Marriage Claws

by Paige Cuccaro

  “Exactly. The CEO spot is kind of my birthright. I just have to marry and it’s mine.”

  “And if you don’t get married?” I asked.

  “If no other married family member challenges—I mean, applies for the job, it still goes to me. But that’s not going to happen.”

  “Right. Sorry, but I’m still confused,” I said, trying to massage the burgeoning headache from my temples. “You literally have some of the most beautiful women in the world falling over themselves to profess their love to you. Hell, you already bought the last one a ring. Why not marry one of them?”

  Why was he asking me? My stomach fluttered. I couldn’t help it. I’d had a pretty steady diet of Disney fairytales as a kid. I was screwed up to the point that a part of me really believed the orphaned stepsister could win the prince, and that an awkward village girl could grow up to lead an army, save her people, and win the heart of the hot military dude.

  If the nerd girl could tame the heart of a beast and earn the love of the sexy castle owner, why couldn’t I, a fellow awkward, nerdy, orphaned girl from New York, find true love?

  “Like I said, this is business. I don’t want to confuse the situation by marrying someone I’ve had a romantic relationship with. It has to be understood from the start that any sort of romance is out of the question.” Jack leaned back and my childhood fantasies died a little.

  “Okay. I guess that makes sense,” I said. “But, not to sound insensitive or self-absorbed, I still don’t follow how this helps me.”

  “Right.” His expression lifted. “Whether you want to believe it or not, I’m not the one evicting you. Not me personally. It’s my family. My family’s company actually. But, as CEO of my family’s company I’ll call the shots. I can cancel the eviction. I can renew your lease. I will.”

  I perked up. Finally, a motivation I could get behind. “If I marry you, my restaurant can stay where it is?”

  “Yes.”

  My smile bloomed for three solid heartbeats and then reality hit. “Wait. I can’t marry you.”

  “Why not?” He seemed genuinely confused.

  “Because I don’t love you.”

  “Exactly. And I don’t love you. It’s perfect.” He sounded so pleased with himself and his wide smile was so adorable my heart skipped a beat.

  “No. It’s not,” I said. “I can’t spend the rest of my life with someone I don’t love. Someone who doesn’t love me.”

  He shook his head, leaning forward again. “No. You don’t have to. That’s the beauty of it. We only have to be married for a month or so. However long it takes to get a divorce. Then we go our separate ways.”

  “Wait.” My brain sifted back through the conversation. “I thought you said you couldn’t be CEO unless you were married.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and chin then exhaled. “Yeah. See, my plan hinges on a technicality. My family doesn’t believe in divorce.”

  “They don’t believe in it?”

  “As in, they don’t acknowledge it,” he said. “We can get a legal divorce but in my family’s eyes you and I will always be married.”

  “Forever?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “Yes,” he said. “But don’t worry about it. It’s just my family. After the divorce, you’ll never have to see them again. You can go back to live your life however you want, run your restaurant, fall in love, remarry. Whatever you want.”

  “But to your family you’ll still be married to me,” I said. “What if you find someone in a few years and fall in love?”

  He shook his head. “Not gonna happen. If it does, I’m not interested in marriage. Ever. I’m only considering it now, with you, as a means to an end.”

  “Wow. That’s kinda sad,” I said. “I mean, I feel bad for you. Why so against love and marriage?”

  Jack laughed and there was a vulnerability to it that caught me by surprise and made my heart thump.

  “I’ve seen what a bad marriage can do to people,” he said. “I was raised with the belief that there’s one right person for each of us, a soul mate—a life mate. And once you find them, you can’t live without them.”

  “Romantic.”

  “Sadistic,” he said. “There’s no way to know if this person or that person is the one. I mean, how many relationships have you been in? Do you think any of them were your soul mate? Well imagine if your family insisted that the first guy you were serious with, your first love, was the one for you, the one you’d be with for the rest of your life. The one you had to marry.”

  “The first guy I thought I loved kept wanting to suck my toes, and massage my feet,” I said. “It was fine at first, but when I caught him inhaling the inside of my boots, it got too weird. He owns a high-end women’s shoe store now.”

