1. The Suitor

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~PAIGE MATHEWSON~

Someone once told me I had a knack for getting on others' nerves.

And I agree.

I do have that extraordinary power that comes oh so naturally to me.

I am not ashamed of it.

It helped me out a whole lot in life.

For example, I am friendless which equates to the truth that I have no backstabbing bitches in my life. It's me against the world.

It does not make me a sad being, believe me.

I hear Taylor Swift playing somewhere. She is my favorite. Yep, I am that kind of girl as well.

"What's going on?"

I am pulled out of my train of thought by my mother.

"Yes, mother dearest?" I flash my pearly white teeth at her.

"Dadda wants to talk to you." She says.

I sigh.

"That can't be good."

She gives me a chastising look but even she knows I am right. It is never nice when my father and I meet. The conversations almost always end in arguments, him raising his voice, and me throwing stuff.

We try to keep our interactions to a minimum.

"Did he give you a clue as to why he wants to see me now and ruin both our days?" I ask.

"Something about you getting married." She sighs.

My face lights up immediately.

"Seriously?" I grin.

She gives me a flat look. She knows exactly what this means.

One of my favorite things to do is ridicule 'suitors' that my father brings for me.

And you can't even blame me because by ridiculing, I mean throwing out obvious facts about them in their face.

I like to believe myself to be a great judge of character and I like to use that extraordinary, another one of them, power of mine to good use.

"This is what Dadda wants to talk to you about. He wants this wedding to happen so he needs you to behave." She says.

And as she says it, even she does not believe that I will behave. She only has herself to blame because she raised a headstrong woman.

"Mother, I will be on my way now." I jump off my bean bag and dance my down the stairs to my father's study.

"Father not so dearest, here I am." I sing as I waltz in, only to stop midway at the sight of the guest he has.

Oh la la, if it wasn't one of the hottest guest he had ever had.

"My daughter." Dadda sighs. "Paige."

"Hello Paige." The deep rumble of his voice vibrates in my spine and I am immediately taken by him. Who was this stranger and why was he so hot?

"Hello..." I don't know his name.

"Dante Russo." He supplies.

I nod. Italian. I did not pick up the accent from the four words he spoke.

"Your future husband." I gape at the finality with which he speaks.

As much as I love a man who knows what he wants, I prefer them fictional.

"Nothing's final yet." I smile my sugary smile at him.

He smirks and turns to my Dadda. "Have you not spoken to her yet?" Still no accent.

"Were you brought up in the United States?" I ask.

He turns to me, confusion furrowing his brows before he speaks, "Yes, how do you know?"

"No accent." I shrug and then continue to look over at my father. "When Momma said you wanted to talk to me, I did not think you would have had him over."

"I didn't plan to." My father grunts. "He visited unexpectedly."

"Unannounced, uninvited?" I ask.

"Paige." There is warning in my father's words.

I shrug. I will always be honest.

"I have taken a liking to your daughter." Dante nods at me as if he is approving to a showpiece. "I will take her."

"Like hell you would."

"PAIGE."

"I am rejecting him. Period." I roll my eyes.

"You can't." Usually, I hear stubbornness in my father's voice. But not today. Today, I hear resignation and helplessness.

I realize that he is in no position to say no to this enigmatic specimen in front of us.

"Mr. Russo, may I talk to my father in private?" I am as polite as my personality allows.

He nods and gets up. Walking past me, his hard and broad arm brushes my frail one and I immediately feel the electricity even through the fabrics of his well-tailored suit.

I am at a loss of words even after a moment of him closing the study door behind him. It is the tortured look on my father's face that brings me back to the present.

"What's going on?"

"I have lost everything. I have lost your mother's security and your future, everything to that man. And the only way we can have it back it is if you marry him."

It's not every day you find your father helpless and sobbing his worries out. The thing about fathers is - when I say, I mean the real fathers who are actually there for their children. The ones that actually care and the one that actually love and provide - they do their best to hide all the problems from us. Make sure that we do not have to go through the worries and stress of running a family. We live carefree and happy. That's all they want.

So it's easy to always bicker and banter with them. Make them the tyrant, the dude with the stick up his ass, the villain of your little fluffy story. But when you find the same Dad crying over his misfortunes, your heart breaks into a hundred million pieces.

"Dadda, chillax. I will marry him if that's what it takes." It's not like I have some great love story that I must protect at all costs.

"No!" My Dadda shakes his head. "You shouldn't have to! I should be able to fix this!" He says.

"Dadda, you are old. Get some rest." I shrug and turn to leave.

"Pea..."

I turn around immediately. "Don't call me that. It sounds like pee." I say for the nth time before I turn again, and walk out the door, closing the study door behind me.

Dante Russo stands right there, leaning against the wall as he smokes a cigar. I strut towards him and snatch the cigar from him, tossing it to the wooden floor and stepping on it. "I don't like men who smoke, Russo. And now that you are marrying me, I expect you to respect that."

He smirks at me, his eyes filled with wonder and curiosity. "No one has ever had the audacity to do that before." He notes.

I shrug. "No one was getting married to you before, I presume."

"Don't worry darling. You are the only one." He winks before kicking off the wall. "How about you show me around your parents' home? We can get to know each other as well." His hand finds its way to the small of my back.

"I am afraid I don't have the time to do that since you came unannounced." I remove his hand from my body, missing the electricity this stranger was inducing in my body. "I need to head out to my office."

"As my wife, you won't have to work a day in your life." He says.

"But as me, I need to work because I hate sitting idly at home." I shrug.

He takes a moment to digest that before he nods. "In that case, you will have to work for me. In my company."

"Sure." He tilts his head at my response. "According to my Dadda, you own Mathewson Corp. so if I continue working on my post, I will still be under you."

A chuckle rumbles in his chest, making my core clench.

"I think I am already in love with you." He jokes.

"It's easier to be fascinated by my personality at the first meeting, kind sir, but when you have to deal with it every day, you will become frustrated like my parents and the many people who ran for the hills."

He takes a step closer to me and leans down to my height. "I think I know what I will do with all that frustration."

I bite my lower lip. Okay, he knows to make his comebacks. But will he last is the real question.

"Should I show you to the door?" I ask.

"In a hurry to get rid of me?" He asks, leaning closer to me.

"We have our whole lives together. What's a few months?" I smile at him.

"Months?" He is amused by my words.

I raise my brow. "A woman has dreams for her wedding day, Mr. Russo. Are you going to them away from your bride?"

Dante purses his lips as if he is thinking of something serious and then sighs dramatically, "I am sorry, my bride, but I will have to take them away from you."

I scowl. "And how soon is this wedding?" I ask.

"Three days from now."

I am about to scream at him when I hear the footsteps. The both of us turn to see my mother approaching, her eyes wide at our proximity. I take a step back.

"What's going on? Who is this?" She asks.

"Mother dearest, meet your son-in-law." I say flatly.

My mother blinks. She does not know about the situation at the company and I know my father would like to keep it that way. He loves my mother way too much and he does not want to see her in distress. The same goes for me but he had no choice this time.

"You agreed?"

"Dante and I know each other from work." I lie easily. Dante gives me an amused look but he does not refute my claim. "He is not that bad." I shrug.

"Not bad huh?" His eyes twinkle as he looks down at me.

"We are getting married in three days."

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