Shattered Vows: An Arranged Marriage Standalone Romance (Tarnished Empire)

“Good evening, Morina. How was your day?” It was a week since the theme park, and I’d made it home every night. I split my time between businesses in Chicago, LA, and New York. Making it back here, though, proved to the world we had something going on.

Was I doing it to prove something to them or because of her outburst about feeling alone in the penthouse? I wasn’t sure.

I scrolled through my phone while lounging on the couch as the woman ambled down the hallway to greet me. Entertainment news had caught Morina and I together numerous times leaving this building, and the theme park trip was everywhere.

She grumbled something about a day of napping as she walked by, her sleep shirt rumpled and hitting just at mid thigh. She pulled off messy well, like she belonged that way.

“It looks like people have caught wind of our relationship.” I held up my phone.

She glanced at the screen. “Surprised they didn’t use our Splash Rollercoaster kiss as the photo.”

I didn’t comment. That photo wasn’t for the world to see.

Yet, pictures scrolled by of us holding hands, of her staring into my eyes. Each one appeared intimate.

“They really do an amazing job of making us seem in love.” Pointing, she chuckled. “Except this one.”

She giggled and plopped next to me, close enough that I knew she’d loosened up over the past week I’d been home.

“This one looks like I’m getting scolded.” She lowered her voice to sound like a news anchor: “Bastian Armanelli and Mediocre Mo fight already.”

I took note of the news outlet while she scoffed at the nickname.

“Would have sounded much better if they’d written Daddy Bastian puts Little Miss Mo in her place. And, oh my God, are they guessing my weight? My ass alone weighs much more than that.”

A chuckle escaped my lips, and the tension in my neck loosened. The woman truly didn’t give two fucks about the media. Her nonchalance had me wanting to grip her hips and knead said ass.

Desiring her shouldn’t have been in the cards but I still joked with her. “If only they knew how big and not mediocre your ass was.”

Her tanned skin blushed immediately and she licked her lips like she would be ready to go if I asked. When she turned her hips just a little, my hand acted on its own accord to graze over her hip bone. The phone in her hands clattered onto the table. “Bastian…”

Her moaning my name had my hands flying off her. I’d talked of my mother with her and I remembered how Mother had fallen so in love with my father, how she’d lost her passion for the world to that man.

Morina was just as vibrant, maybe even more so. She was young and full of life and I wasn’t pulling her any closer to the mob family I was trying to fix.

“Sorry.” I shook my head. “Sorry, ragazza. It’s time for bed.”

“And here I thought you were so much older than me.” She smirked, goading me to bend her over my knee.

I sighed, my restraint ready to snap. “Get your ass to your bedroom, woman.”

She laughed all the way down the hall like this was just some fun. To her, it might have been.

To me, I needed to keep my sanity and make sure she had a clear mind to sign those shares over to me. It meant clean energy and a clean family legacy. Even if I wanted her ass, I’d have to find another outlet. And it wasn’t just her body, I found myself liking Morina more and more. I had to be careful with that in the future.

I went to bed frustrated and thinking about her ass.

When I woke up, I almost knocked on her door to see if she wanted to do something about it.

Instead, I made coffee and read the paper. I took care of her plants and researched the damn orchid that didn’t want to bloom again. There had to be a solution.

She slothed down the hallway to the kitchen and mumbled something about needing water, and I turned, getting her a glass of it.

“No, no, no.” She waved it off. “I need to surf to wake up. I told you this a couple days ago.” We’d had a few conversations here and there in the days since Ivy and Cade had left. Most of the time, I was on my computer and she tinkered on her phone or with things around the penthouse.

Yesterday, she put up a painting of Buddha. When I asked if that was her religion, she laughed and said no. When I asked why she had it, she said she passed the picture in a discount store and thought he looked cute.

That was Morina. A free-spirited loner with a need to indulge every gut instinct and feeling to its full extent.

“Why do you need to surf in the morning again?”

“Because if I don’t, I’m like this,” she hissed. Her voice directed malice at herself, though, not me.

The girl flew toward every feeling she had with a drive that wasn’t healthy. Right now, she’d veered into hating-herself land and combed erratically through her tangled hair with her fingers.

The first time I’d met her, I’d wanted her on my dick and today was no different. Even with no makeup, Morina was beautiful, maybe even more so. Her full lips pouted out soft and pillowy above her strong jawline, and her blue eyes pierced my soul through dark, thick eyelashes. Her face would’ve been striking to anyone, even when she tried to hide it behind a mass of wavy black hair. Her body tempted me, even in a baggy sweatshirt.

