Dangerous Union

Chapter 5

Irina

I lost my gaze in the city streets, the buildings that whizzed before my eyes behind the tinted window of the car. A sigh escaped me as I rested my forehead on the glass. My stomach tightened in a vice that gripped my bowels and gave me a strange sensation.

A feeling that I did not understand.

I closed my eyes, and his face appeared in my mind. Noah Bianchi. I found myself opening my eyes wide suddenly, and I immediately bit my lower lip.

All the stories that were told about him did not do him justice.

Every time someone spoke of him, he did so in a frightened way, some even with a sense of respect. Everyone described him as a cruel, terrible man, the worthy heir of the Whites who would bring honour to their name. But I had seen a completely different person.

I don't know if it was because he knew who I was, just as I knew who he was. Juliette had not wasted a second before telling me who of those present was him. At that moment, I understood why he stared at me like that, studying me and bothering me immensely.

Despite this, he had behaved ... decently?

Although the word "decent" for people of our world was an understatement, it was cordial, at times even cute. It had not made me uncomfortable, which was already an achievement since all the men present had done nothing but make me uncomfortable with their looks or their phrases that I considered somewhat inappropriate, such as those from the Germans, the Müllers.

Klaus's name was Klaus, and he looked at me as if I were a meat dish. He was ready to eat me at any moment. That meeting had sent shivers down my whole body, so much so that I had begged Sergei to go outside into the open air.

In fact, Noah's gaze was the only one that hadn't made me feel uncomfortable all evening. He was one of the few who hadn't taken his eyes off me, but he hadn't made me feel uncomfortable, although it had bothered me.

Was that the way women were treated in our world? I knew what it was; everyone knew it, but it was one thing to know it; the other was to experience it in your own skin. And it was a feeling I never wanted to experience again, even though I knew how impossible it was.

"So?" my father asked me, attracting my attention, and I turned to him to look at him.

"So what?" I asked, pretending nothing had happened.

"Don't pretend to be stupid," he scolded me. "What do you think?" he asked.

I sighed and looked out the window. "I didn't think they were like that, men. Everyone looked at me as..."

"It means they appreciated you, Mon Cherie, which is a good sign," Juliette said cheerfully.

My father turned around and looked at her for a moment, then turned back to me, "It's one of the reasons I never took you with me. Men... They can be very raw and stop at nothing to get something they want," he said with a sigh.

"It's the way our world goes; there's nothing different from what it's always been," Juliette commented.

"Well, I'd rather not be in that situation again." I said more abruptly than normal, "Please," I added after a moment.

My father looked at me for a second and then turned again to look at the road: "If things go as planned, you won't have to deal with such a situation again," my father said, nodding.

"What does it mean?" I asked suddenly.

"It means, Mon Cherie, that you have attracted a great deal of attention tonight and that we shall probably be filled tomorrow with offerings from all the families, offers far more substantial than that of the Bianchi," said Juliette, placing her hand on mine.

"What if no one had made a good impression on me?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.

"You'll have a chance to change your mind," my father said.

I sighed but didn't say anything. I just rested my elbow on the door and my chin on my hand, while my gaze was lost again in the observation of the buildings we passed until we arrived outside the city, in the areas of the Chicago villas.

*****

I slipped on my pyjama top and took the covers off the bed, slipping into them and settling into the pillows. I took my computer and turned it on. Immediately after he inserted the passkey to block the computer's control, I entered my i********: account to start looking for the name Noah Bianchi.

I found his profile immediately and began to comb through it.

Parties, alcohol, parties, alcohol and more parties.

One photo showed only his hand resting on a woman's thigh, and I rolled my eyes. What a f*****g cliché.

In his photos, there were no descriptions; they were just a representation of his life, which was made of freedom and excesses.

He had experienced everything a classic American boy could have experienced during his adolescence.

I went even further down in the older photos, finding some of them from my high school years. Pool parties. There was a photo of him with shorter hair, riding a rubber unicorn, inside a swimming pool, and around him, a bunch of people.

The light from the pool reflected off his wet skin, highlighting the droplets that littered his chest, still small but large enough for his age. She had a yellow fluorescent necklace around her neck and held her hand up, smiling as she gestured to whoever had taken that photo.

I sighed and bit my lower lip.

I went down again.

This is a photo of him with his younger siblings. They were photocopies of each other. They all had the same look, the same cut of the face, the same colour of eyes and hair—all beautiful and perfect.

I didn't have such photos with Andrej for the simple reason that he was never here. Dad preferred to keep him away in Russia so that he could be more protected and educated by our relatives, even if now it was no longer enough, not when Dad could no longer manage the business.

Despite this, I didn't have any photos of my father or of myself in general.

Just as I was forbidden to keep a phone.

My whole life had been controlled.

Dad was so terrified that he kept me in constant control. He even checked my computer and bought it for me for convenience at school. But I had learned how to hack his security system to obscure it for an hour a day and live a life through the eyes of others since I had never had the chance.

