Celina's POV
"You have no say in this. You have to marry Jefferson Scotts, " Daniel said. "Give me one big reason to agree with this," I told him. I was keeping my cool and tried not to lash out at him. He is my adoptive father. When I was in the orphanage, I longed to have someone who'd take me away from there. When he and his wife Lalaine took me, I thought I was the happiest person in the world. As it turned out, there's nothing to be happy about. They are the worst. At a very young age, they exploited me. They made me their maid without a salary. I had to force them to allow me to study on the condition that I'd do them a favor in return. I guess they are using it now against me. "You owe us your diploma. We agreed that when the time comes, you would do us a favor," Daniel said. I looked at him and chuckled. "You're doing this to me? It's the marriage we were talking about. The rest of my life. It was already hell living with you and yet you wanted the rest of my life in a marriage that might ruin me completely." I said angrily. Lalaine slapped me and said, "How dare you." I balled my fist as I wanted to get even, but I managed to calm myself. After some thought, I decided,, "Fine, we'd do it in writing. You might sell me out again for the same reason in the future, you know. " I told them and smirked. "You have to include that I have already paid off all my debts with you and that I had no more unfinished obligations towards this family. You have to include that I am now a free soul. " I said and walked to the stairs, "You have to put it in writing as well that you are not going to approach me or ask anything from me in the future. When the contract is ready, you can give it to me after you've signed it. " I added, and went up the stairs to go to my room. I lock my bedroom door after I get in. I was so furious at them and I wanted to yell. I never thought I would have to deal with them in this way. I decided to calm myself and think. This may be even better than continuing to live with them. I just hope my husband was a lesser evil. Of course, I am not expecting heaven with whoever he is, but I just hope he is a bit human. I am Celina Nicholson. I was an orphan until Daniel and Lalaine Nicholson adopted me from the orphanage. I thought it was the start of my good fortune, but I was wrong. They were a bad couple. No wonder they were not gifted a child of their own. I don't remember much about my biological parents. I was too young to remember them. But I know one thing; I have a phobia of huge bodies of water. Even a pool size scares me. I remember my parents died in the sea, drowning. As for a sibling, I don't know either. As I've said, I was too young to remember. The rest of my childhood was in the orphanage and then in this house. I was bullied by girls in the orphanage along with my friend, Xia, but I never let them feel happy about it. I always retaliate and that ends up in my detention. That's why I wanted to leave there. They were not fair. Even if we were all orphans there, they still had their favorites. I guess life was like that. It was unfair. No matter how hard you try, the more you dig your own grave deeper. The more you behave and try to be a good person, the more they step on you. I am not going to allow that to happen anymore and I will fight for my happiness. I promised to never get affected by those kinds of people anymore and only love myself. So, I made sure to agree to this marriage if it was going to be my escape route from those two monsters. A week later, I received the agreement from my adoptive parents. I checked if it was from a true attorney and made a copy of it. A lot of copies of it after I signed it as well. I had every detail checked and consulted by an attorney referred to me by a friend. I am not an i***t. I understand things. But there were experts on this that could explain it to me more complexly. Now, I feel free from them. I don't know how much they got from selling me off, and I don't want to know. I don't care about them at all anymore. Later, I am going to meet Mr. John Scott. My father-in-law to be. I don't know what got into him to choose me for his son. I don't know how he knows me either, as I have never met him before. I was informed to meet him at 4. I was a freelance designer and none of those two monsters knew about it. They thought I was working part-time as a crew member. I was earning for myself, and I have already saved a lot. I was just actually saving and taking my time so I could escape from those two. Now that I am going to be free without getting worried, I will take this marriage thing instead. I arrived at the café where I was supposed to meet John. I didn't expect much from him as he was a stranger. I sat at one of the available tables and waited. I didn't bother looking around because I knew John would know who I was. And just as I thought, a minute had not passed and yet he approached me already. "Hello, Celina." I looked at the smiling man, probably in his 50's, looking at me. He didn't wait for me to acknowledge him and just sat on the chair in front of me. It didn't bother me; I was just confused that he looked so nice to me and I'm not used to that. He may have been waiting for my response, as he just stared back at me and didn't say anything. "You must be Mr. John Scott," I said, and he smiled once again. "I'm happy that you know my name," he replied. "Daniel and Lalaine told me," I said as I looked at him. "Why?" I asked afterward. "What do you mean?" He asked, confused. "Why do you want me to marry your son? Is he disabled? Impotent? ugly? Worthless? " I asked him. He laughed at me as he shook his