Page 5 of Carnal Wagers

Not once did he look at me as he joined my family at the front of the room. The mayor took position behind the antique pedestal desk that served as an altar, still deep in conversation with my father. Cillian stepped forward to my right, his gaze pinned on those damn murals. He didn’t say a single word to me or even spare me a glance.

It wasn’t ideal, but everything was salvageable with effort. I exhaled a deep breath and held out my hand to him.

“How about we introduce ourselves?” I softened my French accent for his benefit.

“No need.”

“Of course there is.” I waggled the fingers of my outstretched hand, proud of the confidence in my voice. “I am Alizé, your wife-to-be.”

“Let’s get this over with,” he announced in a deep, flat, monotone voice, his Boston Irish accent doing all the work for him as he ignored my hand. It was as if he’d resigned himself to this and didn’t seem to care whether it was me there or anyone else.

“Don’t.” My voice shook. I couldn’t take that. I dealt with that at home, under my parents. I refused to deal with it in my love life too. “Don’t treat me like I don’t exist. That’s not a way to start our marriage.”

Still, he ignored me, and my chest tightened. The heat in the room kicked up a notch. I cleared my throat and raked my teeth across my bottom lip. Maybe he liked bold women, and I needed to take the first step?

A little shaky, I leaned into him to breach this cold barrier he was already setting up between us. For the sake of our families’ alliance, I slipped one hand into his and patted his chest with the other.

My colorful fade nails, which matched my dress, made a striking contrast against his shirt. It was a perfect example of the type of people we were. Dreary versus upbeat. Hollow versus exuberant.

This close, the cologne wafting off his shirt collar filled my nose—a delicious blend of cardamom, musk, and leather with a touch of tobacco. I wished I’d made it myself, though I’d add a hint of spice to fuse it all together and make it an aphrodisiac snare for the melancholic.

His calloused hands mashed mine, my fingers painfully twisting one atop the other, before he peeled them off him one by one, bending them back until I hissed.

“Keep your hands to yourself.”

“No touch. That will make for an interesting wedding night,” I grumbled, cradling my fingers.

“There won’t be one.”

“What?”

Now I wouldn’t call myself a hussy, but I liked sex, good sex, and the hunk I was about to tie myself to looked like he could make me a screamer if he got over himself long enough to put in the effort. Considering his personality, it was probably the best thing about him. So for him to cut that out of the deal in only four words was a bit of a blow to my lady bits.

He was joking. He had to be. What kind of man refused sex?

Unfortunately, before I could get to the bottom of that absurd reply, the mayor finally decided it was time to get down to business. He greeted us both, listing out our personal information as was French custom. My betrothed and his family perked up at the sounds of their names, but they fidgeted and shifted their weight the longer the mayor droned on through the mandatory reading of the civil law articles in French.

“I can translate for you,” I whispered.

It was something I was used to with my family already. Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, English, Japanese, and even some Mandarin—I was your gal.

“No need,” he grunted from the back of his throat, without throwing even a flick of side-eye my way.

“Your loss.”

Nothing about this was what I’d hoped for. Sure, it was an arranged marriage, but I’d thought we’d find some common ground we could build on, or at least some level of zinging passion. He was giving me nothing. Rien, nada, zilch, tada—because, yeah, I’d even put in the effort to learn some Gaelic for him, and he couldn’t even be bothered to look down at my fantastic figure in this dress, let alone my face.

Movies and books made romance seem so easy. Boy met girl. Sparks flew. Boy wooed girl. Then poof, happily ever after. My parents were a prime example. It was love at first sight as they told it, both struck hard by Cupid, with an arrow planted so deep there was no getting it out. One look was all it took. Yet Cillian O’Leary hadn’t bothered to give me even that.

I worked my lips from side to side between deep breaths and swallowed down the bitterness gathering in the back of my throat. So I wasn’t going to have a love story for the ages like my parents. We could still be happy together. I’d wear him down. I was good at that. I’d work that delicious body of his until he couldn’t remember his own name, and I’d do it again and again until all he knew was me. It could work. It would. It had to.

The mayor’s speech ended abruptly on a question, one addressed to Mr. Cillian Donal O’Leary, who, of course, couldn’t understand a thing.

“This is where you say ‘Oui’,” I gritted out from the corner of my mouth.

He repeated the word. Then it was my turn. We signed the wedding register and the business contract between our families. The mayor shook my new husband’s hand in congratulations and exchanged cheek kisses with my family.

That was it. I was married to a stranger, with nothing to show for it except a piece of paper. Not even a wedding ring.