Page 2 of Forced Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva

The Rolls-Royce is glossy and black, the interior spotless. It smells like leather and money and the faintest trace of my father’s cologne. A ghost of him, left behind like a scent you can’t wash out of your skin.

I slide into the back seat. The door closes with a dull thud. Privacy glass darkens around me.

“Where to, Miss Carter?” the driver asks without turning.

“The Beaumont Hotel.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The engine purrs to life.

As we pull away from the curb, I look back at the building I’ve called home my whole life. Thirty-seven floors of silence and staff. No warmth. No music. No dinners that didn’t require advance notice or a guest list.

I remember being sixteen and asking my father if we could have a night in. Just the two of us. Chinese takeout and a movie, like real people.

He’d looked at me like I’d asked him to dismantle a bomb.

“You’re not a child anymore,” he’d said, with that same faintly irritated tone he always used when emotion snuck into my voice. “This isn’t some middle-class fantasy.”

The car hits a bump, and I blink hard once, swallowing the thought like it’s poison. Outside, the city speeds past in a blur of red lights and chrome.

My phone vibrates in the clutch. For a second, I think maybe—maybe—it’s him.

But it’s not.

Eleanor:Hope to see you tonight. Let me know if you want to arrive together! x

I type out a quick reply.

Already on the way. Save me a seat.

I don’t add anything else. Eleanor’s nice—one of the only people who doesn’t treat me like a PR opportunity—but even she doesn’t really know me.

No one does.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s my fault. If I’m too guarded. Too cold. Too good at playing my part. Other times—most times—I wonder if anyone ever wanted to know me at all.

I lean my head back against the leather, eyes half shut.

I wonder what it’s like to be chosen, not for your name or your face or the weight behind your signature—but for the way you laugh. The way you get quiet when you’re sad. The way you think at two in the morning when the world is too still.

I wonder if anyone’s ever looked at me and seen something worth holding on to.

The car pulls up in front of the hotel, where cameras flash like static and voices blend into a dull roar of anticipation. The driver steps out, circles to my door, and opens it just as I draw a breath.

Time to play the part.

The press flutters like vultures as I step out, calling my name, demanding a smile, a pose, a quote. I give them all three. I walk up the steps alone, spine straight, eyes forward, every inch the girl they think I am.

Inside, champagne waits.

The ballroom hums around me like a hive. Glittering, loud, full of champagne smiles and teeth too white to be real. Everyone here is beautiful, or paid enough to look like it. I move through the crowd like I’m supposed to be here—because I am—but I can feel the way their eyes follow me. Not with curiosity. With calculation.

Richard Carter’s daughter. The heir.

I give them what they want. A measured smile. Perfect posture. A soft laugh when they say something they think is clever. My hand on a glass of champagne I won’t finish, I tilt my chin when I speak and pretend I don’t see the way their gazes slide over my skin like they’re imagining what I’d cost.

I’ve done this so many times I’ve lost count.

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