Forced Marriage

Prologue

The room felt as dark as her nearing future. Not a single shed of moonlight could penetrate through the heavy curtains that draped the windows with their luxurious patterns.

One would suffocate in such atmosphere, but not someone who was about to embrace something far more suffocating than that.

A forced marriage to someone she disliked, maybe it could be exaggerated by saying, hated. No matter how painful and contradicting the situation was, Nova had no option left. Her parents left her with none.

She had to bound to this man, despite her several attempts at escaping and protesting, or else they would take away the only thing she loved. Her little coffee shop that she had built from the scratch and cherished with all her heart. The only source of happiness left for her in this world after the departure of her biological parents.

Amelia Gillies and George Gillies were Nova's foster parents.

If anyone else heard about her story, they'd scoff and advise her to be grateful that she got such rich household. But no one knew the truth, how they actually treated her and how she was anything but a daughter to them.

Even if her biological parents weren't rich like the Gillies, they still had a loving home, filled with warmth and kindness. Unlike the coldness that seemed to have seeped into the very foundation of this mansion aka her so-called home.

"Nova! You're still standing here! God, how many times did I tell you to get ready and come downstairs?! Don't make me say it again! You hear me?!"

Startled from the sudden scream of a nasal voice, Nova turned around and nodded vigorously.

"Yes, ma'am."

With one last hard glare, Amelia left and Nova quickly got up to fetch the dress assigned to her to wear for tonight's special event.

Her marriage.

To Elliot Jones.

The billionaire, owner of several electronic and gaming corporations all over the world. A handsome hunk, and an asshole, if someone asked Nova.

With a deep sigh and one look at the mirror, she deemed herself ready enough and stepped out of her room.

She stopped and took one more glance at her room, her only space in this huge mansion where she found some sort of peace. She had lost counts of how many nights she had spent here, crying. Her safeplace. Now she was bare of it as well.

"Good bye." She softly whispered into the air, as if bidding farewell to the space she called her room, or maybe to the biggest part of her life.

Because tonight, something would end. She would step onto a new base of relationship and leave her singlehood behind. She'd be the wife of the famous Elliot Jones. She'd no longer be a simple girl that the Gillies had adopted all those years ago.

It was the start of her new journey, new life, which may bring even more sorrow than she was already enduring.

The thought sent a bad kind of shiver down her spine and Nova leaned her head against the car window, watching silently as trees and buildings passed by in a blur, the car speeding up, taking her to the ultimate destination.

.

.

The car stopped in front of a skyscraper, as Nova stepped out of the car and took a look at the structure blending amidst the sky before her, a shaky exhale left her lips.

Amelia and George reached the elevator in quick strides while Nova followed them in hesitant steps, feeling like every step would bring her to something dreadful.