Anyone But Her

T W O

Of course she would try to make a devil out of me.

"How exactly are we engaged...when neither of us proposed?" I demanded.

The kitchen was ruined—ruined forever because Kenna Gold sat on the other side of the island.

My scrambled brain hit rewind. "Wait a minute—who's the other half? You said, 'He's half of why...'"

Lashes lowering to shutter her eyes, Kenna replied, "My mother. It seems our parents want to join our families through...a mutual business decision. And as you'll know by now, their decisions are the only ones that count."

Like hell!

I was so shaken that a simple fact didn't occur to me for several seconds. "But—I'm a woman."

Kenna raised one perfect eyebrow. "I noticed?"

She'd better not have noticed. I zipped my thin jacket up to my throat, choking myself a little. What a dirty word, noticed. "No way. You can't possibly be okay with marrying another female, Miss 'Marriage Is Between a Man and a Woman.'"

Gag.

All right, so her worst comments, like that one, usually started with, "My father says..." But I didn't want to bring up the dead guy.

He would be a last resort.

Kenna sighed. "This is common in our world. And laws have changed to...allow for more options. It would be a business deal—a marriage of convenience. Why should gender matter?"

She had a point there. Still— "Convenient for whom? Not for you, not for me, and we're the ones they want to put up to it!"

Oof—pierced by that evil green yet again. "These kinds of arrangements happen every day, Wren."

I wanted to grab a napkin and wipe my name off her tongue.

"You can't be serious. An arranged marriage? What century are we in? Did my father really think that I'd be happy as long as it wasn't a man? Pathetic! If our parents want to get away with crap like this, they should go marry themselves!"

"We'd be stepsisters..." Kenna pointed out.

I shuddered. She shivered delicately.

It was surreal, her being in this space. Especially after several, wonderful, Kenna-free years.

She couldn't let a good thing last, could she? None of them could.

Damn you, Dad.

Living with what you were given was perfectly fine, but I'd had to separate myself, because with all the riches and opportunities would come the burden of my father's expectations. I would've been handing him the keys to my life, inviting a takeover. And I'd decided long ago that I would not be another thing he could buy or hold under his control.

I paid rent (undeniably a smaller amount than it should have been) to stay—by myself, most of the time—in his mansion, when I could've been living in the house where I grew up. Mom's job had covered my healthcare, she'd paid the bills until I was old enough to help, and we never accepted a dime. I didn't owe him a damn thing. He, his business, and his money were why I couldn't be where I really wanted to be—with Mom. My living here was best for her, not for me. It was miserable for me. But I couldn't tell her or anyone else the truth.

I'd had it, though. I'd be moving out at the first chance. I would avoid this nonsense, whatever it took. If Dad wanted to be a dictator, he could buy an island, fill it with his employees, and leave me the hell out of it.

As for Kenna...she needed to grow a backbone. Bringing us face to face again over this was inexcusable. I respected her in some ways—she was intelligent and capable—but she'd have to find some other chump to jump through Mommy's hoops with.