“I am betrothed to marry you…” Esmé mumbled, shivering from her shoulders down her spine. Maybe it was because her clothes were soaked from the rain or the cold stare that the man was grazing towards her—piercing, cold, and judging. "You’re sexy underneath those already-drenched clothes. I could understand if you wanted to tempt me. But you’re crazy enough to tell me you’re marrying me,” he said with a smirk. She never thought she’d be on her knees in front of any man, crying and begging for him to take her in. Left with no options but to beg for shelter at the hands of the most dangerous mafia in their city, Esmé lets go of shame and pride just to talk to the man who is promised to her. With no parents to support her claim that she is betrothed to the billionaire mafia praised by many, she only has her words which he labeled as lies. But Esmé won’t give up that easily, especially when she has dedicated her life to honor her parent’s words before they were assassinated. It was then that Esmé knew she had to stay alive to avenge her parent’s death. But nothing comes easy, especially when it’s a forced marriage to a man who doesn’t want her. By virtue of courage, trust, and seduction—Esmé will go to the depths of hell just so she’ll get his attention, devotion, love... and never let her go.
View MoreCallan’s POVTHE COLD WAS SEEPING THROUGH the back of my neck and to my hands as I stared at my father gasping the hair of some man. Blood was running from the wounded side of his head. He was shivering in fear and growling in pain.A 12-year-old me stood right behind my father. I was feeling the same but without the blood running down my head. Instead, I was shivering and my hands were just grasping the ends of my shirt. We were in the underground portion of our mansion; the hall was dark with only a light hanging in the middle right above the head of the man being tortured. I could not understand why my father was hurting him. He was shouting the words “I’m sorry… I apologize, Don Thoron. I stole the money from the capo. I gave it to the Cato clan. Did you tell them about us—the ravij?”There was no response.“You are well aware of the code of silence,” my father’s voice was stern and another punch landed on the man’s stomach.“Arghhh!” a shout escaped the man’s lips. He was limping
I WOKE UP feeling cold. When I opened my eyes, the quiet peaceful sky greeted me. Somebody was breathing beside me which gave me warmth. I inhaled a deep breath and moved, only to witness Callan’s peaceful face as he slept deeply.The alcohol didn’t have much effect on me this time. But the cold at this hour alarmed me. I touched his forehead and sighed in relief when I felt him still warm. I looked around and the surroundings at the resort were quiet, maybe everybody was asleep.My gaze landed on the men wearing suits who were sitting at the entrance part of the villa. One of them was sleeping and the other two were talking in low voices.“Hello…”They saw me and immediately walked towards the pool.“Callan is still fast asleep. May I ask for help in carrying him to…” I paused a little, feeling quite embarrassed to say, “Our room.”“At once, Mrs. Chevalier,” both of them stood on each side of Callan and stood up. Callan moved a bit and maybe realized what was going on.With eyes half
Callan’s POVSOME PEOPLE gasped at what they had witnessed. With a tightened jaw and palms almost balding into firsts, I wanted to land an uppercut to the old man’s face so his smirk would vanish. My men followed me inside this store and saw what I had just done.I pushed the man away. “Call the police! This man’s preying on drunk women!” I shouted.The man’s eyes widened in shock and looked at the surroundings. His blackened lips moved and his gaze was agitated, as if looking for a way to escape.“What’s happening?” Esme’s words were soft, confused about what just happened. I held her shoulder when he was about to stand up.“It’s alright. I’ll handle this.”“The man helped me… he ordered me drinks after I bought dinner. He even asked if I wanted ice cream for dessert.”My forehead formed a line and looked at Esmé very carefully. “No, you paid for your food and drinks with my card. You have it with you remember?”Esmé pointed at the man and then mumbled. “He borrowed it earlier. He s
Callan’s POVESMÉ LEFT and I found myself drenched in cold water as I allowed the shower to just drip off my face. The cold droplets traveled from my jaws to my chest.It was just my senses detecting everything as my eyes were shut close and my mind drifted off from all the work I had to finish on the way here, and all the times Esmé clouded my mind with the little things she does which seemed to bother me a lot.For instance, her words were a while ago.I balled my fist and with a grunt, I had already punched the wall in front of me. My cold hand turned hot, now throbbing with sharp pain. I used the same arm to lean onto the wall as I silenced the grunt coming out of my mouth from the jolting pain on my knuckles.“Fuck!”When Esmé asked why there were times we were drawn to each other’s bodies even when I always tell her I love someone else… I was flabbergasted. Looking at her eyes that suppressed the tears that desperately wanted to escape, I wanted to give her the truest answer I c
