Forced Marriage To The Billionaire (Book 1)

Chapter 4: The declaration

Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche~

Lorena Ciecro POV

It's not every day that my father, Paolo De'Longhi Cicero, called for me in his old custom traditional book library; it is known by everyone that is connected to the Cicero. It's an old stately home for a chat —And I bet that you won't like to be called into the chat room because it gives chills and unwanted fatherly advice and decision—a place where frustrating choices are made and stamped.

My elder sister, Verona, and I knocked on the old thick wooden door to find out. On the second knock, an ancient roman voice was heard.

"You may enter!" Said the commanding voice in the old roman dialect.

Verona looks at me with eyes full of panic, praying to God it should not involve what happened to her. She straightened her blue dress.

I straightened my chaste emerald green dress before I let myself enter the space where my father had been entertaining newcomers either to impress them with our family wealth —Or to intimidate them. I was not sure what was his primary motive.

"You wish to talk to me, Padre," I asked in the same dialect.

"Sit down, Mia figlia," He gestured for Verona and me to sit down by the brown old leather chair by his right.

I sat down by his right while Verona sat at the left, looking into his infamous emerald eyes that have governed the name of the Cicero family for centuries, the same color as mine. Still, Verona Cicero, my elder sister, has the eyes of my mother, sea-blue eyes. I sat regally as if hell is by my side, as the lady of etiquette that my father trained me to be; I sat down properly, according to the way a woman should sit by the teachings of my father.

I manage to clear my throat to notify him that I am still sitting closer to him. I know it's a bad habit, but I just had to because sitting next to him burns my whole body. With this, his wrinkled eyes were lifted to me. I quickly looked away.

"You'll be getting married soon," He voiced out with no sympathy or emotions. He announced without preamble as if it's the most logical statement of the decades.

"What?" Verona cringed in terror.

Will I be getting married soon? —What the heck? What is going on here?

"Pardon, Padre?" I would not be surprised if my father said that I should bring back my dead mother.

I will be getting married.

"Why would I be getting married, Padre?"

With this, my father rests appropriately on his chair —or his moderator, as my elder sister had called it. He studied me, thinking whether he would tell the truth or not.

"You see,  Mia Figlia, it's high time to honor the promise I made with an old friend of mine for you to marry his son. And it would help if you don't act like your wayfarer sister."

The joy in my heart died this instant. I frowned. I had always known that my father would be the one to choose a groom for me since he did the same thing with my sister. I wasn't aware that he had already had one for me for long.

Just two months ago, I nearly got married to the mayors of Rome, only stupid and casanova son. But thank goodness the blockhead had an accident that caused his father to get rid of the proposal, and then I escaped the loveless arranged marriage.