It only felt like minutes later when Carol heard an insistent knock at her door that permeated her sleep. Groaning, she turned, stretched while still laying in her queen sized bed and then sat up and looked around in a disoriented manner. It was dark outside from what she could see, so that meant that she had slept for hours. The knock at the door became more insistent as the seconds rolled by and then she heard her mother yell out her name and rap out a series of further knocks.
“I’m coming.” Carol yelled out in reply and hurried to get off the bed and open the door before her mother broke it down with her insistent knocking and the way she was banging on it.
“What is it mum?” Carol asked, rubbing at her eyes as she stood there in her pink shorts and white singlet.
Her mother gaped at her for a few seconds and then screeched. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“Dressed like what?”
“The way you’re dressed! The guests are already here and you’re sleeping? Are you not going to be a part of the dinner? I hope Victoria has already dressed up. Damn! All this is my fault. I should have come up earlier to make sure that you guys were getting ready, but I was so preoccupied with making preparations for dinner.” Belinda said and pushed into the room, turning on the light as she went.
“Oh, right. I totally forgot and overslept. The dinner at seven. I’ll just wash up quickly and be right down bu…” Carol was saying and then paused when she saw her mother looking around the room in shock, her face ashen.
“What is it, mum? Are you alright?”
“Whe…where is your sister?”
“Victoria? How on earth should I know? She is probably in her room, or something.”
“No. no, she’s not anywhere in this house. I’ve checked literally everywhere, but did not bother to check your room because your light was off. If she’s not here, then that means she’s nowhere in this house.” Belinda wailed, checking behind the curtains in Carol’s room as though her missing daughter would magically appear out of there.
“Well, maybe she’s downstairs.” Carol told her mother, not getting what the fuss was all about.
“Oh God! I can’t believe this is happening to me. I can’t believe Victoria would do this to me.” Belinda said, looking like she was about to cry. She also looked scared, but that was ridiculous. Carol had never seen her mother scared of anyone or anything ever since she could remember.
“She’ll be here. I don’t see what you’re worrying so much about. Maybe she just went out to get something. Meanwhile, I’ll go take a shower and dress up, and then go look for her.”
“What do you know about anything?” Her mother hissed at her and stormed out the door, no doubt to continue her search for her missing daughter.
Carol shrugged and went to take her shower, taking her sweet time as she did so. She was not particularly interested in meeting anybody, not to talk of her sister’s unknown groom and his uncle and whoever else was at the dinner table, but it would not speak well of her if she refused to go. She came out to meet her mother sitting on her bed and bouncing her foot in agitation.
“She’s still not back yet?” Carol asked, wondering if there was more to this than met the eye. With the way her sister was self centered and did not care about hurting anyone’s feelings, she would not be surprised if she had ran away or something like that.
“No, she’s not.” Belinda said sounding so small and afraid that Carol felt a little sorry for her even though this whole mess was her fault, although she did not get why she should be afraid.
“Well, I don’t see what the big deal is. She obviously doesn’t want to get married to this guy, whoever he is. I don’t get why you are making such a big deal out of it. Just tell the guy the wedding has been called off because Victoria doesn’t want to get married to him. It’ll hurt, that is if he is in love with her, which I highly doubt, but at least they will not make the mistake of getting married to each other without love.”
“Just listen to yourself. You expect me to go and tell someone that his bride to be is no longer interested in marrying him. Do you know the sort of shame that this will bring to both families? I have invited almost all my friends and even some of my enemies, mind you. After all, my daughter is supposed to be getting married to a billionaire, but what does the ungrateful twit do? Runs off, that’s what. Who doesn’t want to get married to a billionaire for chrissakes?”
“Sensible people who know that marriage is not just about money.”
“That’s bullshit. I married your father for his money, and he was not even worth up to ten million at the time. Love came later and now, we’ve been together for over twenty seven years, still going strong.” Belinda said without a single shame.
“That it worked for you doesn’t mean that it would work for her.”
“Oh, please. Just say the word and I’ll look for a billionaire for you too. You sound so jealous.”
