MARRY ME
No one had ever looked so angelic as they slept, as Alana Salvatore did. There was no one who looked so close to what I believed heaven or paradise looked like than her. Maybe, God hadn't made heaven or paradise as a place, maybe they had made it as a person. Here she was, the most perfect human being I have ever seen. Of course, this perfect person would betray me and I hadn't even trusted her. So why did her deception hurt?
She throws herself out of her sleep so suddenly that even I jump slightly. Alana groans before twisting out of the bed and onto the floor, not even giving herself a second to adjust to the groggy pain that I know envelops her body. I watch her, interested at what she is doing, before she catches herself on the wall. She sucks in deep breaths before letting out whimpers of pain. The need to help her is strong but I don't, this is of her own making.
I take a sip of my drink before looking to my watch. It only knocked her out for an hour or so, that was considerably impressive. I pop the piece of gum and Alana's whole body whips around in pure fear. Her eyes find mine as I circle the word SAVIOR in the Word Finding book that I've been doing for the last hour.
"Did I scare you, angel?"
"What the fuck did you put inside of me?"
"Recently or last night?" I question before leaning back in the chair.
"Are you twelve years old? We fucked, I'm not ashamed of it." She snaps at me. "I like a good fuck every once in a while."
"I'm not just good, angel, I'm phenomenal."
"I've had better." She lies so effortlessly.
My wolffish smile falls on my face as she stares at me with little interest. "What are you doing here?"
"Surviving."
"By breaking and entering my house."
"You invited me in, or do you not remember last night?" She replies sarcastically, her own rude smile lightening up her face.
I tap my hand and chuckle darkly, "A night I will never forget, that's for sure."
"Let me go."
"No, I want to know all about you," I respond before pulling the papers off of the desk. "You know exactly who I am. If you didn't you wouldn't have stuffed these papers down those pretty lace panties of yours. But I'm unaware at who you are, really."
"Yeah, well." Alana says simply as if that's a valid response.
"What all do you know of me?"
The papers had a lot of personal information about my family and those who are regularly around me. That's not just it though, this page was the one page that held Scotty Fraiser to his word. The one page out of all my files that could not go missing, at any point.
"Like you said, I know all about you, Francesca. Too damn much."
My name sounds like home coming from her mouth even as she looks at me with anger. Even when disgusting twists her mouth into a horrid look, I have known her a thousand lifetimes before this one. That's what it feels like. Was it only me that wanted so badly to take her face in my hands and to make all that anger disappear?
"Anything interesting?"
"No."
"Nothing? Well, I find that disgustingly impossible to believe."
She scoffs hard, like she couldn't believe that I had so much confidence in myself. "Just the fact that you're a sick murderer."
"I'm not so different from you, Angel."
"Never compare us." She barks. "Never."
"Alana Salvatore." I repeat her name and smile. Her name feels familiar coming out of my name, maybe its because I've said her name a thousand times in the hour that she was unconscious. Or maybe it's because I've read everything that Delphi and Misha could discover on Alana Salvatore a thousand times in the last thirty minutes. "A beautiful name, for sure, but your story is not so beautiful."
I watch her intently. She's still beautiful, still absolutely stunning, even though I know the truth of her intentions. That she was only here to steal from me didn't change that I wanted to kiss her until our lips were raw.
Her hand cradles her head and I stand before handing out my glass of water. Alana eyes it suspiciously before pushing my hand away, harshly. "Get away from me."
"Water is important, trust me, you'll feel better."
"What has trusting you ever done for anybody?"
"Kept them alive." I shoot back.
"I know a few people that would disagree with that."
"People don't die around me, I protect everyone I love, anyone would vouch for that." I defend myself without meaning to.
"My dead sister wouldn't."
"Who is your sister?"
"Diana Salvatore." She hisses, "A friend of yours, remember?"
I eye her. The name hitting my mind like a brick. What is this? Diana? That memory is so far in the back of my mind. It feels unreal to hear that name. It was like walking under cold water after feeling so warm for so long. I do remember it though — or rather I remember her. The two of us. She was right, she had been a friend of mine. A lifetime ago, she had been someone I loved dearly.
