect him to protest, and much like everything he's done until this point, be difficult. But he walks forward, slips his hands in his pockets and gives a shrug. "Sign the papers and I'll consider it."

The early morning sun filtering through the windows cast as a glow across his face, his features turning almost angelic but there's a darkness beneath his stare that on any other day I'd grow weary of.