This one was monochrome, a black and white design of characters from the theme park. She liked shirts two sizes too big, and the fact Cade had bought that sweatshirt in just the right size irked me for some dumbass reason.

On top of all that, I could still see her full chest straining against the material. I shouldn’t have been looking.

I probably studied her much too long because those azure eyes glared at me like I was dumb and deaf. “Are you even listening to me?”

“Of course. Do you want to go surfing this morning?”

Her smile lit up the room as she went to the top of the refrigerator to grab her lighter. The incense smoke curled up around her face as her face soured. “Today, I woke up with the need to finish that file.”

Ah, that was the true culprit of her bad mood. Morina hated that file like a sculptor might hate being given paint instead of marble. She was the type of person who thrived in action, not in reading about it.

“I’ll do it with you.” I shrugged and took a sip of my coffee.

First, a grin spread across her face, then it dropped like a ton of bricks. “You should work.”

“Should I?” I grabbed the plates of food I’d made while she was sleeping. “Here are some crepes and strawberries.”

“Strawberries and what?”

“Crepes.” I nodded to the thin, folded over pancake.

“Okay.” She dragged the word out like she always did when she was unsure. Still, she went to fill two glasses with water and set them beside each other on the island counter. Then, she turned to me and winced. “Are you eating with me? Sorry, I assumed because it felt like you–”

“I’m eating meals with you as much as possible from now on.”

Combing a hand through her long dark hair, she sighed before grabbing us silverware and laying the table. “You honestly don’t have to. I know I was a little crazy a few days ago, but I am okay.”

“Well, it’s good for us to get to know one another. We can go over the rest of our arrangement timeline.” I went to sit on the stool beside her. “We need this all laid out. That’s why we’re going to go over the rest of this file together. No issues, okay?”

She cut into the crepe and shrugged as she put a piece in her mouth before continuing the conversation.

Except the conversation came to a screeching halt when the woman moaned over my food.

“Oh my Lord, what is in this?” Her eyes rolled back like she was in ecstasy.

It was just a thin pancake with a little vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and maybe a few hidden ingredients. Mom had taught Cade and me well over the years.

And a little piece of me was pleased that she followed her emotions head-on in this exact moment, because the woman made the best sounds of pleasure.

My dick immediately recognized them.

Jesus, the way her skin glowed when she was happy, a hint of color on her cheeks like she responded to satisfaction of any sort. I honestly believed she did with each of our encounters.

Morina was free-spirited and I think she had been with sex before me. She’d indulged probably like I did. I just had more years of experience.

It made her even more appealing, the fact that she knew what her body wanted and yet hadn’t even begun to understand what I could do to her.

Jesus fuck.

I wasn’t doing anything more to her.

I was marrying her and doing this hand off legally. That was all.

I cleared my throat and shifted in my chair, trying to calm my damn dick down. “It’s just a thin pancake, Morina. I can get you the recipe if you want.”

She nodded, staring at her plate with pure adoration. “Yep. I’ll take it. Normally, I’d say no. I don’t cook that much. Just shakes, you know? But this…this, I will take. I will master it somehow because it’s so good. So, so, so good.”

My dick wasn’t calming down to save my life.

I shoveled my food down and didn’t say another damn thing. I let her eat while I went to find the godforsaken file.

I plopped down on the couch and said over my shoulder. “Let’s summarize where possible. I’ll give you the highlights and then you can forget about this damn thing hanging over your head.”

“It’s a very large thing.” She held up her fork like she needed to point it out. “I still don’t understand what I should and shouldn’t be doing.”

“Do you want to make a plan for the rest of the six months?”

Her nose wrinkled like the word plan made her physically ill.

I chuckled. “It’s not that complicated or binding, Morina. Don’t look that appalled.”

“I just… plans make me crazy. They always veer off track or someone lets somebody else down.”

“Did someone let you down?”

“No.” She answered way too fast. “Just tell me, how are we going to pull this off? I’ll do whatever. I just need to know.”

She was flowing down whatever river I wanted her to. Honestly, the girl was a little too trusting and free-spirited. Until it came to certain things. God forbid I try to take her salt lamp or grandmother’s plants out of the damn house.

The plants were coming back to life after our talk though. Or maybe after I’d taken to watering them instead of letting her do it. I was quite pleased with how much better the orchid was looking after some of my research. I told myself she needed them alive for her grandmother and to feel comfortable here but her smile when she was them was reason enough for me.

“We will attend the gala for a charity the company does every year. It will be a great place to announce our engagement. We’ll make sure to get married quickly, live here, get through the legal probate of the will. You can attend board meetings and work at the food truck once we’re married.”

