Keeping his bride

Book 2

PROLOGUEOwned by NôvelDrama.Org.

Nicholas Vitale

Ten Years Ago

I STAND IN the doorway of Selina’s room, watching her pack. My heart aches at the thought of her leaving today, and I absently rub my palm against my chest in an attempt to alleviate some of the pain. She’s become such a huge part of my life that it will be as if she’s taking a piece of me when she goes. Selina has been living with my family for the past six months. I would like to say it took that long to fall in love with her, but I’d be lying. It only took the first day. Maybe even the first hour.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw her. The tall, thin girl with two different colored irises, one green and one blue – a condition known as complete heterochromia, as she later explained to me. I barely even thought about girls before that point; but the moment I laid eyes on her long blonde hair, heart-shaped face, and her strange, oceancolored eyes, I was a goner.

S lina had been rescued from a human trafficking ring that my parents, Luca and Verona Vitale, dismantled. They are constantly on missions to help women and children from being sold and trafficked. And when no one came to claim Selina, my parents offered to take her in temporarily until her family could be found. Little did we know what a life-changing decision that would be for both her and me. She’s been here every day since. And she would continue to be here, maybe forever, if her mother hadn’t suddenly appeared out of nowhere, demanding her daughter be returned to her.

Sighing, I walk into Selina’s room and sit on the edge of the bed as she folds up a white t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, her long locks swaying with every movement. Even though we knew this day would be coming eventually, it’s still hard to believe she’s actually leaving here.

Her bottom lip trembles as she zips up the suitcase, finalizing the reality of the situation. “I don’t want to go,” Selina confesses with a sigh before she sits down next to me. I don’t know much about her past, given that she hasn’t told me much. But from what she has told me, her mother is a real piece of work, unstable and wildly unpredictable.

“I don’t want you to go either,” I say, my voice heavy with emotion. But the unmistakable truth of the matter is she’s thirteen and I’m fourteen. We’re both minors, and there’s not a damn thing we can do to fix this situation. Her mother is, by law, her legal guardian whether we like it or not, and she’s currently waiting downstairs for Selina to pack her things.

“I wish I could stay here,” she says, her eyes filling up with tears and nearly gutting me in the process.

“I know. I want the same thing,” I agree. I put my arm around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly to me in a hug. God, she smells like strawberries and wildflowers, and I breathe in her scent, stamping it into my brain.

“Selina, hurry up!” her mother yells from downstairs. Her voice is husky and coarse like sandpaper and is followed up by some loud hacking, which sounds like she’s coughing up a lung.

Selina grimaces at the sound of her mother’s voice before slowly pulling away from me. She stands and grabs her tiny suitcase, which is filled with clothes that my parents bought for her while she was living here. Her eyes are wide and sad as she looks around the bedroom one last time before we retreat out into the hallway. Every single step feels like a thousand as we walk down the hall. I don’t want her to leave, but it’s not up to me. God, I wish it was.

We reach the top of the staircase when Selina suddenly turns and flies into my arms. “Don’t let her take me,” she begs in a shaky whisper against my ear.

I hold her and smooth my hand up and down her back soothingly. I remember how skinny she was when she first arrived, but now she’s filled out. She’s healthy. She’s happy. “I’ll find a way to get you away from her, Lina,” I promise, calling her by the affectionate nickname that I gave to her on the first day we met. Maybe my parents can pull some strings. Maybe they can buy her mother off. She sure as shit didn’t care about Selina for six months before showing up out of the blue to put claim on her daughter.

She’s practically shaking in my arms, and I curse under my breath. I wish we were older. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. Pulling back, I stare into her eyes and tell her, “Everything is going to be okay. We’ll be together again soon. I won’t just let you disappear.”

Before I can utter any other words, Selina leans in and places her lips against mine.

Our first kiss.

My first kiss ever.

I’ve been imagining for months what it would feel like. We’re both inexperienced and young, having done nothing mor than hold hands.

Her lips feel soft and undemanding against mine. I deepen the kiss, pulling her closer, and stroking my thumb over the small heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. She hates that damn mark, but I think it’s cute as hell.

“Promise me, Nico,” she pleads when she pulls back, staring into my eyes. “Promise me you’ll come to see me.”

“I promise. Your mom will just have to get used to the fact that I’m going to be around. I don’t care where you go or where she takes you, I’ll still come to visit.” I know, without a doubt in my heart, that I would follow Selina to the edge of the earth if I had to. “We can text, email, write letters. Whatever you want.”

“I want all of that and more,” she says before wrapping her arms around me in a hug.

I hold her tightly, inhaling her strawberry-scented shampoo and memorizing the way she feels in my arms. I want to be with Lina forever, but I don’t tell her that. I don’t want to scare her, but I think she knows how I feel.

And I’m pretty sure she feels the same way.

“I feel safe with you,” she whispers against my chest.

She guts me again with her words, but I know right now I have to be strong for the both of us. Nothing is going to change the current situation. Pulling back, I stare into her blue and green eyes. I hate when I see so much sadness reflected in them. “Tell you what. How about tomorrow I’ll come pick you up, and we’ll go for a picnic on the beach,” I offer in an attempt to cheer her up.

