The Billionaire's Bride

Chapter 4

Priya ran to her room and quickly threw her heels off, holding her head in frustration. She felt the tears that threatened to spill out, but she kept them in by belly-flopping onto her bed and screaming loudly into her blanket like a child. Snatching a pillow from the side, she turned onto her back, placed the pillow on her face, and mumbled curses under her breath. I don't want to marry him! She shouted in her heart. She took a deep breath into the pillow. So much was going on in her head. Sadness, fear, and hurt. She wanted a runaway, but then again, there was nothing she could do. She will have to marry him for her family, which causes her heart to tighten in pain. She just wanted to soothe the pain in her dying heart. Rajat's words hurt her so much, they stabbed deep in her heart without mercy. After marrying Mr. Kapoor, what will destroy her life? She didn't know why he said that. Absorbed by those mournful thoughts, she couldn't control her raging and grieving emotions.

She watches the stars in the black sky from her window. The stars looked gorgeous that night, but they couldn't distract her mind from the incident she had faced at the dinner. But she struggled to clear her thoughts, even if it made her hold back unwelcome tears. After all the things Ram had told her at the dinner, don't worry about what Rajat said; it will work. You'll see. Not that she wanted it to after hearing what he really thought about her. But it was too painful to remember, and even if she tried to block her mind from recalling that encounter and its ill-fated end, her brain didn't give up and kept on playing their conversation again and again in her head. Some time had passed before Priya forgot herself in an anxious sleep.

Priya's alarm went off bright and early the next morning. She'd been awake for some time already, just lying there looking at the ceiling. She turned off the alarm and pulled the comforter over her head, wishing she could hide under there forever and sleep. She felt so tired, but she had to get up.

Last night had been one more sleepless night in a long month where lack of sleep had become the norm. When she'd finally put her head on the pillow, she saw her last night scene with Ram on repeat. She'd had no intention of sleeping with him before her deadline. But when he'd touched her, when he'd kissed her, she'd fallen apart in his arms. If Rajat hadn't knocked on that door, she wouldn't have thought twice about letting him have her there and then. She'd never had sex before. Never.

That incident had only proved to her how dangerous marrying Ram Kapoor would be. She couldn't keep her balance around him; she couldn't maintain control of herself and she couldn't say no. She laughed bitterly, remembering how she'd told him he didn't like to be out of control. That had been a projection. She didn't want to be out of control, and that was exactly how he made her feel.

She felt a strong desire for the man, which frightened her. She had been waiting for a month for him to kiss her, and when he finally did, it surpassed all her fantasies about the moment. Once they began having sex, she knew she couldn't prevent her emotions from getting involved. She realized she was never very good at separating sex from emotion.

He'd given her such logical reasons for them to get married, but she still believed that love should be the number one reason for marriage. She knew that she could fall in love with Mr. Kapoor, but she didn't want to, not when she would feel alone. Relationships weren't meant to be like that. How could he possibly expect things to work? Rajat's words floated through her head for the hundredth time since he'd said them, 'It'll never work.'

The only things she had to hold on to were anger and resentment. They would stop her from falling in love. She hoped. If she felt more for Ram than he felt for her, then that meant he had all the control. After he'd forced her hand and made her marry him, and considering his money gave him the power to do almost anything he wanted, was it so wrong that she wanted to maintain some shred of control in this relationship?