Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 53693 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53693 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
What must my parents be thinking? I need to speak with them, to help them understand that I didn’t plan this. They must be so angry with me, but I didn’t do anything wrong, not really. Sure, I kissed a stranger on my wedding day, but I didn’t expect that stranger to call off my wedding and take me home with him.
My parents must be angry, but surely they can see it from my perspective. I miss them, although I am angry with them. I want nothing more than to hear my mother’s voice, even if she’s yelling at me for kissing a strange, dangerous man.
I look over at the frothy white wedding dress that loves to mock me. I hated it from the moment I saw it in the store, but Mama told me it was exactly the kind of dress she always pictured me wearing. How could I say no to that? Besides the fact that she and Papa were paying for the wedding. None of the decisions were mine to make.
Still, I ache to speak to her. I pick up my phone and pull up her number. I press “Send,” and wait, but the line doesn’t even ring. She sends me straight to voicemail. Of course, she does. She must be so livid with me.
As much as I don’t want to speak to Papa, I know he’ll at least answer his phone, if for no other reason than curiosity. He’ll want to hear what I have to say. I dial his number and wait with bated breath.
He picks up immediately. “My phone says my daughter is calling me, but I don’t have a daughter anymore,” he says coldly. “She’s dead to me and I’m grieving her loss.”
He hangs up then, not giving me a chance to speak. I throw my phone on the floor and immediately feel tears spring to my eyes. I’ve been keeping them at bay for the last two days, but it’s a fruitless effort now. My family hates me. They despise me for something I have no control over.
Which is ironic, since getting married was out of my control as well. I see now that my family doesn’t care about my free will. They don’t want me to be happy. They want me to conform to their wishes and be a good girl who always says yes.
I was willing to do that, even when it meant giving up my freedom for the rest of my life. Well, now I’ve given up my freedom, but not to their choice of groom. I’ve done something out of their plan for me, and they can’t stand it.
My heart breaks in two at my father’s words, and I cry into my pillow for a long time, letting the pain envelop me. If I’m dead to him, then maybe he should be dead to me too. Maybe I have no parents, and I belong solely to a man who can’t have the decency to provide me more clothes than what I came in.
This is a hopeless situation.
Said man knocks on my door a few minutes later, and I rush to wipe my face. I don’t want him to see me crying. I don’t want to appear weak in front of him. I stand up to grab my robe and pull it tightly over myself, though I don’t know what the point is. He probably prefers seeing me naked in bed, anyway.
Ivan comes in when I tell him he can, and he assesses me. I can tell by the look on his face that he knows I’ve been crying. He looks repentant.
“You aren’t a prisoner here, Kat,” he tells me. “You can come and go as you please. I trust you.”
“And where exactly do you expect me to go in my wedding lingerie?” I ask him sarcastically. “I don’t even have shoes!”
He chuckles and comes to sit on the corner of the bed. My mind tells me to move away from him, but my body shifts closer without my permission.
“I’m working on it,” he says, which surprises me.
What does he mean he’s working on it? Is he going to have my things brought over? I’m sure my family and Niko will have a lot to say about that. Niko and my brother have probably already destroyed all of my things out of spite. I wouldn’t put it past them.
“Tell me, Kat,” he says sweetly. “Once you have your things and you can go out as you please, what would you like to do?”
I look at him in surprise. My parents never cared about what I wanted. They scheduled my life down to the minute, my only freedom coming when I finally went to college and had space from them. Even then, I had a bodyguard watching me twenty-four seven. Freedom was a small illusion.