“A picnic,” she says as if the idea is so foreign to her.

“Yeah,” I muse. “I’ll pack us those juice boxes that you love, a bag of Doritos, and some of those chocolate and marshmallow cookies that you keep sneaking out of the jar in the kitchen.” That earns me a smile, and I can see some of her tension melting away. “And, hey, I’ll even make you

PB and J with the crusts cut off.” She hates the crust, and it

mak s me laugh every time I see her cutting off the extra bread.

“So it’s a…date?”

“It’s a date,” I promise. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I know my mom will drive me over to visit you.” According to Selina’s mother, they are going to be staying at a motel for a couple of weeks before she finds an apartment to rent for them. My mother offered to help with the rent, and her mother immediately took her up on the offer, demanding money up front to help with the costs. My mom, of course, handed over the cash, because in the time that Selina’s been here, my mom has come to love her just as much as I have and would do anything to ensure her happiness and wellbeing. And I know that, as long as Selina’s mother promises to get an apartment nearby, my mom and dad will keep footing the bill. Lina’s become part of the family.

There’s no doubt about that.

“Selina, come on!” her mother crows from downstairs.

Selina reluctantly pulls away from me, takes a tentative step towards the stairs, but then suddenly stops and turns to look at me over her shoulder. “My mom is not who they think she is,” she says cryptically. But before I can ask what she means by that, I hear her mother’s screeching voice calling for her again.

“Hurry up!”

We round the corner and slowly descend the staircase. My parents and my little sister Aria are waiting patiently in the foyer. My dad has a frown on his face, my mom looks worried, and Aria has tears in her eyes streaming down her red cheeks. She’s just as upset as I am about Selina leaving.

And when I finally lay eyes on Selina’s mother standing by the front door, I almost begin to plead right then and there with my parents to tell her to leave. She’s skinny, way too skinny, with ratty blonde hair and blue eyes. She has wrinkles on her face even though she can’t be that old sinc Selina told me her mother was a teenager when she gave birth, and her fake nails scratch down her arms nervously as she watches her daughter with bloodshot eyes and a thin-lipped smile.

“It’s about damn time,” Miss McCall mutters angrily to her daughter. But when she notices everyone is staring at her and her cold demeanor, she suddenly changes her tune, plastering on a fake smile that stretches out the cracked red lipstick on her mouth. “Did you get everything, sweetie?” she asks, laying it on thick but not fooling a single soul in this room.

No affection or warmth comes from either one of them during their little reunion, and the red flags just seem to keep popping up. Lina turns and runs into my arms one last time, and I hold her tightly to me, not wanting to ever let her go. I can feel the apprehension and nervousness coming off of her in waves, and all I can do is whisper in her ear that I’m coming for her. Soon.

Her haunting words come rushing back to me just then

– My mom is not who they think she is.

If it’s the last thing I ever do, I will find out a way to get her out from under her mother’s control. I’ll run away with Lina if that’s what it takes. We’re both young, but we’ll figure it out. I don’t care about the consequences. I just want Lina in my life. Forever.

“We have to go, Selina,” her mother says, roughly grabbing her daughter and ripping her from my arms.

“Wait!” I call out, but her mother is dragging her out the door and onto the sidewalk before I can even say goodbye.

Aria stands silently next to me, holding my hand tightly as my father puts a hand on my shoulder in support while we watch the only girl I’ve ever loved being taken out of my life by force.

“Call me!” I yell to Selina as she reaches the old, white, beat-up sedan sitting in the driveway.

She longingly stares back at me and gives me a nod and a little wave before ducking her head into the car and slamming the door shut.

I know she’ll call. I made sure she packed a piece of paper with my number on it into her suitcase. That was the very first thing she put in there. The most important thing, she had told me.

I watch as the car speeds away, and my stomach sinks. I feel like this will be the last time I’ll ever see her again, but I know that’s silly. I’m going to see her tomorrow. My mom already promised to drive me to the motel, so that we could check on them.

“When we go to see them, I’ll make sure Selina has everything she needs,” my mom assures me. “And if she doesn’t, well, then social services is getting a call from me.”

Forcing a smile, I nod. See, everything is going to be okay. None of the Vitales are going to let Selina McCall fall through the cracks. She’ll be taken care of no matter what.

I stand at the doorway watching the car pull out of the driveway, refusing to move or even breathe until it completely disappears out of sight. I end up staying there for over an hour, just hoping that Lina forgot something she has to come back for or that her mother changed her mind. But they don’t come back, and it makes my stomach sour at the thought of Lina being with that horrible woman.

The sick feeling stays with me for the rest of the day and evening, and that night I have trouble sleeping. I expected Selina to have at least called me or something when they got to the motel, but I don’t hear from her. And by the next morning, I know something is terribly wrong.

When my mother and I stop by the motel that Selina and her mother were supposed to be staying in, we learn that they only stayed a few hours and then dipped, leaving no information behind with the desk clerk.

I knew right then and there that I would probably never see Selina McCall again. She was gone forever. And all of my heartfelt promises to get her away from her mother and keep her safe were fucking broken.