  “See? It’s a crap shoot. Imagine being stuck married to that guy for the rest of your life,” Jack said. “Do you have any idea what the odds are of finding the love of your life right out of the gate? And that’s nothing compared to the odds of an arranged marriage resulting in anything but misery.”

  “Who does arranged marriages anymore?” I snorted a laugh.

  Jack stiffened, his mouth a flat straight line. “My parent’s marriage was arranged. Half the members of my family had arranged marriages. And if I don’t choose someone on my own, my parents will pressure me to marry someone they’ve chosen. I won’t do it, of course. But that won’t stop them from trying and at the moment they have the power to make my life . . . difficult if I defy them.”

  “Are your parents happy?” I asked, already guessing the answer.

  His gaze dropped to his napkin-wrapped silverware. He picked up the tight bundle, fidgeting with it as he spoke, not meeting my eyes. “No. Not that they’ll admit it. My father cheated on my mother. Everyone knew about the affair, but she couldn’t leave him because we mate for life. They insist they’re life mates, fated to be together until the end, no matter what. But anyone can see they’re miserable—at least my mother is. It’s all bullshit. I don’t want any part of it. I’d rather die alone than pretend to be happy in a toxic marriage. I’d never bring children into a world like that. I don’t want that for the rest of my family either. Which is why I have to become the next alpha—I mean, CEO. I want to change things, make them better for the people I care about.”

  I sat in silence for a few seconds, processing and then asked what seemed like a perfectly reasonable question after hearing about arranged marriages and mating for life. Mating? Seriously? What are they, wolves? “Where’s your family from?”

  “Italy, originally,” he said. “But that’s got nothing to do with it. We’re just . . . different.”

  “No shit,” I said half under my breath. I sighed. “Mr. Pensione—”

  “Jack. Please. I’ve just asked you to marry me and help manipulate my family. I think we can be on a first name basis.”

  Good point. “Okay, Jack. I understand the position you’re in . . . sort of, and I feel bad for you. I do. But I just can’t do it. I can’t marry you knowing that it’s not real. I don’t want to be a divorced woman. Marriage is more than a means to an end for me.”

  “Even if the end is saving your restaurant?” he asked, but then didn’t let me answer. “I thought your restaurant was everything to you. That there was nothing you wouldn’t do to save it.”

  “I thought so too,” I said, honestly. “But I guess I was wrong.”

  He laughed but it sounded bitter. “Funny. I didn’t peg you as a quitter. Guess I was wrong too.”

  “I’m not a quitter. I’m just not that desperate.”

  “Yet.” Jack stood. “Give me a call when you get there.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I’m desperate.” I rummaged around under the prep table. “Where’s the cooking sherry?”

  “You don’t drink that,” Lucas said, trying to nudge me out from the metal cabinet. “Tastes like chit.”

  I shoved at him, but for a short man he was surprisingly strong . .
. and sure-footed. “I don’t care how it tastes, I just need to dull my memory of this day.”

  I’d just left my accountant’s office. He’d come with me to the bank. They rejected my loan application. It was over. End of the line. The fat lady had sung. All the chickens had flown the coop. I was out of luck, out of time and out of clichés. I needed a drink.

  “Cooking sherry make you sick, Miss Kate. I got better stuff for dulling memory,” he said finally muscling his knees between me and the open door. “Stand. It over there. On top of freezer. Behind lard tub. See?”

  I stood and made a beeline to the standing freezer, shoving the lard tub out of the way and pushing up to my toes to reach the bottle of bourbon. It was more than half gone. I looked at my cook. “You guys drink on the job?”

  Diego looked at his brother eyes wide and guilty. Lucas just shook his head. “No, señorita. Not us. Maybe Marbella, or Opal. They look like they could use a drink now and then. Si?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  “Oh. Then, si. Yes. Jim Beam mine. You have some though,” Lucas said, smile wide and cheery as always.

