Chapter Two

Emma’s POV

It was him. Liam Henderson. My soon-to-be husband.

He was the one on the other end of the phone call.

“Hello, Liam,” I said in a sharp voice to show my distaste for the fact he just called me ‘love’. Usually, I like pet names. But him calling me ‘love’ in this instance irritated me to my core.

“What do you want?” I asked. At this point, my parents had stepped out of the living room to give me some privacy to talk to him.

“Is that any way to talk to your future husband, Emma?” He asked with such a deep, dominant voice that made my body tingle for a second.

“Anyway,” he continued without giving me a chance to answer his question. “I want you to come to my office tomorrow. We have things to discuss concerning this marriage.”

I was shocked. I was taken aback.

There was no way he just spoke to me like that. Who does this man think he is?

“I have things to do tomorrow. I can’t make it,” I replied sassily, making sure he was able to sense the attitude I was trying to pass across.

“Don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be, Emma. Come to my office by ten tomorrow morning. Once you get in, tell the receptionist your name, and you’ll be directed to where to go. See you then,” he says with a tone of finality and ends the call.

No way that just happened.

I stood in that same spot for a good five minutes trying to grasp what had just occurred before heading into the dining room where my parents were to hand my dad back his phone.

“What did he want?” My mum asks as she stands up from the chair she was on and walks towards me.

“He wants me to meet him at his office tomorrow, but I’m not going,” I said with a straight face, ready to march back out of the dining room.

“You have to,” my dad stands up, points a finger at me and says. “If he wants you to be at his office tomorrow, then that’s exactly where you’re going to be tomorrow. No excuses”.

I hate when my dad points his finger at me. It means he’s serious, and he’s not about to entertain any backtalk. This is all happening because of his own silly mistakes, and I’m the one paying for them. Yet he’s talking to me like I’m the problem. I really can’t deal with this man sometimes.

He walks past me and heads upstairs to his room, leaving my mum and I standing in the dining room watching his retracting footsteps.

“Don’t worry about him, sweetheart. He’ll come to his senses eventually and realize that you’re the one doing him a favor and not the other way around. It’s all going to be okay,” my mum tells me reassuringly while squeezing my shoulders before heading upstairs to join my dad.

I let out a sigh and headed up to my room to pick out an outfit for tomorrow. I have no luck picking out something, so I FaceTime my best friend, Samantha.

“Girl, you wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve had,” I said to her as soon as she picked up.

“Talk to me. What’s going on?” She asks, giving me her full attention.

I let out a small laugh at how she’s positioned herself to make sure she hears everything I’m about to say. If there’s one thing Samantha loves, it’s gossip. This wasn’t even gossip but the way she positioned herself like I was about to tell her some juicy gossip was sending me.

“Okay. Let’s start from the top,” I began. “Sammy, I’m getting married”.

“What!” She shrieked. “How? To who? When? How is this happening right now?” She throws multiple questions at me at once.

“Calm down. Take a breath,” I told her, letting out a small laugh. I may have been laughing, but nothing was funny. The thing is, if I didn’t laugh at that moment, then I’d cry, and I didn’t want that.

I go on to explain to her everything that happened this morning and end with the fact I was trying to pick out an outfit tomorrow but to no avail.

“So just this morning alone, you’ve managed to find out that you’re getting married and your whole world, as you know, is about to turn upside down? Got it,” she says with a look of pity on her face. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this, babes. I wish there was something I could do. I do,” she continued.

“It is what it is at this point. I’ve accepted my fate, and I’m just going to go along with things till it’s over. Three years. It’s for three years, and it’s done,” I told her, trying to reassure both her and me, even though I knew the reassurance wasn’t in any way working for both of us.

We go on talking for hours, which she uses to help me pick out an outfit, talk about how fine Liam is even though she didn’t like him because of this arranged marriage of a thing, and give me general updates on her life.

By the time we’re done, it’s past dinner time, so I sneak down the stairs to grab something to eat while avoiding my parents because I wasn’t about to have any more conversations with them today about this marriage or anything in general. I had nothing to say to either of them at that moment.

I went to bed rather early, and before I knew it, it was morning already. Dragging my feet to get up, I eventually took a bath and got dressed, ready to have my little meet and greet with Liam.

I headed out of the house past 9 am, not realizing his office was an hour's drive away from my parent’s place. With the construction and traffic on the way, I ended up arriving at the office by past ten thirty.

I headed straight to the receptionist and did as Liam had told me yesterday- I told the lady my name and almost immediately got attached to someone who led me to Liam’s office, but he wasn’t there.

After waiting for him for almost ten minutes, I heard the door of the office slam open.

Startled, I got up, spun around, and was faced with a 6’2 tall glass of hotness. Seeing him looking so good in a suit caused the hairs on my hands and the back of my neck to stand, but they fell immediately after he spoke.

With an emotion that resembled anger and irritation folded into one, he looked at me and nearly spat out what he wanted to say.

“You’re late”.