“Have you tried calling her?”
“Of course, I have. What do you take me for? I’m not a moron. I’ve called her several times, but she’s not picking her calls.” Belinda scoffed and checked the wristwatch on her hand. “Oh, dear. I’ve kept them waiting for over thirty minutes and that is so rude. I’ll just go and make excuses then. Come, let’s go.”
Carol followed her mother downstairs to the dining room where the guests were seated patiently and waiting for them. Carol averted her gaze and walked stiffly to an empty chair where she sat awkwardly and mumbled greetings to the table at large. It was only when she was alone with her immediate family that her mouth ran like a tap. She heard her mother and father whispering inaudibly and risked raising her gaze to quickly peek around the table. There were about ten people or less present and they were all looking at her parents who were arguing fiercely under their voices.
She spotted the groom immediately and had to stifle a gasp. The man was looking straight at her in an appraising manner that Carol found somewhat unnerving, but not exactly unpleasant. From what Carol could see of him, she could tell that Victoria was right about him. He was very good looking in a brooding kind of way, and he also looked well-built. He was sitting in a relaxed manner in a chair whose back was smaller than his wide shoulders and was surveying her with a cool, lazy interest.
Carol, who hated being stared at with a passion, felt the blush come straight from inside her and stain her cheeks before spreading to most of her face and hated herself with a passion. Why she always had to blush was beyond her. She did not know of any other twenty eight year old who blushed as fiercely as she did. To worsen matters, she could see what could only be amusement in the guy’s eyes and quickly averted her gaze. So he was amused by her? To hell with him. He was the one who was getting married to a stranger whom he had not met before all because his uncle wanted him to do so, so he was the real clown here. She heard her mother clear her throat after some more seconds of arguing with her father and she gratefully looked toward her, ignoring her sister’s fiancée.
"Um, I'm sorry everyone, but may I have your attention please?" Once everyone was quiet, Belinda continued, hardly able to hide the tremor or uncertainty in her voice. "I'm sorry, but we would have to have dinner without my daughter, Victoria. I'm afraid that she's indisposed at the moment, but is recuperating. She's asleep now and we do not want to wake her up so that she will be well-rested for the wedding tomorrow.""Oh. I'm so sorry to hear that. I wish her a speedy recovery." A middle-aged woman said, placing her hand above her chest dramatically. The other people around the table muttered their condolences and wished Victoria well, asking her to give Victoria their best wishes. Carol noticed one man in particular who looked to be in his sixties and was sitting next to Sebastian who was seated across from her. At Belinda's announcement, the man's eyes narrowed, but he did not say anything. He didn't offer any condolences as the others did, but took up his cutlery and began t
Victoria tossed her head, not showing any concern that they had apparently heard a good part of what she said. As far as she was concerned, that was their goddamn problem. “Victoria, my dear. You sure have grown into a fine young woman.” Mr. James said, coming over to give her a hug and peck where she was standing. Victoria received them rigidly, her posture giving off ‘I don’t know you vibes.’ “Now, I know you may not remember me, but I used to be your father’s best friend.” Mr. James continued. “Yes, yes. We are best friends, honey.” Their father put in, a tad too eagerly. Mr. James put up one finger to silence him and he snapped his mouth shut as though someone had used a remote button to control him. Carol watched in surprise, wondering what kind of hold this man had over her family th
Even before she got downstairs, Carol could hear the strong voice of Mr. James raised in utter displeasure. She could not hear what her parents were saying, but even without hearing them, she knew that they were trying to pacify him. It seemed they succeeded in doing that because he stopped shouting. Carol hurried toward the study and put her ear to the door, trying to hear what they were saying inside the room.“We can postpone the wedding though. We’ll find and convince her. I’m sure of it. All this is just cold feet, which is not a surprise considering the circumstances. Once she calms down, she’ll see reason.” Carol heard her mother say.“I don’t have the time or the patience for that. It was difficult enough convincing Sebastian to agree to this in the first place. He’ll gladly back out of the whole thing if he finds out that his bride has absconded. Are you absolutely sure that your daughter has run away?”“Yes. She left a note for us.”“Well, in that case, I’m afraid that there
The drive to the church was a tense one that seemed longer than usual. Carol sat stiffly in the backseat with her mother, while her father sat in the front seat beside their remaining driver. They had had to send the other two drivers away more than four months back. It was now everything made sense to Carol. Her parents were in serious debt. Looking at them, however, especially her mother, one would never guess. She was always clad in the latest, most expensive, and most fashionable clothes there were. It did not bode down well at all with Carol that they had to resort to using her as a sort of payment for their debt, but she could not let those bastards kill her uncle for something that he did not know about. Besides, she had no doubt that they would follow through on their threat to kill off the rest of their family. She only hoped that Mr. James would keep to his word and would help pay off her dad’s debt.