  I screwed off the cap and upended it into my mouth. The alcohol burned down my throat like I’d swallowed hot coals. I coughed, gagged, and wheezed for several seconds and then coughed some more. Finally, I managed to control my fit and just grimaced until the searing sensation eased. “Oh my god,” I said in a two-pack-a-day smoker’s voice. “That was awful. They make it look so cool in the movies.”

  Lucas and his brother smiled and nodded. “Better in a glass,” Lucas said. “You not used to drink. Is loco to drink from bottle. Strong chit. No?”

  I raised my brows. “Ah. Good to know. Thanks.”

  “Kate?” My brother called to me from the other side of the warming shelves. “Everyone’s out here. You coming?”

  “Yeah. Let me find a glass.” I needed the molten fire courage to break the news. Lucas got me a glass and some ice. He said it was, muy delicioso that way. The ice cooled the burn a little but other than that I couldn’t taste the muy.

  All of The Sweet Spot Diner’s employees, my family for the past five years, sat in booths and along the counter stools waiting. We weren’t a huge group, but they were all the family I had.

  “We know you talked to the bank today,” Marbella said. “Just give it to us straight, honey.”

  I downed the whiskey and set the glass on the counter, cringing against the scorched earth feel in my throat. “Okay, here it is. Bank said no. Big surprise, right? Actually . . . they didn’t just say no, they said hell no, and then flipped me a big’ol double bird wave goodbye before they kicked me to the curb.”

  “Yep. That’s a definite no alright,” Brittney said wedged into the nearest booth. “So now what?”

  “I can work extra shifts,” Cece said. “That would help, right? I like working extra shifts. Wanna get new shoes.”

  Cece, my fourth waitress. God, what would I do about Cece? What would she do without The Sweet Spot?

  She’d been out the last few weeks recovering from a car accident. She wasn’t the one driving—she was just crossing the street when a cabbie made a right on red and plowed into her. All the way to the hospital, Cece insisted to the ambulance attendants that the walker was flashing on the pole—the pedestrian crossing signal—and it had been.

  Cece had Down syndrome. She was a total sweetheart. She wanted to be an actress, and all the wannabe actresses she’d met in New York were waitresses. So she’d applied for the job three years back. I loved her like crazy.

  The driver who’d hit her was fined, but Cece spent the next three weeks nursing a sprained wrist.

  She still wasn’t one hundred percent. Her wrist and hand were covered by an ace bandage, though she wasn’t wearing the sling anymore. Her mother had pulled her almond brown hair back into a ponytail, and she wore her usual ruffled apron and white orthopedic shoes even though she wasn’t scheduled to work.

  She looked adorable sitting across from Brittney in her kelly green long-sleeved shirt and a matching checkered skirt.

  Cece smiled at me, her tongue pushing forward between her teeth, sure her offer to take extra shifts would solve any problems.

  “Thanks, Cece, honey,” I said smiling back at her through the growing fog of my whiskey-soaked brain. “I’ll give you more shifts as long as I can, but in a little over two months I’ll have to close The Sweet Spot for good.”

  The twenty-four-year-old blinked at me. “Can I have a job at your new restaurant?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know if there’ll be a new restaurant, Cece.”

  That was a lie, but I just couldn’t bear to speak the truth. My dream was dead. I couldn’t afford to open another restaurant. I’d be lucky if I could close The Sweet Spot without owing money.

  “But I like working at your restaurant,” she said. “If you close how will I get to be an actress?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, honey. I’m sure your mom will help you find another place to work. A nice place.”

  Brittney snorted. “Ya think she’ll help me? Not like anybody’s lining up to give a pregnant teen a job. Me and the baby-daddy just signed a lease for a place together. Guess we’ll have to bail on it and move back in with his brother. The guy lives in a basement . . . and it stinks.”

  “I’ll see if I can find you something.” My chest pinched and I looked away. I just couldn’t look them in the eye knowing how I’d let them down.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the amber liquid glistening in my previously empty glass. I looked at Lucas beside me and his smile widened. He nodded toward the glass, hugging the Jim Beam bottle to his chest.

