Rome & Julie

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Have you ever heard the saying ‘All men are either taken or gay?’ Well, my few friends and I had heard it one too many times, and each time they would protest, claiming that it’s impossible, because before someone’s taken, they have to be single at some point in their lives, right?

Well, in almost all cases, that is true.  But in mine, things were a bit different.  And no, this isn’t one of those ‘before I was born, I had an arranged marriage, and I hated the guy, because he was my childhood enemy and just so happened to be part time vampire’ stories.

Well, kind of. 

When I was born, I was engaged to a guy, who, to my knowledge, was definitely not a vampire.  Well… I wouldn’t exactly say engaged, because I did had a choice in the matter.  If I didn’t want to marry the guy, I didn’t have to.  My parents and his parents were business partners back when mine were alive and kicking, and they thought it would be just perfect if we got together.  You know, keep the family business going and that entire great American dream crap.  However, they said that it was completely up to us.  However, when my parents’ lives got tragically ended, everyone discovered on their will that the only request they had for me was to marry this guy so they could be assured that I could live a happy life.  In other words, rich and powerful.  If I married him, we’d be business partners, own our parents’ successful company, live in a beautiful, luxuriant mansion, and have maids and butlers and other stuff that I didn’t need. 

As I grew older and could understand the situation, I realized I wasn’t really interested in falling in love and having a fairytale life, and a lot of that was on account of Romeo and Juliet.  I didn’t want to love someone to the point that I would give my life for them.  The thought was downright frightening, and quite frankly, demoralizing.  So I figured, what the hell, why not marry someone for my parents?  I didn’t really get to give them anything except the labor of caring for me when I was a stinky, whiny baby, so I could do the one thing that I was capable of doing for them.

So, in essence, I’d never been single.  I’d always been ‘taken’ by someone.

The guy I was betrothed to didn’t really care, either.  He wasn’t interested in falling in love or going head over heels for a female.  His love was his parents and my parents’ business, Madden&Corbin Co.  Actually, it was technically already his business when he had turned eighteen, but his parents didn’t have any lives outside of business so they made sure to keep involved.  And then we would share it all once I turned eighteen.

Ah… what a beautiful, touching story.

Maggie didn’t think it was.  She actually didn’t want me to marry the guy my parents had set me up with, convinced that if I did and ran the company, I’d end up like her sister—my mother—uptight and only interested in making money.  I assured her that would never and could never happen.  That just wasn’t who I am.  I wasn’t focused on getting money and climbing to the top of the social latter.

In conclusion, claiming this was an arranged marriage story is actually pretty far from what is truth.  My parents wanted—not forced—me to marry a guy, and mostly for good intentions.  They wanted me to have a good life.  And I agreed to the marriage, for my parents, for Maggie and Robert, and for me.  I couldn’t live with knowing that I’d gone against my parents’ one and only request of me.

“Julie!  Someone’s here to see you!”  Maggie’s voice was faint, letting me know that she was calling from down the hall.  I looked up from my schoolwork curiously, out the window, recognizing the sleek silver look of her expensive Maserati Quattroporte anywhere.