“You do have a way with words, don’t you?” He asked, in what sounded suspiciously like a mocking tone. “I’m sorry.” “You don’t have to be. My uncle is an asshole, even though I do love him. So why on earth are you married to me instead of your sister?” “Um, well. She…she ran… I mean, we can’t find her. We don’t know where she is.” Carol said, hating herself for the way her voice sounded so high and squeaky and the way she stammered. Sebastian wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, he was busy on his phone as he talked to her. What if he looked at her? She would no doubt curl up into a ball and die. “I can’t say that I blame her. I had the urge to do the same thing too.” Sebastian said in a sardonic voice. He did not seem to be particularly concerned, pained, or offended. Now that they were alone, a sudden thought that made her suddenly sit up ramrod straight sprung up in Carol's mind. Sex! What about sex? They were married for crying out loud. D
The car took Sebastian and Carol straight to the airport. The drive there was a quiet one, with both of them lost in their thoughts. Carol did not speak because she was tired and just wanted the day to be over, while Sebastian really did not know what to say to her. In a way, he felt sorry for her and could not imagine how she must be feeling right now. It was clear that she was the pushover of the family if she let them prevail upon her to marry a stranger in the space of some hours. He could not say he had been exactly shocked to see her walk down the aisle instead of her sister as he had sort of expected the stunt that the sister pulled this morning.Sebastian wondered what sort of hold his uncle had on her parents to make her consent to this, but he did not really care as it was actually none of his business. He would never understand what his dear uncle stood to benefit from his marriage to any of his friend’s daughters, but that was his uncle’s business, not his. All that m
“Gloria will show you to your room. I have to work. See you in the evening.” Sebastian said, and walked away to another part of the house, leaving her standing alone like a lost sheep. Carol sank into one of the comfortable armchairs in the large living room, feeling sorry for herself. It was clear that Sebastian did not want her here. The television in the room was off, and since she did not have anything to do, Carol was about to stand up to pick up the remote from the table and turn it on when a maid, from the looks of her, walked into the room.“Welcome, mistress.” The woman said, curtseying. “I’ll take you to your room so that you can rest, have a bath, and have a change of clothes.”“That would be nice, thank you. I’m tired and really need to get out of these clothes. By the way, it’s Carol and not Mistress.”Gloria, who looked to be about fifteen years older than Carol looked at her as though she was crazy and led the way up a grand staircase to a big and airy bedroo
Carol woke up by six the next morning feeling very refreshed. It seemed that the events of the day before had not even happened at all, but there was the diamond-crusted ring on her hand and the fact that she woke up in this insanely huge bedroom to remind her that it all happened and that she was now Mrs. Sebastian Jones. Stretching fully, she got up and went to take her bath, before changing into presentable house clothes and going downstairs to get breakfast. It felt weird, but not necessarily unpleasant having someone else prepare food for her. Usually, she just grabbed something to eat to and from her way back from work, as she could not cook to save her life, but now, there was someone to make meals for her immediately she indicated her desire to eat.This time around, she ate with gusto compared to the previous night when she lacked appetite. She was on her third piece of toast when Sebastian walked into the dining room all dressed in a suit. At first, he looked surprised