Page 57 of Colin (The Doherty Mafia)
It was him. He said it first. And it felt like the air left my lungs. I couldn’t believe those words came from him.
“What…” I murmured.
Colin yanked my hands towards him, almost pulling me off the chair.
“Listen to me Marley Price. I may have married you on a drunken whim, but I woke up the next morning and didn’t want you to leave. Do you get what I’m saying to you?”
I nodded. My face was ashen white, I couldn’t think straight. There was so much I wanted to say to him too but he wouldn’t let me interrupt.
“I thought I just needed to get rid of you, but then you decided to come here with me. And then we…we have been living together for a week, and I didn’t think I would feel this way about a woman. You’ve done something to me. This is all your fuckin’ fault!”
I couldn’t tell if he was mad at me.
He let go of my wrists and I slipped back in my chair. I stared at him without words. He had struck me into silence.
“And now if you leave in the morning, I feel like I’ll lose my freakin’ mind. I don’t know how or why. I can’t let you go. But I will. If that’s what you really want. I understand why you wouldn’t want to live this life. I won’t force you.”
Finally, I was able to do something. I was able to shake my head.
“I don’t want to live any other life,” I said.
Thirty
Colin
She said she didn’t want to leave. I couldn’t believe my ears. I thought we were done.
I thought it was over between us.
What girl in her right mind, especially a smart and beautiful girl like her, would want to stay with me?
Marley stood up and came towards me. She slipped into my lap and wrapped her arms around me.
“I’m in love with you too, Colin Doherty,” she said with a smile.
She brought her face close to mine, our lips almost grazed. Her delicate breath fell on my face and I wanted to engulf her. I would never let her go. I would give my life if I had to—to keep her safe.
“Do you know the kind of life you’ll lead if you stay with me?”
Her smile grew wider.
“I think I know exactly the life I’ll lead. I’ll spend it with you. I’ll wake up next to you. You’ll spend all your nights next to me. I wouldn’t want anything else.”
“You can have anything you want, Marley. You’re my wife.”
She kissed my lips tenderly. I lost myself again.
“I didn’t think you wanted to be with anyone,” she said.
“I didn’t think I could. But I want to be with you. I want to try.”
“You’re afraid of losing me. The way you lost your mother and your girlfriend.”
She peered into my eyes. She was my weakness and I didn’t want her to see that. But she probably knew it already. She had to have known the kind of hold she had on me.
We had only known each other a week and I was already asking her to…to stay married to me.
“And you realize I’m not your father?” I asked.
Marley nodded.
“You’re nothing like him,” she replied tenderly and brushed the backs of her fingers on my cheek.
I kissed her chin, then her mouth, then the tip of her nose.
“So no annulment?” I asked.
“I want to give this marriage thing a shot with you. Is that crazy? We have known each other for a week. The wedding was a sham.”
“Does it matter?”
I already knew I was going to give her a real wedding. Any damn wedding she wanted—as long as she was willing to stay with me. I didn’t even want her to get off my lap.
Marley leaned in closer, kissing my earlobe and then framing my face with both her hands.
“No, it doesn’t matter. All I know is that we made the best decision of our life that night, and I don’t even remember making it,” she said with a laugh.
She was right, she was always right.
“Can we have a drink now?” she asked.
But I carried her to the bedroom instead. The beers could wait.
I couldn’t sleep.
Marley was in my arms in my bed, her delicate body rose and fell with every breath. I kept staring at her and watching her sleep. Now that I knew she was mine—she was always going to be mine—I couldn’t stop obsessing over all the things I needed to do to keep her safe.
Aldo Baron.
He had already tried to work her.
I needed to make sure he never came close to her again.
And if my suspicions were right, then he was having her followed and watched right then. All the time.
I felt my veins flood with anger.
I tried to be as quiet as possible as I pulled myself away from her. In the darkness of my bedroom, I put on my clothes and stepped out.
