Page 5 of Captive Bride

Isobel

The rain sends shivers down my skin. I’m wearing white lingerie and not much else.

Who cares? There’s no one to see me in the Capulet fortress, no one to see me looking this hot. I’m virtually alone up here.

I always am. The apartment is brimming with people...hair and makeup people, stylists...but they don’t count. They’re just the people brought in to make me look perfect.

I should be happy, right?

Doesn’t everyone want a team of beauty experts at their disposal?

Well, not me because I’m used to it and because I know what it all means.

A marriage to one hideous man.

The most expensive stuff in the world couldn’t make me happy now.

It never does. I’m dripping with diamonds, gifts from my father, but it means nothing because to him I’m nothing more than a hot commodity to trade.

I’m the fucking Capulet princess, Daddy’s little girl, or so he’d like the world to believe.

He doesn’t love me. Never has.

I’m a girl after all. Not a strapping man to take over the business. I’m here to look pretty and to remain a virgin and most of all, to remain safe.

Some life, huh?

I wish for an escape almost every day. Even now, I dangle myself over the balcony so I can feel the rain, and I think about death and how falling would mean freedom.

Now, don’t get all depressed for me. I get out...sometimes. Like once in a blue moon.

My cousin Theo is fond of helping me escape every now and then. He thinks of me like his little sister, and he feels bad for me being all alone up here.

So, I’ve been out. I’ve been to a club...like three times.

And besides him, I have Thelma.

My live-in bodyguard, caretaker, and overall best friend. She lives the life I can’t have and then comes home to tell me about it. She’s wild, and her stories sustain me…for now.

She tugs on my arm to come back inside.

“Baby,” she says. “Come in. You’ll catch a cold and then your father will kill me.”

She’s always worried about my father killing her because he could—and he might if I ever came in harm’s way under her watch.

She always calls me ‘Baby’.

I don’t know why. I think to her, I’m like a child that needs guidance.

And she’s always there to help.

In a moment of honesty, I tell her, “I can’t do it. I can’t go through with the engagement to that man. What am I going to do? He’s horrible!” I throw myself into her arms.

She’s the only comfort I have. She and my cousin Theo are the only people I talk to on a daily basis. They’re the only ones who care about me.

My parents certainly don’t care—otherwise they wouldn’t be doing this to me. For them, it’s all about money and business. But what about me?

I’m getting lost in the mix, and pretty soon, I’m going to go live with that monster, the Governor. My mood is sullen and forlorn as I wipe away the tears.

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