At Wits' End - Kenzie Reed Page 0,13

going to be a little challenging now that we’ll be roomies for the next four months.

I turn back to face Donovan, and I’m glad that I have an ugly-ass veil to hide the tears burning my eyes.

Despite everything, despite my spectacularly awful failed engagement to Simon, despite my well-earned cynicism when it comes to weddings, I still had hopes of a real marriage one day. A fantasy marriage, one I constructed in my head, one that looked nothing like my mother’s many unions.

And, forgive me, Aunt Fernanda, but my fantasy marriage looked nothing like her and Uncle Nuccio’s. They loved each other fiercely and fought all the time, at the top of their lungs. Dishes were thrown. Curses were screamed. I huddled in my closet on many an occasion as a little girl, terrified of the passion behind their battles. They never hit each other, and it was all love and kisses the next day, but it was a lot.

When I dared to dream of a marriage, I dreamed of a perfect one, of course, where we agreed on everything and instinctively knew what our partner needed and never fought or left each other.

But if I’m being honest with myself, I’ll never have that. It’s just not in my bloodline. My father was the black sheep of the Ribaldi family, many years younger than his siblings, Nuccio and Vito, wild and irresponsible. He only married my mother, pretty dairy farm employee Linda Patterson, under duress after she showed him the results of the pregnancy test. Then he did a vanishing act worthy of any magician, except he never did come back. And my mother…well, her lifestyle speaks for itself. Her daddy ran out on her when she was a toddler, just like mine did to me, and she spends her life looking for validation in all the wrong places. Generation after generation…the Patterson women just can’t keep a man.

The pastor begins to speak, and a wave of dizziness rolls over me. Donovan somehow senses it, and puts his hands on my waist and holds me upright. It should feel like a vise clamping down on me, like chains, but it doesn’t. His hands are big and strong and feel as if they’re right where they should be.

That should be a signal for me to run and never look back. It’s the same kind of instinct that led my mother to marry six different times.

Deep inside my purse, Aceto’s tired of protesting and he’s fallen asleep. I know because he’s snoring. Lucky bastard.

The pastor pauses, and looks at me, and I realize I’ve completely zoned out on what she’s saying. Is it time for me to speak now?

I stifle a hysterical giggle. “I do,” I blurt out.

She resumes. Okay, good, I didn’t say the wrong thing or miss my cue.

I can’t look Donovan in the eye.

“I do,” he says.

This can’t be happening.

“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Donovan leans in, lifts my veil, and kisses me. His lips are meltingly soft, and my lips part to accept his tongue, probing my mouth, strong and sure and in command. He puts his hand behind my head and deepens the kiss. I hear a low, trembling moan, and I realize that it came from me, and then I see the fierce flare of satisfaction in his eyes. And I know exactly what the bastard’s thinking.

Got you again, Ribaldi.

Aceto, who is exquisitely sensitive to my moods, wakes up and lets out a furious growl. I pretend to stumble, and dig my heel into Donovan’s instep. He catches me, stifling his snarl of pain and anger.

“Clumsy me.” I smile up at him. He whispers something back so low that I can barely hear it, but it sounds like, “Sleep with one eye open.”

“And a knife under my pillow,” I whisper back.

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “You what now?”

I spin away from him and throw my bouquet. Sara catches it, with squeals of joy and excitement that actually make me crack a genuine smile.

Carrie makes her way towards us, clutching her camera so hard her knuckles are white.

“Well, this is certainly the most unusual wedding I’ve been to in a long time.” Her voice rings off the rafters, suspicion threaded through it as she glowers at us.

“Sure is.” Donovan trails his fingers lightly down my arm, and a flare of heat burns through me, followed by anger. I should be stronger than this.

“That’s nothing on our living arrangements,” I say.