  I shrugged and snatched up the glass, emptying it in one long gulp. Interestingly enough, it didn’t burn quite as much this time. In fact the warm bourbon oozing down my throat felt kind of nice—tingly. The sweet taste was almost pleasant. I slammed the glass of melting ice back on the counter with a mild grimace and watched Lucas pour another round.

  “I hate to add to your trouble, honey,” Marbella said. “But it sure is rough out there for a woman my age. If you’re lookin’ for Brittney, maybe keep an eye out for me too? Since the Mr. passed, money’s been kind of tight. If not for what I earn at The Sweet Spot, don’t know how I’d afford to live on my own.”

  “Oh, Marbella. I’m soooo sowee—sorry,” I said. My mouth felt all loose and flappy. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and get my mouth back on its gears. “Absolute-il-ly . . . Blah . . . absolutely. I will. I will. If not. You move in with me. You. Me.” I gave her two thumbs up and a wink. “Awesome.”

  “And me,” George said from a stool at the counter behind Marbella.

  “Rrrr—ight!” Another double thumbs up to my li’l bro and another big wink.

  Lucas nudged my arm and I turned to take my refilled glass. “Tanks.” I drank it in two gulps, dropping the glass to the counter. The room moved and I swayed to keep my balance.

  “You help me and Diego too, Miss Kate?” Lucas asked. “Diego, he not legal. No papers. And his English not so good. No one hires us. Just you, Miss Kate. What we do if Sweet Spot closes?”

  “Oh, God, Lucas. Diego.” I leaned against the counter, my head fuzzy. “I will. I’ll find you something—no. I know. I’ll adopt you.”

  “Kate,” my brother said. “You can’t adopt him.”

  I turned and glared at George. “Why not?”

  “Because he’s a grown man,” George Said.

  Good point. I looked back to Lucas and Diego. “I can’t adopt you.”

  “What will we do, Miss Kate?” Lucas asked. “We have no savings. We lose apartment if we can’t pay rent.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I leaned my elbows on the counter and buried my face in my hands. Emotions swirled through me on a river of whiskey, throat tightening, tears stinging my eyes. I started whining. “This is my fault. It’s all my fault. Cece has to give up acting, and Brittney has to
move into the smelly basement. Her baby’s gonna stink like basement.”

  “It’s not your fault, Kate,” George said.

  “And Marbella . . . she’s gonna have to move in with me.” I peeked sideways at George. “We don’t have room for her, do we?”

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Marbella said. “I have family that can help me out. I’ll be fine.”

  I heard her, but my brain was like a runaway train—nothing was going to stop it until it crashed into the station. “Oh my God, Lucas and Diego. Lucas and Diego. I can’t let them be deported. They’re gonna send them back to Mexico—”

  “We’re from Cuba.”

  “I have to save them. It’s my fault. I have to adopt them.” My head slipped out of my hands and smacked the counter. I stayed where I landed.

  “Kate,” George said.

  “I have to adopt both of them because they’re brothers. You can’t separate brothers.”

  “Kate.”

  “But I’m too young to be their mommy.”

  Someone yanked me off the counter. It was George. “Kate! Snap out of it. You don’t have to do any of that. You just have to save the restaurant.”

  “How?” George was swaying back and forth. Or maybe it was me.

  “What was the offer Jack Pensione made you?” George asked.

  “I don’t know. What?” I think I have a drinking problem. Ohmygod, I’m an alcoholic too?

  “You didn’t tell me,” he said. “You just said it was crazy and you’d have to be desperate to take him up on it.”

  “Yeah . . .” I laughed, remembering . . . sort of. “Crazy desperate.”

  “Well?” George said. “You’re talking about adopting a couple of Cuban men and moving a sixty-year-old woman into our one bedroom apartment. I think we’ve passed desperate and moved straight on to heavy meds and jackets with sleeves that tie in the back.”

  “I should call Jack?”

  “You should call Jack,” he said.

  I glanced around the diner, seeing everyone nodding like giant bobble heads. Creepy. I swallowed a small freak-out and looked back to George. “Kin’ I take a nap first?”