Page 15 of His Forced Bride
The line goes quiet.
Then, "What the hell are you talking about?"
I tell her everything—the contract, the legal language, the ultimatum.
My voice breaks twice, but I force myself to keep talking.
Alina listens without interrupting, though I can hear her breathing getting faster.
"That bastard," she finally says. "He can't just force you into marriage."
"The contracts, though… I will lose my business, Alina. I can't… I've already lost Batya. What else should I let them take?"
My heart is tearing right down the middle.
I'm desperate to find a way out of this, but what can I do, give up the only thing I have left?
Just so I don't have to marry a man twice my age?
And then what?
Where would I go?
Who would take me in?
I'd have no way of supporting myself.
"Contracts can be broken. We'll hire lawyers, fight this in court?—"
"With what money? And how long would that take?" I scoff and rub my face. "By the time we get a ruling, my company will be stripped bare."
"So, what are you saying?"
I close my eyes and lean back in my chair.
"I'm saying I might not have a choice."
"There's always a choice."
"Is there? I can marry him and keep everything I've built, or I can run and lose it all. Those are my options."
"You'd be married to a criminal," she protests weakly.
I know. It's something I considered a lot before I agreed to the arrangement with Dominic.
But my father was a criminal. And what does that make me?
"I was going to marry his son."
"Dominic wasn't—" Alina stops herself.
We both know what Dominic was.
Young, reckless, probably no different from his father.
"Inessa—"
"I have to go." I hang up before she can argue with me any more.
