Chapter # 1

“I don’t want this, I said, I don’t want this!”

With tears glistening in my sapphire eyes, my miserable voice echoed in the room, only to receive a glare from my mother.

“Shut up, Eliana, do you have any idea what the hell are you saying!? Tomorrow is your wedding and that is final.” She growled, pushing me away.

She refused to listen as we were being forced. My ex-boyfriend, Kyle, was threatening me to marry him.

And I couldn’t… because my heart belonged to someone else.

“Please, try to understand, Mama, I can’t!”

“Why!?”

“Why don't you get it?! I just can’t!”

My black hairs were messy, scattered over my back as I shook my head in denial, refusing to bind my life with a man I no longer loved.

It was all forced and unwanted on my side. 

I didn’t want this!

“I can’t do this, please, don’t do this to me, Mama,” 

Whispering weakly, I wiped my gleaming tears and pleaded with her yet it was unheard. My tears or anger had no effect. 

They were determined to make me marry Kyle which I didn’t want at all cost, not when my feelings for him were non-existent. 

“Dear, please try to understand, that man is threatening your father. If you don’t get married- what if he does something horrible?” 

She made a failed attempt to make me listen and obey quietly to which I scoffed, folding my arms at my chest due to stubbornness.

“I don’t care,”

“What is wrong with you? Why are you doing this?!” 

Done with my whining, she grabbed my arm, losing her patience when I persistently declined their demand of forcing me into an undesirable marriage with an unstable man.

And to worsen my state, the door knocked and the man I least wanted to see came, causing my heart to skip a beat. 

The one with ruthless silver eyes, hard features with perfectly combed pitch-black hair and beard entered dominantly.

Not bothering to look at me, he called my mother.

“Mrs. Duke,”

“Ah, Denzel, thank God, you are finally here. Please, make her listen, tell her to marry Kyle quietly,” 

She smiled in relief when the only person who could make me agree came and that fact brought a tear near my eyelids.

He wouldn’t do that to me, right?

Narrowing my blue gaze, I wanted him to look at me which he didn’t, inducing a strange ache as he approached us slowly.

“I will,”

What…?

Pulling away, I grit my teeth in frustration, not accepting this as my fate.

Especially not when the one I wanted was before me!

“When I have said I won’t then I won’t,” 

I declared in a hiss that made his jaw clenched, earning a flinch from me.

“Your father is in the hospital because of the heart attack, stop being selfish at least now and-”

Before she could use emotional attacks to force me to marry he cut her off by raising his one hand in the air and resting the other in the pocket of his black pants.

“Mrs. Duke, calm down, I will talk to her. Please give us a few moments to be alone,”

“Okay…” 

Shaking her head in disappointment, she didn’t argue further and walked away as my body shivered when we were alone in my room.

The button of his white shirt was opened, revealing his toned chest and power with perfectly rolled sleeves. 

He had always been devilishly handsome. 

Liting up his cigarette, he rolled his eyes as if me or my feelings never mattered to him and stopped before me. 

“Hmm? What is your problem?”

“Wh- what?”

“Why don’t you want to marry Kyle?”

Releasing the smoke I hate, his tone demanded an answer but my chest constricted upon receiving such coldness from his side.

“He is rich, he wants you, doing everything for you. He will keep you happy. Then what seems to be the issue?” 

“How can you say this?”

With a trembling posture and gaped mouth, I stared at him in disbelief as he spoke so heartlessly that my mind shut down.

“You can’t be serious. How can you allow this marriage to happen in the first place?”

He smoked calmly as I weakly whimpered.

“Stop it, stop him, stop this all, Denzel! I don’t want this!”

“You are going to marry him and that is final,”

“No… no,”

With a tear coming near my eyelid, I whispered sorrowfully, praying he would understand.  

“I don’t want him, I want you, Denzel,”

…But to no avail. 

“I am thirty and you are twenty-two, you are so much younger than me, Eliana. Plus, I have never seen you from a romantic perspective,”

A tear rolled down my cheek followed by a cease functioning due to sorrow. 

“You and I were never anything, snap out of it,”

“What…?”

My misery, my feelings, nothing mattered to him. It failed to reach him.

‘How could he forget the moments we spent? Our time together? Wasn’t I… precious to him?’

“Then why did you come near me?!” 

“Why did you touch me?!”

“Said those beautiful things to me?!”

I whisper-yelled and was about to hit his chest for evoking emotion in me and now neglecting me like I never meant anything.1

Grabbing my wrist harshly, he looked down at me with no emotions in those dark eyes.

“It was a mistake,”

“No…” 

Unable to bear it, a few tears powerlessly rolled down, causing him to narrow his beautiful gaze.

“Please tell me you are lying. You can’t say this… you- you cherish me, don’t you?”

His lock on me became harder before releasing it, draining me of energy, leaving me vulnerable. 

“Please tell me you are lying, I will accept lies too but say I am not a mistake,” 

I grew desperate by the destruction surrounding me. My eyes sought compassion, sadly, I found none.

Still… still, I wanted him to be mine.

To hold me.

“Please don’t break my heart, Denzel,” 

“I am not here to hear your whining or about your needless love, Eliana.” He scowled.

Pointing his finger outrageously at me to stop expressing my true feelings for him. 

He had no intention of considering my emotions worthy.

In a heartbeat, everything fragmented.

But, why was he doing this?

Was everything a lie? 

Did those moments never mean anything?

“How could you do this to me, Denzel?”

When I released more tears, he realized his action. He curled his hand in a powerless fist and came closer again. 

“Okay, I agree, Kyle is being a jerk right now but he will keep you happy, trust me, marry him.” 

“No, no, no,”

“Listen, dammit,”

“NO!”

I was on the verge of sobbing, glaring at him with tears, he was stabbing my heart with those ruthless statements.

“He will be a much better man than I will be, Eliana, you must marry him,”

Sighing, he was about to place his hand on my shoulder to convince me but I slapped it away. 

“I. Said. No,” I growled.

Staring dead into his eyes that flickered a malevolence which doubled my perturbation.

He arched an eyebrow, probably giving me a moment to change my statement, when I didn’t, he ended up chuckling darkly.

Holding his sides, he let out a ‘tch, tch, tch,’ sound, shaking his head as I was bewildered by what happened to him. 

“You don’t understand the language of affection, do you?” 

Smirking, he turned his head away and turned back with a darker, menacing glare that startled me endlessly as he grabbed my arm harshly, making me gasp in pain.

“Denzel, leave me!”

“Now listen to me quietly, woman, I am not here to listen to your whining and refusals,”

Leaning dangerously closer to my face where our breaths almost mixed up, sending a deadly shiver down my spine.

He looked dead into my eyes and growled furiously.

“I will drag you down the aisle myself if you resisted, Eliana,”

Failing to endure this ache, I ended up crying terribly and was about to place my hand on his chest. 

“Don’t do this to me, Denzel, please, I love you-”

“AND I FUCKING DON’T!” 

Frightening me by his yelling, he pushed me back.

Shattering my heart by his rejection as I could feel an intense pain being shot through my chest.

It felt like my soul was being suffocated with tears gleaming in my eyes but everything was razed.

My dreams, my love, my expectations, my future, everything.

… Because he never felt the same. 

“So you better seal those lips, do as your parents say and marry Kyle Hudson quietly,”

“No, no, no, listen-” 

“You damn will,”

“Denzel, please-”

Giving me one last warning, his heavy steps retreated, leaving me in my room all alone to weep until I couldn’t produce more tears.

“No..!!”

I was profoundly agonized at my fate where I was going to marry a man I don’t love, by the man I love…