head. "None of that matches my son. He was the complete opposite of everything that you said." He replied. "Then why? I don't have any special talent, skills, or whatever to be worthy of marrying your godly son. " I told him. "I don't look for a goddess to be my daughter-in-law. I was just curious about you. That's it. He answered, which made me raise my brows. "You know that I don't believe you, right?" I asked him. His smile turned into laughter. I didn't feel scared of him at all. He looks funny to me, and I'm pretty sure he finds me amusing. "I guess I don't have to worry about you after all. You are feisty and perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. " He said, relieved. "I had been doing that for the last, what, ahm... 14 years of my life. Considering I had been living with two monsters, over the years, I learned to love no one else but myself. " I told him. "Then you can perfectly handle my son. Despite your description of him being godly, he was a total jerk, not to me but I'm sure to you. He doesn't like to get married to you, so I will have to tell you in advance that your marriage won't be heaven. But it won't be a total hell either. He never hurt women, that's what I can assure you. Physically, I mean, because emotionally I'm sure a lot of women have cried over him." He informed me. "Then what will happen if I married your womanizer son?" I asked. You will have to live with him. You know, we own a big company, so you will be wealthy as well. You will be assigned as the President of the company while he is the CEO. I hope you two will work well together for the betterment of the company and the people who work behind it," he said. "I cannot promise you, but I will try my very best to stop him if he ever cheats on you. Though he never cheated on any of his girlfriends, he was generous to them. But, I cannot say the same to you for being his wife through an arranged marriage," he added. "I understand." " If there's anything that you two want to discuss, make sure you do. Although I wanted you to fulfill your duties as his wife, I know that still depends on my son." I nodded at him and smiled. Let's just say, I think I know now what I am into. John stood up after a while, indicating he was leaving. "I have arranged a date for you two later at 7 in the Clandestine Hotel and Restaurant. Please be on time; he hates lazy people. " John said. "Oh, what to do? I am very lazy. " I told him, and he laughed as he left. I watched his retreating figure and I realized that he would make a model even at his age. I remember that he didn't have any snacks yet. How lousy is your daughter-in-law that she forgot to offer you something to eat? I thought. I stayed at the café for a while as I did some sketching for my next project. All of my customers were from abroad. There were wealthy students also who were too lazy to do their projects and were willing to pay my fee. I decided to stay there until 7, so I didn't need to spend money on taxi fares and I managed to make a draft for my 5 projects. How convenient. Now, it's time to face the godly womanizer.Hello dear readers, thank you so much for your support. If you like this chapter please give me a like and let me know what you think in the comment section and I will really appreciate it. Don't forget to add this in your library for chapter release updates and notifications. Have a great day!
Third Person's POV Celina went to Clandestine. As she entered the restaurant, a waitress stopped her. "Excuse me, but this part of the restaurant is off-limits," the waitress told her. Celina nodded, and told the waitress that she had a reservation. "Reservation under Mr. John Scott," Celina said, and the waitress glared at her. She rolled her eyes at the waitress when she realized that she was being criticized, and she didn't like it a bit. "If you are going to look down on me, you better look at yourself first. Remember what you are here for," she said, and the waitress ushered her to a private room after feeling embarrassed by what Celina had said. As she entered the room, she found Jefferson in a suit. His face hardened and darkened while waiting, and Celina smiled internally as she thought that she had made him wait. Jefferson looked at her and didn't say a word, so she just sat opposite him. "You're late," he said. "I am not applying for the job, so I don't need to be punctu
Jefferson's POV Mine and Celina's wedding was announced, and everyone in the company knew about it as they were all invited. They wanted to know who Mrs. Scott was and how she was. Is she pretty, smart? From which family did she come from? They were expecting my future wife to be the most elegant bride because I was the groom. The well-known most sought after bachelor and one of the wealthiest too. Thinking she was chosen by her dad, who was very strict and known to be very meticulous when it comes to work, they expected her to come from a prominent family. But I know where she came from and the word prominent was not in her family's vocabulary. Dad knew that I wouldn't agree to this, so he made a great bargain of using the company and gave me no choice but to marry and deal with this woman who thought highly of herself. It made me furious thinking dad had set aside everything I had done for the company for him to just freely give it away to Noris and that woman. Ever since I was a