Just as I was doing at that moment with Noah.

I had never been to a party with my schoolmates, and I had never been to a club, I had never been to a friends-only night, I had never had an outing with friends, I had never had anything.

I went to his profile again, finding the photo of his twentyth birthday. I sighed and clicked on it. A heart appeared in the center of the image, and I widened my eyes, immediately removing the like.

My heart began to beat too fast, and I immediately got out of everything. I turned off the device and jerked the computer shut, throwing it at the end of the bed.

Shit. s**t. s**t.

*****

I raised my hand and brought it closer to the shiny white door before blocking myself a few centimetres from the surface, my breath suspended in my throat, my heart drumming in my ribcage. Then I took a deep breath and took courage. I knocked twice and then dropped my arms to my sides.

"Come on," my father said quietly, cheering me up before I opened the door and walked into his office.

Dad was behind his desk, reading documents in front of him, glasses pulled down over his nose, and white hair pulled back. His facial features were tired, as always. The wrinkles around his eyes had increased, but it didn't surprise me since he was very old.

Usually, a man took charge of the affairs of his family very young; also, because of the rivalries between the various families, it was very common for someone to die prematurely.

But my father was the only one of his generation still in charge of business.

When he married my mother, he was already almost forty. He had not found a wife, or rather, he had had a lot of bad luck throughout his life and had managed to marry only at that age.

Our family viewed having children outside of marriage as a disaster to the family, so Dad had no way to have children before he got married. My mother came from one of the least influential families in Russia, but she was young, so they got married.

But my mother was not very healthy, she had several pathologies and, shortly after I was born, her heart simply stopped beating.

My father was not lucky. He had only one heir, and she was a girl. It took him another five years to find another wife, Juliette Le Blanc.

A daughter of a less influential French family. She was much older than my mother before she got married, but she was Dad's only choice to have a male heir.

But Andrei was too young to take over the family business, so our father still had to be in charge. However, he did not have enough strength to instruct his heir as well.

I looked at him, waiting. The light of the window to his right illuminated him completely. The golden streaks of the marble desk shimmered slightly, as did the gold watch he wore on his wrist.

"Sit down, Irina", said Dad without looking up.

With a sigh, I advanced and went to sit in front of him at the tip of the white armchair, all in the same colour as the office, an idea of Juliette's.

I waited patiently while Dad finished writing the documents. I knew very well where I was, and I knew that I had to remain silent until he had finished whatever he was doing at the time.

After a while, he closed the folder, put his pen back in place, and then looked up at me, looking at me through the glasses he was holding.

"You called me," I said, and he smiled at me.

"I'm sorry I interrupted your piano lesson," he said, and I shrugged.

It was true. He never interrupted my lessons, and perhaps he cared as much as I did. It was the only thing I could do since the rest... I was forbidden.

"Yes", he began to say, collecting some documents. "I was viewing all the documentation right now", he continued, and I swallowed with difficulty. "As I expected today, I was overwhelmed by several calls from different bosses, all to seek a marriage agreement for you. Some are quite fruitful if I am, to be honest," he said, and I felt the pit of his stomach close "Your presence last night attracted the favour of many affluent families, and, as I have realized, the Whites must have done so too. For this reason, this morning, their lawyer came to bring me the contract. Luciano must have this union very much at heart, or perhaps it is interesting because he has raised the remuneration for you much more. "I won't tell you the contract terms, of course. We'll go and sign it together after lunch, and you'll move in with the Whites immediately," he said.

I opened my eyes wide, "Move?" I asked, almost trembling.

"Yes," said Dad calmly, "It is one of the conditions set by Luciano. You're going to live in the White mansion so that you and Noah have the time to get to know each other before the wedding, which will take place in three months," he explained.

"But why?" I asked again.

"Because we can't organize a wedding in a week, Irina and Luciano are afraid that the agreement will fall through, of course, given the attention you received last night. He feels safer having you there; that way, other families will know that you are already promised to someone," he said later.

She opened her mouth to say something, but I closed it immediately, given her gaze. Then I sighed and clasped my hands on my lap. "I understand," I said simply.

What was the point of even just fighting? Nobody.

"I guess you have to go get ready," I said. "Can I get up?" I asked.

"Let's go," he said, dismissing me with a wave.

I stood up and walked towards the door "Irina?" my father called me, and I froze "It is important for everyone that this agreement goes the right way", he said, and I narrowed my eyes. "In this way, you will bring a lot of honour to our family and end a rivalry that has been going on for too long."

I turned to look at him. "I understand, and I am honoured," I said with feigned politeness, and then I turned around and left the office.

He hurriedly climbed the steps leading to the second floor, where my bedroom was. I quickly entered and closed the door behind me, and then leaned on my back. My vision blurred, and something wet my cheeks.

I touched my face, only to realize that I was crying.

I slid down the door until I reached the ground, brought my knees to my chest and rested my forehead on them while my body was shaken by sobs that I could no longer control in any way.