 by Lindsey Hart.jpg)
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Him as the groom?
That's a Big Fat No!
I'll run away if I have to.
A contract marriage.
Inheritance on the line.
And a husband-to-be that I hate.
Definitely not what I was expecting to wake up to this morning.
But guess what, I'm no wallflower and others do not get to decide my future.
My soon to be Ex-Future-Husband will find this out for himself.
Because I'm going to find him...
Even if it means going halfway across the country in god knows what isolated hell hole Mr. Richy Rich is currently enjoying himself in.
And when I do, I'll make him void that stupid contract...
I don't know yet how I'm actually going to force him to do that but that's the plan!
At least that was the plan until I get my low-riding sports car stuck in the middle of nowhere.
And end up having to be rescued by a giant that happens to be my unwanted fiancé.
And the huge frown he had on tells me just how very welcome I am.
What's even worst though, I'm kind of stuck here with the grump and his donkey for the next few days.
And when I say donkey, I literally mean a donkey...
Ready for another Lindsey Hart Rom Com full of souls and fun bits?
Each book in this series is a standalone, so they can be read in any order.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
Nina
The only rational response to finding out that your somewhat tyrant family has sort of ruined your life is to pee your pants.
Well, rational or not, it’s about to happen unless I pull over.
Goddddd, I hate road trips.
Even if, technically, this is the first real one I’ve ever been on. Kind of. By myself, at least.
I also hate that I plugged my phone into the car charger after it died last night. Old habits bite the dust hard, I guess. I switched it on to forty-two missed calls, a full mailbox of voicemails, seven alarmed emails, and more texts than I cared to count. I answered none of it.
Twenty minutes was all the peace I was going to get until I turned the damn thing off again, apparently, because the screen in the car lit up with an incoming call from my mom.
Part of me knows I’m going to have to face her sometime if I don’t want her to send the cops out after me because she’s convinced I’m dead. It’s either answer her now or answer her somewhere down the road. I’m not going to get any less angry or calm down with another day behind me, and I’m certainly not going to let her talk me into turning around and coming back home, so it might as well be now.
I hit answer.
“Nina? Nina Geraldson! I know you’re there! Do you know how worried I’ve been? How worried we all are? Your dad is beside himself. Your grandma nearly had a heart attack. And your brother is threatening to get in his car and come out after you!”
There are a thousand rude ways I could answer that. More than a thousand. But it’s really not worth getting into it. We’re never going to agree about the past, and that’s what I want this to be more than anything. The past. A past I’m currently taking into my own hands and dealing with. I have my big girl panties on, thank you very much. Even if they’re not very fresh because that’s what happens when you have to sleep in your car and not-so-clean clothes overnight.
“What other choice did I have?”
Seriously. What alternative is there other than to pack into a car that is only comfy for a maximum of approximately two hours and eighteen minutes, grab some snacks, some water, and a change of clothes, then shut off my phone because I was absolutely not about to communicate with anyone from my family anytime soon even as I rely on the navigation app on my phone to take me across the country to break up an engagement that I just found out existed.
As in…I found out yesterday. The engagement, or betrothal, or promising me or whatever wretched label best suits it, actually happened long before I was born.
“I just found out I’m the hypothetical child that was supposed to unite our families in holy matrimony. How did you think I’d react?”
“I thought you’d at least be rational. You could have understood that there are bigger forces at play here—”
“Bigger forces? Mom! No!” I can’t believe she’s going to try to talk to me about bigger forces and wonders of the universe and blah, blah, blah. “Just because Granny and Elmira Wonderduck were soulmate sisters doesn’t mean they have any right to make a written contract stating that their grandchildren are going to get married.”
It’s a long story. Super long. Also, Wonderduck is probably the best last name ever, though it must be fake because it’s that good. Fake in the way that it was chosen, picked out, and paid for by some super badass who was tired of having a boring, regular old last name and wanted to shake things up.
“Your granny and Elmira made a promise to each other.”
“I know. You told me all about that yesterday,” I huffed.
“You’re literally the golden child.”
It’s this whole big thing about how, in my family, which sprung from an Italian grandmother who married an American a long time ago after her family came over here and who birthed all dark-haired children, I was the golden-haired exception. I swear it’s not really that weird. My dad’s parents aren’t alive anymore, and I remembered them with grey hair, but I’ve seen photos. I could tell my grandma’s hair was fairly light. She probably had blue eyes just like mine too.
“It’s just…you don’t understand,” Mom goes on pleadingly.
That’s right. I don’t get it. I don’t get how anyone could just decree a marriage.
The whole convoluted business goes something like this: when they were in their early twenties, my granny and Elmira made a pact after basically being friends for a lifetime. They were also rich heiresses, but that aside—no, not that aside because I think that fact is pretty vital to how these things often work out, especially in the world of rich people back in the day. Anyway, they vowed their kids would grow up and get married to each other in order to cement the family bonds and unite us for all eternity or some nonsense. I don’t know why they couldn’t just be besties and leave it at that. If they wanted to go to extremes, they could have just made a blood pact. Why involve the next generation in something they didn’t ask for and didn’t want?