Third Person's POV The wedding had ended, and everyone was satisfied, especially John. If Celina and Jefferson just acted, John would not have noticed anything either. He was busy with the guests when they were at the reception. He was occupied by nonstop greetings and best wishes for the newlyweds and an overwhelming number of gifts from everyone who had all left the ceremony happily, except Noris. In the mansion, the newlyweds were in their room trying to rest when one of the maids knocked on their door. Celina was looking at them when Jefferson opened the door for her. "Sir, Sir Noris is outside. He was drunk and was breaking everything. He was calling you out. " The maid informed him. He looked at Celina, who was waiting for him to say anything. "I'll be back; stay here." Jefferson told Celina, who just nodded. She was curious why Noris was making a scene. She knew him, and she was shocked earlier when she found out that they were brothers. Noris was her friend, and he had no
Jefferson's POV *** Flashback ***"Let's break up," I told Wendy as soon as she got in my car. Wendy just looked at me for a moment, shocked. "What? Babe, what are you talking about? This isn't a funny joke," she responded worriedly after taking in what I had just said. I'm not sure why; shouldn't she feel sad or wounded and not worried? What is she so concerned about?"You're just saying that. Fine, let's try f****** in your vehicle. I know you've been begging for this, so let's try. Just don't make jokes like that, huh?" she added, going to sit on my lap but I stopped her."I'm going to marry someone else that Dad had arranged for me," I informed her."What? He knew we were dating, why would he do that?" Wendy cried. "He never once talked to me and attempted to keep me away from you, why would he suddenly urge you to marry someone else?""I'm not sure either; he just informed me earlier, and I didn't want to upset you by continuing our relationship," I stated."No, I can never agre
Third Person's POV Jefferson rushed to the hospital thinking Wendy was in a critical condition. He started to blame himself for what she did and he thought he would not be able to forgive himself if something happened to her. He was on his way to the nurse's station when he looked around and saw Wendy's figure not too far from the staircase. He was thinking about what she was doing there when the nurse who called him told him that she had overdosed. He walked slowly because he noticed that she was talking on her phone as she walked down the stairs. "I called him and he answered, so there's no way that he and whoever that woman was, were busy on their honeymoon." She said, "I'm sure that this is going to work, it better be. I didn't want to lose him either. Can't you imagine, all the things that I got used to will be gone forever? No way, I ain't gonna let that happen, so I am going to try to separate those two and be with Jefferson when he needs a companion." She added, which mad
Celina's POV I wake up early, nothing unusual about that. When I looked at the other side of the bed, Jefferson was not there already, or to be accurate, he never came to sleep at all. I get up from the bed and went to the bathroom. I can say that his room was really beautiful and I like his bathroom because it was spacious. There were toiletries that I could use and if I didn't know that we are being forced into this marriage, I would think that Jefferson cared for me for exerting his effort in buying everything for me. The facial wash was all expensive. It was the one I usually saw on a glass cabinet that had a lock on it. Did he actually think that I use such expensive things to wash my face? Well I decided to just use it because it was mine after all. After I washed myself, I changed my clothes and went down to the kitchen. I was planning on making my own breakfast bottle maids already done for me. "Ma'am Celina, you can wait for your breakfast on the dining table." On of th
Jefferson's POV I know that Celina knew that I left because she was already at the dining table very early in the morning. I was sure that she thought that I went to see Wendy and I didn't deny that. Even if I was cruel to Wendy, it was because I found out that she was cheating on me from the very beginning. I know myself that I am not going to cheat on my wife even if I don't like her a bit. But after knowing the truth, I feel relieved that I don't need to feel guilty towards Wendy as well. The talk that I planned to have with Celina was very simple. I will just let her know that I am going to leave the country and that I am making her the officer in-charge when I'm away. I asked her to come to my study room and wait for me there after she ate because I know that I stink. She didn't noticed me get in so I watched her massage her temple. I got a little worried and asked her if she had headache and she replied "slightly." I don't know how that was but she insisted on talking even if
Third Person's POV After Jefferson left, Celina started to work on her design. The five designs she finished before meeting with Jefferson in Clandestine was her last project and she had not accepted any after that because she had been busy with their wedding preparation. Thinking about their wedding, Celina realized that Jefferson had been with her all the time. He accompanied her in choosing her gown and even when she talked to the wedding organizers. She didn't want to have a grand wedding but John wanted it so much so she let him do what he wanted. She never heard Jefferson complain about everything and she was happy about that. The only thing that angered her was when he left on the night of their wedding. She decided to stop thinking about it anymore and work on her new project. Jefferson on the other hand went back to his study room. He wanted to make a plan for Celina to follow as she managed the companies. He will be making a list of people she can ask for help as well