Page 1 of Free-Falling
Chapter 1
Ainslee
Taking a deep breath with a veil obscuring my face, I walk down the aisle dreading everything. Each step drives me closer to my death. This is it. I won’t be able to be happy again. This is what he wanted. This is what everyone, especially society, deems worthy.
Hesitating in my tracks, I see the man that had my heart sitting in the rows watching me marry someone else instead of him. No one knows me as much as he knows me. They never will. I stare at him as I pass by him. My heart is pounding in my chest but then I feel eyes on me, I don’t have to look; I know they’re coming from my parents. They are coming from the two people who must despise me. Why else would this be happening? Why can’t I marry the man that resembles me? The man that matches my skin color to a T. The one who makes me go crazy and drives me wild. The one I gave my all to including my virginity, he deserved it. I’d rather lose it with him than a man I knew all too well to be evil; conniving and the man that I knew was just as in love with another just like me.
When I reach the altar, Jagger Hanlon, yanks me to him. He leans down closer to me so that no one can hear us. He gets in my face and I can see his angry whiskey-brown eyes piercing right through the veil. “Stop looking at him. You think I want to marry you either? The only woman I’ll ever love is sitting somewhere shaking and terrified because I can’t fucking get her out of wherever these people are hiding her. The only way I can let her be free is if I marry you. So get your shit straight, Ainslee.” The way he says my name is so venomous.
I eye him up and down, ready to curse him out, but I hold it in as Jagger straightens to his full height. I stare at him, not looking anywhere else only because I have to forget about him, about the man that I can’t call anymore. If I look at him again, I’ll run to him. I don’t want to do that. I can’t do that. He doesn’t get how the founding families work. I thought my parents changed, thought they realized that we didn’t have to continue this bullshit, but it is a lie. They want me to continue this shitty tradition, to never mix with the pure blood.
I wasn’t born yet when our society changed. The world made history by changing up the rules. I wish I could wake up the very first of the Bishops. Montgomery Bishops, he was a black man, a pure blood, but then he agreed with the Hanlons and other founding families. For Montgomery, he decided that his family would never consist of pure bloods again of any kind. Didn’t matter if they were white, Asian, Indian, Native American, etc. For Montgomery, our lineage is built on the mixing of the races. Like for us, my mother is French and my father is mixed. He’s black and Puerto-Rican. Which makes me multi-racial. Growing up, people always asked me what my background was as if I was a circus clown. I always told them I was a black woman and proud of it.
The Hanlons didn’t really do the same. For them, they didn’t care. They felt like marrying whatever race, but no one who doesn’t come from money. If they are poor, you can never intermingle.
I know that Jagger’s girl, Layla, is in danger. I’m very much aware, but she’s not the reason I did this. My man, Eli, is the reason I’m doing this. I wouldn’t even do this for Jagger if his life depended on it.
Jagger and I have hated each other from the moment our parents introduced us. He was seven years older than me when I was born. Mom tells me I cried when they put me in his arms and he dropped me like I was some of diseased thing. That’s where I get the tiny scar on my head. From this fucker, who I am about to call husband. Growing up, I had to see him at every function, teased by him in my awkward phase and on other accounts, he bullied me. I loathe his guts just as much as he loathes me. Adults say that a boy picks on you because he likes you… well this isn’t true because the asshole hates me or as I refer to him as Jack-ass.
“Ainslee,” the priest calls my name.
I shake out of my trip down memory lane and my gray eyes clash with those Whiskey ones. I roll my eyes at him. Jagger looks like he wants to strangle me.
“Answer the fucking priest, Ains…” he calls me that nickname I know has a threat attached. There’s always an or else attached to it.
I grit my teeth wanting to stab this man but I know better, it probably won’t fucking cut through because he’s that toned. Hate this man with every inch of my soul. “I do.” I say it with as much venom as I can.
Jagger yanks my left hand out, shoving my wedding ring on, making me wince because it hurts. I grab his hand with just as much vigor and snatch his wedding band, then slip it on him like I want to split his fingers into two. He barely winces, but he yanks his hand out. I’m sure our parents are both disappointed because we can’t act like adults and just do this. He should be the one to act like an adult, he’s older than me. Fucking dickhead can’t even stand up to his parents. To me, Jagger was a fucking troll, ugly and had a unibrow but to others, they found him to be the perfect specimen from his odd sun-kissed brown hair that was shorter in the back but longer in the front falling past his eyes. Apparently, from my friend, he has what you call a fuckable look no matter what he does. I don’t see it. All I see is a bastard I hate with my entire life. I don’t like his stupid eyes, nor do I like the fact that his bottom lip is bigger than the top one. His five-o’clock shadow says he didn’t give two fucks about this wedding. I also hate that I have to look all the way up, craning my damned neck to look at him. I’m what you call vertically challenged and him, not so much. He’s huge. Six feet and three inches to my five feet. I don’t like it, and he knows it.
“I pronounce you, husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,” the priest says.
“Fuck that!” We both say at the same time.
I flip Jagger the bird from under my veil, dropping my bouquet at his feet and I walk off. I feel something on my back, and I know his ass threw the bouquet at me. I flip the veil over turning around zeroing on Jagger; he narrows his eyes too. I forget everyone as I charge at him, no one realizes what I’m doing until I’ve climbed this big bastard and I pull at his hair.
“Get the fuck off!” Jagger screams.
He wraps his big arms around me and gets me out of his hair. “Let me go!” I scream at him.
Instead of doing so, he subdues me somehow like he always did every time we fought and walks out with me in a damn near headlock. I fucking hate this man. I watch my parents seething and so are his parents. I’m practically foaming out of the mouth, wanting to kill Jagger for even getting the one-up on me. As we leave the venue with the medium-sized audience instead of the big one that we have to entertain in two minutes in the bigger hall like news reporters, the priest says loudly, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Hanlon.”
Jagger
I swear on everything I love, if I could kill Ainslee I would. Everything about her ticks me off. No one has ever gotten me riled up like she has. I don’t know when I hated her, I just hated or rather hate her still. The moment we get in the room where we need to freshen up, I finally let her go and she tumbles to the floor.
“Are you serious!” She shrieks.
I roll my eyes as I walk over to the couch and sit. “Are you? Why the hell did you jump me like that? Are you stupid?”
She struggles to get up off the floor with that ridiculous wedding dress on. She huffs and decides to just sit there. She glares at me folding her arms in front of her chest which causes her tits to almost spill over more from the strapless dress. Ainslee realizes what I’m staring at and she readjusts everything.
“Stop staring, you damned pervert!” She yells.
I eye her. She disgusts me with all this damn yelling. “First off, I’m a full-blooded male and one who has eyes. If you’re going to flaunt them, then I’m going to look.”
“Well, look at someone else. Matter of fact, you shouldn’t be looking at anyone because hello, the love of your life is free now. Most likely.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to fuck. I said I was looking. They’re just tits, Ainslee. I can’t ever have peace when you’re around.”