A lifetime ago. We were fifteen when we met, sixteen and a half when we departed from each other. I knew Diana as well as anyone knew her and that wasn't very much. I hadn't known much about her life, she wasn't exactly the sharing type. She was kind and comforting but there was always a mysterious glow about her like she was afraid if you got too close then you'd get hurt. That's why we got along so well, that's why she had been my friend.
I swallow down emotion, "How did she die?"
"She died because of you."
"I haven't seen Diana in years." I reply.
"And yet, she's still dead because of you."
This made no sense. The last time that I had spoken to Diana had been in the middle of night, soaked in rain, sobbing. She was leaving boarding school, her father had called for her, she wasn't coming back. We hadn't left each other angry or resentful, she had been my one of my very few friends and the closest one besides Brooklyn. I had been devastated and so had she.
My mind spiraled as I stared at her. I could see her, Diana in Alana. They had the same eyes, those beautiful eyes — one part my friend and the other my enemy. Diana had been darker in skin tone, her face had been oval, her hair had been blondish, short (abruptly cut), and she had smile lines around her mouth as if she had never stopped smiling a day in her life. Alana was not blessed with the same happiness Diana had as a sixteen year old girl.
Alana was the kind of girl that was too beautiful. Life was always more wicked for beautiful girls, but more so for the ones that looked like angels fallen to Earth. She had always been the one to be sold off to some other family, Diana did not hold that fate. Diana's true beauty had been inside, Alana wore hers.
"So, you had a revenge plot?" I ask interested in what her whole plan was. None of this made any sense. Diana hadn't been mentioned in any of the information Misha and Delphi gave me. There was no mention of them being related anywhere. And if Diana was dead, I didn't think that I would be left so out of the loop that I wouldn't have heard of it. We still had mutual acquaintances, surely they would've said something. And even more so what did Diana have to do with the Friasers', none of this explained why Alana Salvatore was here. None of it. "You could've just killed me."
"Killing you won't change anything."
"You could always try."
"I'm no killer, Francesca."
"No, just someone who uses sex to break into someone's house and steal their personal belongings."
"I had no choice."
"You had a choice." I deny her the ability to put blame onto someone else. "You always have a choice."
"That's rich, coming from you." She barks. "You put me in this position. You took my choice away."
I shake my head in denial of this, "No, your father or Scotty Fraiser did. I'm assuming you stole my documents for one of them. So who was it?"
"I'm in this position because of you," she breathes out.
Alana looks like she is going to fall out very soon. Her eyelids droop, beads of sweat rolling down the sides of her face, and she breathed too quickly and deeply. I touch her shoulder and her eyes fly to it, we stay there for a moment. My hand on her bare shoulder and she staring at it as if she didn't quite know what the energy flowing between us was. I pulled her into me, her hands resting at my hips to stop the movement.
My hand moved to the back of her neck, her hair tangling between them, and I felt the cool sweat on her neck. Her body was burning, pushing the drug out of her system as fast and best as it could. I hated this, she had made her own bed but I had put her body in this position of distress. The guilt of that settled in my stomach.
I shouldn't feel this way. I should hate her as much as she obviously hated me. I was the cause of her pain, whether I understood how deeply the wounds I had created was or not. Who was she? I had never felt this way about anyone. I wanted to protect her from the world, I wanted to protect her from me.
I smooth a strand of hair out of her face and she catches my hand and she holds it. Her fingers trembling over the tendons before she dropped it. She pulls me in, I can feel her breath harsh on my face, and I am aware how close we are truly. She could kill me at that moment, overtake me even, but I know that she wouldn't. Something inside of me is telling me that she won't.
Alana tilts her head upwards as if to pull me into a deep and mesmerizing kiss. I lean downward, something is pulling us together, my tongue aches to flick over hers. The conversation that we were having left no room for the way I was feeling, though. I needed to understand what was happening before I could ravish this heavenly sorceress, again.
I break the spell, "Sit down, you'll pass out if you strain yourself."
"You have no control over me." She says but nevertheless settles her body back into the bed. Her hands leaving my hips make me saddened for a second before I realize that it's for the best.
I smile but refrain from making a joke from last night. "How are you in this position because of me?"
"Richard Fraiser needed a wife."
"Oh." I lean forward. "Interesting."
"My sister is dead, I am the one who gets to be married off."
There is no reason for Diana to be dead. No reason.
"Surely, you've known that this was going to happen."
