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“You…you chose to hand me over to a stranger rather than pay off what you owed?” My voice cracked as the emotions consumed me, pulling me down into icy depths where there was only darkness.

“Don’t be dramatic, Charlotte,” Mother scoffed. “You know what our world is like, these things-”

A surge of anger plowed through me, and before I could stop myself, I stormed toward her. “Don’t you dare tell me not to be dramatic! I’m not a pawn on a chessboard that you can move around; I’m your daughter!”

“Charlotte, please calm down,” my father said, looking at me with guilt flashing in his eyes. “This is no different from your engagement to-”

“Yes, it is,” I snapped. “I’m eighteen, for fuck sake-”

“Watch your language,” my mother chided.

Red-hot anger bubbling under my skin erupted out of me. “No, I won’t watch my fucking language, Mother. You expect me to stand here and just accept that you’ve palmed me off to a stranger? Accept that you chose money over your fucking daughter?” I sneered at her before glancing at my father. “What sort of parents are you? In fact, don’t answer that. I already know.”

I shook my head, giving them my back, unable to look at them any longer. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they had done something like this, and I knew full well that it would have been my mother leading the show. Like a coward, my father always went along with what she said.

A million thoughts rushed through my head. As much as I despised it, my mother was right. Our world was made up of arranged marriages that people rarely wanted, deals made to make the wealthy wealthier, and ridiculous games to prove which family held the most power.

It didn’t matter what I wanted, or what any other child born into the elite society wanted. If our parents made a deal, we had no choice but to go along with it.

Accepting my fate, I crossed to stand back in front of Jacob, who seemed to be watching the interaction between my parents and me with bemusement on his face. “Mr. Du Pont-”

“Jacob, angel. Please. Call me Jacob.”

Ignoring the way my heart fluttered at him calling me angel for a second time, I held his gaze. “What if I refuse to come with you?”

His lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. “You can refuse, but I assure you, you will be leaving here with me.”

I hadn’t really expected his answer to be any different. So what the hell was I going to do? My options were limited. I could try to run from the house this very second, but I knew I wouldn’t get far, not without money, a car, or anyone who could help me.

That left the only option. “I’ll need some time to pack my belongings.”

“No, you don’t,” Jacob replied, his tone cool. “You have everything you will need waiting for you at your new home. There is nothing you require from here.”

My lips pursed. It wasn’t as if I had anything precious I wanted to take with me, but I could have at least grabbed my phone. Although that would have been pretty pointless. My parents paid the bill, and I was certain that as soon as I left them, they’d cancel the contract.

Helplessness flowed through me, weighing me down until my shoulders slumped. I glanced at my parents again; for what reason, I didn’t know. It wasn’t like they were doing anything to undo the mess they’d created. To no one’s surprise, my father had lowered his gaze to the floor again while my mother wore her look of indifference.

I scrunched my nose in disgust at them, the sudden need to get as far away from them as possible crashing into me.

“You know what?” I said, meeting Jacob’s eyes. “I actually think I would rather go anywhere with you than stay in this house with them for one more minute. Lead the way.”

This time, when his lips twitched, they pulled into a triumphant grin, and if I wasn’t so terrified of what was about to happen, I would have acknowledged just how handsome he was when he smiled.

He waved a hand toward the door, indicating to me to head out of the living room. Refusing to speak to my parents, or even look back at them, I held my head high as I walked into the foyer and out of the house.

Chapter 3

My world as I knew it had been flipped on its axis. Numbness swept through me as I stared out the window into the night, not really seeing anything as Jacob’s driver drove the car further away from the only place I’d known.

Jacob sat in the back of the car with me, and although I wasn’t looking in his direction, I could feel his gaze burning into me, adding to the unsettling feeling sinking into the marrow of my bones.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the weight of my reality was settling around my shoulders like an unbearable weight, and I didn’t know if I wanted to vomit, cry, or throw myself from the moving vehicle.

Questions churned in my mind: where were we going? What did he want from me? Was he going to hurt me? But I couldn’t bring myself to ask any of them, partly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer, partly because all I could focus on was the pain in my chest.

How could my parents do this to me?

I came to terms with my planned engagement when I was younger. It was something I had been made aware of from a young age, and as much as I hated that I would be marrying out of duty and not love, I knew my future husband, Adam Carmichael, came from a good family and was training to become a barrister.