Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own the rights to Casanova. Nor do I own the characters. It belongs to Russell T Davis. I am just borrowing them. I do own the plot and the original characters.
Casanova: Marriage of convenience, or is it?
Giacomo Casanova lay in his cell looking up at the ceiling, his depression growing by the second. The woman he loved was now married, and would never be his.
Grimani that bastard, he now owned her and her family. She could never leave him. She would always put her family above her own happiness and everything and everyone else no matter what.
Giacomo was just going over everything in his head when he heard his cell door being opened. He looked up, to find the last person he ever wanted to see.
Grimani 'That fucker' Giacomo thought murderously 'probably came to gloat. Well, he knows what he can go do with his gloating'
Grimani could see that Giacomo was clearly seething at the mere sight of his presence. He had never seen that much emotion displayed on the other mans face before; well at least never aimed at him that is.
Giacomo asked dispassionately and tiredly "what the hell are you doing here and what do you want? Come to bloody gloat did you? Well, save it I don't want to hear it, you won. Now piss off."
His words were dripping with bitter venom. Grimani sighed and said in a matter fact tone of voice "Now Casanova, why would I feel the need to gloat?
Yes I won she is now my wife and shall never be yours. But I never came here to gloat as much as the option does indeed seem terribly appealing to say the least."
Giacomo snorted "you're doing it right now. I don't think you even honestly know the meaning of the term gloating, you don't even realise your doing it right now, you knob."
Grimani bit down on his tongue and replied more calmly then he was feeling a hell of a lot more calmly. "Never mind that now Casanova, my family or to be more precise, my father has a proposition for you.
I would sooner see you rot in here, but as it is my father is willing to grant you a pardoning and allow you to remain here in Venice, but only on one condition and one condition alone."
He added before Giacomo could curse him. "If you agree to my father's idea, your name will be cleared and will once again stand for something, that's if it ever did to begin with."
Giacomo shot him a dirty look a lifted his middle finger in a rude gesture. Grimani realised then and there, that if Casanova had not annoyed him so much, and he was not in love with his wife, then he would have found him amusing and a worthy match.
He continued "you will be pardoned and your name cleared and allowed to stay in Venice, if you married my younger sister Astra Cherise Grimani. She turned eighteen earlier this month."
Giacomo couldn't help it he was horrified. He let out a bark like laugh, it sounded harsh to even Grimani's ears. He asked incredulously "why on earth would your father want to marry his daughter off to me? When he could quite easily marry her off to some rich and noble prick with a stick shoved up his arse, and old enough to be her grandfather?"
Grimani sighed in order to hide the smirk that was just beneath the surface. He was beginning to realise that Casanova was not as stupid as he had first thought, far from in fact.
He hated the fact he had clearly underestimated him, meaning Casanova could prove to be very dangerous and perhaps some what useful with the right guidance.
He finally spoke up "yes, indeed that very thought had crossed my mind as well. But the fact of the matter is if you're willing to cooperate and abide by the law, you could go far, with the help of the Grimani name behind you."
He added "like I said, my father's idea and most certainly not my own, you could rot in here and I still wouldn't bat a mere eye lid. I have nothing to gain from this but you do."
Giacomo sneered "actually Grimani you're wrong. If I did agree this and that is a hefty sized if, then you would be able to sit back and watch me suffer as the woman I love is on the arm of another man. Watch her as she becomes a mother to another man's children. So yes you are getting something out of this." He glared at Grimani.
Grimani retorted. "True. But what you don't seem to realise is that, Henrietta Will have to also sit back and watch you marry my sister, then watch her as she becomes the mother of your children, the future Casanova generation."
He added bitterly "and at least you will have something in common with me. We will both be in loveless marriages. Henrietta she does not love me, you, you bastard have, well and truly stole that role from me.
So in return why should you not be in a marriage where your wife does not love you and you will most likely never love her in return?"
He finished bitterly "but there is one difference. That being that I love my wife, and that you'll more then probably won't ever love Astra."
Giacomo was reeling. Grimani, he was in love with Henriette. He was in love with her, and she would never return that love, because it already belonged to him and not Grimani.
Grimani said "I can't see how or why you would refuse, its not like you have anything left, except perhaps a crap load of pride."
He added "you'd be rich and a noble; you'd have a beautiful young woman on your arm. You'd be envied. Astra has more then a few admirers. And unlike most women she is intelligent and well educated like my self."
Giacomo looked defeated. There was nothing he could do but agree. He refused to rot away in his current hell hole. He would have to bite down on his pride and do what he had to in order to survive. He would hate it, but hey, there was always a mistress or better yet mistresses when the wife became unbearable.