"No, actually, I didn't." She looks away from me. "Papa, had promised me that I would get to choose. He promised me. Then she died and that promise didn't matter to him."
"You could have it all marrying Richard."
"Richard is a patronizing dick." Her voice cracks before she goes into a coughing fit.
"Aren't they all?" I offer the water, again, and she takes the glass but doesn't drink it.
"That's what my sister says."
I look at her, my eyes softening. "How did she die?"
"She was murdered."
My eyebrow quirks as my eyes leave her face and fall to my hands. "By who?"
"I don't know."
"Why don't you know?"
"Because I don't!" She barks. "The only connection to her death is you."
"How is it me?"
"There was a note."
"What note?"
"Look at me, Franny, how I tore your little Diana apart." My eyes bore in Alana as she speaks, "Look at me, Franny, look at what you've done."
Fuck. There was only one person who called me Franny, one person. If Alana is on his radar because of this? It would't be too long until she was found with a note too. And who did he think he was? Murdering my friends, leaving notes to haunt me. Notes that I never even got to see or knew existed until now. What game did he want to play?
"Have you looked for this killer?"
"I did and all I found was you."
I raise an eyebrow, my face questioning her words. "You think I killed her?"
"No, but I think you caused it."
"So, I'm the killer by association."
"Yes." She glares at me. "Exactly."
I nod, "Drink the water, you're losing your voice."
"What do you care?"
"Drink."
She stares at the glass. "I thought you were going to torture me."
"I would never hurt you like that."
Alana snaps her eyes up to me, "Why not?"
"Because, I do not hurt the things that I want to be mine."
"I am not a thing." Her eyes turned into fiery coals as she shot me the dirtiest glare I've ever seen.
"You're right." I agree, "but to them you are. An object of trading, you're less than what you truly are to them. I see you as so much more."
"You don't know me."
"And you don't know me but you seem to hate me so much."
Alana sniffs, "I do not want to be yours."
I stare at her for a moment. "Why not?"
"I could list a million reasons why."
"We'll see about that." I stand to walk away but her voice pulls me back.
"If you're not going to hurt me, can I leave?"
"No."
Alana's face scrunches into confusion and frustration. "I don't get it, why not?"
"Because you're in danger, now."
"How? My father won't kill me if I come home empty handed, beat me maybe but not kill."
"I'll take care of your father and he's not the one you're in danger from. Neither is Scotty Fraiser."
Recognition flows across her face, "You know who killed her."
"Yes, I do."
"What's their name?"
"I call him Motherfucker."
"No, what is his actual name?"
"I can't tell you that, because you would go looking for them and that would get you murdered."
"You're just going to let the person that killed my sister live their life!"
"No, he's going to come to us." I twist my ring.
"First, there's no us." Alana snaps at me. "Secondly, why would he?'
I pull my ring off my finger and I stare at the words engraved in it. "Because he's going to come to my wedding. He would never miss a festivity such as this."
"You're getting married?"
"Yes, I am."
"What unlucky bastard would marry you?" She sips the water before finishing it completely.
"You."
She chokes, "What?"
"Marry me, Alana."
She shoots up form the bed, "are you insane? I'm not going to marry you!"
"Yes, you are."
"I'm not marrying you."
"Marry me."
"Give me one good reason."
"You escape from marrying Richard, we get the motherfucker that killed your sister, and I get to keep my gang."
She stares at me for a long time. I can see her considering it all. Marrying me would help her get closer to solving her sister's death than she has every been. Marrying her would let me escape the pressure that Scar Blood has been putting on me. I wouldn't lose the one thing that I wake up for every day.
"And we can get divorced in a year afterwards."
Alana watches me, "I hate you."
"I know."
"But I love my sister more than I hate you, and if this means finding her killer and me escaping my father and Richard, then fine."
"Good."
A beat of silence.
"You have to actually ask me, you do realize that, right?"
"I'll propose at my gala."
"I thought that gala was a joke, I didn't think you were actually looking for a wife."
Heading for the door and opening it, I turn back to her and smile broadly like we didn't just have one of the most serious conversations in the world "I need to go make the preparations for my upcoming engagement, now it is not about finding a wife but announcing that I'm already engaged."
"I could change my mind."
"You won't, Angel."
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This was a boring chapter, but one of the most pivotal and I'm gonna change it later but it works for now! Sexy scenes coming VERY soon.