IT WAS NOT enough to squirm and urge Callan to pull away from his grip on my wrist. Even not enough to glare at him for him to let go and allow me to walk away from the room.I don’t know if he was worried about what I just heard or if he just felt he was in the authority to demand what I shall do from now on the fact that I am under his wing.“In case you wanna hear more about what I said earlier—”“Will you really tell me the truth, Callan? Do you think it would be that easy to just accept everything you’ll say just because you’re caught off guard?” I bombarded him with questions, one after another. “I get it, Callan. You love someone else. You had me cover up her presence that once graced your life to present yourself better in front of your family. Yet you made it sound like I was so desperate for you. You told me you’re just fulfilling your duties. You did not tell me I have a better use for you and you need me as much as I needed you. I spent the entire time feeling guilty! If y
AS CALLAN LOOKED AWAY, I put on my jeans back and looked down. My cheeks were flushed with shame and shock. I made sure there was no one in the vicinity. I just needed to get off my clothes so water wouldn’t drip on the tiled floor.I cleared my thoughts and then looked at the surroundings once again. Callan stood with his back turned at me from a close distance. Before he pointed at the nearest door. I assume it was a room. “That’s our room for tonight. I asked for a double bed. We’ll have the penthouse by morning.”I nodded. Callan walked towards the doors and swiped a card then the door unlocked. Without saying anything I rushed towards the room and stepped inside.The room looked elegant despite the simple interior with white and grey accents and gold carvings on a few pieces of furniture positioned inside.There was also a large television a small kitchen on the side and a bathroom on the left. True enough there were indeed two beds beside each other. Each one has a bedside table
IN THE MIDDLE of the flight, I put on pajamas and got ready to lay on the single bed on the back part of the jet. There were not much of turbulences that happened for the past hours. I had spent most time looking through my new phone.When I opened my social media accounts, there were hundreds of messages and notifications. I looked through it but did not open it one by one. Mostly those were just messages from old classmates back in college who had heard the news about my parents’ death and the fire that burnt our house to ashes.I looked through familiar names—some of the few people with whom I had gotten close over the years but drifted apart from each other when they successfully got on a cruise while I remained stuck in our city after graduating from college.There were three of them… all women. But I understand if they had so much going on in their lives abroad that they didn’t know what was going on with me during the past months. This was one of the notable lessons I had learn
I SLAPPED CALLAN’S chest and squinted my eyes, tracing any hints of distress from his eyes but he was indeed amused. Did he just fool me into kissing him? “You can’t get enough of me, wife. Don’t ever think too much. We just got married.” After saying that, Callan returned to his phone. This time he positioned it to his ears after pressing onto someone’s number. “Yes, we are now heading to the private airport. I can meet Mr. Dicken by evening. Yes, have that setup, Mila,” then he ended the call and dialed another number. “Aakil? Where is father? Did you accompany him earlier? Did he close the deal with the real estate mogul? Good. Yes, he shouldn’t bother with that. I’ll deal with our transactions abroad. Just keep the barracks in place. Our men have to be deployed next week at Mr. Baris’ groundbreaking event. What did the consigliere say about that? The underboss has the say in where his mean must be, Capo Baris is as important as the other captains. They bring in more than just t
A FEW MOMENTS after Callan made a call on his phone, there were room attendants who knocked and immediately went to gather our suitcases. Callan has two pairs of black luggage while I have three silver luggage.The male room attendants, who I was sure were some of the staffs here in the resort, loaded our luggage to the cart and bowed at us.“We hope you had a great stay with your wife at the resort, sir,” one of them said.“Thank you for having us,” Callan said with his stern voice.I was standing beside him and I gave the resort staff a wide smile. “It was an amazing experience. And the food at our wedding reception was notably delicious. I also enjoyed the bar near the beach!” I said, getting too serious in giving my feedback when Callan softly touched my waist.I stopped mid-sentence but didn’t make it obvious and just kept a straight face. I kept smiling at them as I grabbed Callan’s wrist. “Thank you so much,” I said once again.“It’s a pleasure, Mr. and Mrs. Chevalier,”“My wif
Welcome to GoodNovel world of fiction. If you like this novel, or you are an idealist hoping to explore a perfect world, and also want to become an original novel author online to increase income, you can join our family to read or create various types of books, such as romance novel, epic reading, werewolf novel, fantasy novel, history novel and so on. If you are a reader, high quality novels can be selected here. If you are an author, you can obtain more inspiration from others to create more brilliant works, what's more, your works on our platform will catch more attention and win more admiration from readers.