Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Dante is making sure I can’t claim anything he bought at the auction. He probably wants to rub Leander’s face in the fact that all my parents’ wealth now belongs to him. It’s part of his revenge plan.
Most alarmingly, the contract states that should I ever leave Dante, he’ll retain full custody of Noah. As long as we remain married and live in the same house, we’ll both have full parental rights.
“Page ten,” Dante says.
I glance up at him, hatred turning everything inside me bitter.
“I’m giving you a generous allowance,” he says. “You won’t need for anything.”
Except love.
Except being appreciated for who I am and not for what I can bring to the table.
“You’ll find the agreement more than fair.” Dante squeezes my fingers around the pen. “Now sign. You’re mine, Tatiana. It’s time the whole world knows it.”
It still feels like a death sentence when Dante brings my hand to the paper and places it over the dotted line. It feels as if I’m signing my life away when I make the big cursive T of my name, but what choice do I have? Dante will make me sign, whether I want to or not, and his lawyer and his men don’t give a damn if my signature is forced.
Tears I don’t want to shed slip free and roll over my cheeks. They fall in fat blobs on the paper, smearing the ink as I initial each page.
I’ve barely put the dot behind my name on the final page before Dante snatches the stack of papers away as if it’s the most valuable possession he owns. When he takes the pen, his fingers brush over mine, and his gaze holds mine for a moment too long.
I break our eye contact first, not wanting him to see the defeat in my eyes.
He initials each page in turn and signs his name next to mine before handing the contract to the lawyer. “Take care of that. I want certified copies in the safe.”
The lawyer slips the papers into a folder. “That goes without saying.”
As if he’s some kind of gentleman instead of a heartless monster, Dante offers me a hand. Ignoring the gesture, I stand on wobbly legs. My head spins. The room goes in and out of focus. My steps are unsteady, but I refuse to show Dante and his men more weakness than I’ve already showed them. Crying in front of them is mortifying enough. Even though I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, I can’t control my tears.
Holding my head high, I walk to the door. Reino rushes forward to open it for me but I reach it before him.
Somehow, I find the strength to balance my weight on the high heels as I push the door open and exit into the hallway. A sensation of suffocation closes in on me, but I just keep on moving, ignoring the tightness in my chest and the tears that won’t stop falling. Those tears blurring my vision are born from helplessness and anger, but mostly, they come from a deep-seated notion of grief as I mourn the loss of more of my dreams.
My mother raised me on fairy tales and happy endings. Maybe she did that because her own life was so unhappy. Whatever the case, I dreamt about rings, a white dress, and a knight in shining armor. I wanted the big wedding, the loving husband, and the babies. I spent hours imagining every detail of what my wedding would be like. I even planned the whole damn ceremony in my head, right down to the three-tier cake.
Yet this is how it’s going to be—a forced marriage in which I have no say. There won’t be tears of happiness, Dante going down on one knee, and wedding invitations going out from my parents on a gold-trimmed card.
Now, as Dante’s future wife, it feels more as if I’m walking toward a guillotine.
Chapter
Fourteen
Dante
* * *
Tatiana doesn’t say a word on the way back to the house. The tears she quietly sheds next to me in the back of the car must be tears of regret. I bet she wishes she never ran into me outside their condo on the day she did, the very same day her father told her who she’d marry.
Bumping into her was a coincidence. I like to think of it as fate. But the reason I was in her neighborhood wasn’t. I was there for her, intent on stalking her until I got my way. One way or another, I was always going to make her mine.
I look at my fiancée’s beautiful face. With the golden light of the sinking sun that highlights her flaxen hair, pale complexion, and full pink lips, her Slavic heritage is evident. Those jade green eyes glitter all the more brightly with her tears.