“I can go back to the food truck?” She stopped eating for that.

“Yes. We found the guys who ransacked it.” Cade had tracked the underground gang down. “They won’t be a problem again.”

Her blue eyes widened. “Please tell me you didn’t…”

I smirked at her hesitating to ask. “Kill them?”

She bit her lip.

“What if I said I did?” I tilted my head and waited. I’d wanted to kill them, I’d admit to that.

“Well, I don’t know.” She dropped her fork and threw up her hands. “It’s concerning, that’s for sure.”

I chuckled. “I didn’t kill them. I did have them beat badly enough that they won’t make the mistake of touching anything that’s mine again though.”

“They touched my food truck, not yours.”

“What’s yours is mine, love.” Thinking of someone harming her now made me want to destroy something, made me want to resort back violence in a way I hadn’t wanted to for a long time.

“Well, I guess all these plans and me going back to the food truck like we’re living normally is great for the cameras.” She sighed but waved away her disdain. “Okay, you said there’s a gala with some of your business associates.” She emphasized the words like she felt they were complete fiction. “The board will also be there. And we’re making a statement. If you’re proposing there, what’s pushing you to do that so fast? I mean, they’ve only seen us living here and visiting the park. Seems sort of quick.”

“What makes a man act quickly then?”

“My grandma always said you were all led around by measuring how big your…” She turned back to her food.

“My ego, Morina?” It was a small tragedy that I didn’t get to see her skin blush because I knew she was thinking about my dick right then. She’d teased me about it on the plane that first night. I remembered the way her mouth had dropped open, how she’d taken it down her throat so well.

I adjusted my trousers. “We can figure out the logistics later. The fact is we need a proposal there. We need to marry within a week after that, and then you’ll attend the first board meeting.”

“Can you come to that?”

“They’re old school. Spouses come, especially if they’re men.” Equality in business wasn’t exactly fair. I didn’t know if Morina really cared one way or the other.

“Well, that’s shitty.” Guess she did. She got up and rinsed her plate. “Anyway, what do I need to know about the meeting? The terminals run fine, right?”

“Refineries are getting antsy to push more oil here. I don’t think it’s necessary. We need to fully restructure. That means–”

“That means the potential for cleaner water and air.”

“Yes, over time.” I explained more as she came and sit on the sofa next to me. I handed her the file when she reached out. “It’s a long road. I want ports open to that throughout Florida though. This state and others need to go more green.”

“Why?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’ll lose partners and make enemies that way.”

“I intend to make allies on the other side though. I want to right what my father wronged.”

“Did he wrong all of us?”

“My father wasn’t a good man. He wronged everyone.”

“But my grandma–”

“She probably didn’t know.”

“My grandma wasn’t dumb,” Morina stated, her voice stronger than normal. “She would have done a lot, even if it was bad, to save this town.”

I nodded. I wouldn’t argue with her on that. I wouldn’t elaborate on her grandmother’s votes over the years either.

Cade had hacked into records enough to know her grandma had made deals with the Irish and then with my father over the years. She’d made some terrible votes, and I could only imagine they were because of her partnerships.

“So, I’m voting on what? Can I see the ports beforehand?”

I cleared my throat and thought that over while she folded her knees to her chest and pulled the sweatshirt over them.

“We have to be married first. Then, you get access to everything according to the will. We go to this gala. We put on the show. We get married in the next week. It needs to look real if we’re to maintain your protection. The media will cover us and other businessmen will look into you. Do you understand? This has to be the plan and it has to be executed right.”

Morina wriggled in her baggy sweatshirt, her eyes darting around like she was antsy with the whole thing. “Sure, sure. That sounds good.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“I’m just not used to it.” She cleared her throat and waved her hand in the air.

“I’ll help you get used to it, okay?” I knew my change in subject would calm her: “Want to go surfing now?”

“Can I?”

“If I go with you.”

Her eyes grew even wider. “You said you have to work today. Also, I just… I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come.”

Now, I was intrigued. “Not a good idea. Why not?”

She chuckled. “Well, you can’t surf, can you?”

“I’m sure I will catch on just fine.”

She laughed and laughed and then her smooth, brown legs slid out from under her sweatshirt. “Okay, Bastian. Let’s see.”

That was easier than I’d expected. For a woman not set on enjoying anything with anyone, she was suddenly fine with me coming along.

I did have to work. I had to call a few companies and attend a virtual meeting regarding my investments. Still, I could maneuver around them.

Today, I had to show a little girl that I knew how to swim. That’s all surfing really was. Swimming and balancing on a damn board.