The Ashridge secret

​ The mirror didn’t lie, but it certainly knew how to mock. It mocked my reflection, I could barely recognise me. But the off-shoulder wedding gown fitted me flawlessly. It trailed behind me like a masterpiece of haute couture. It was also an expensive prison. "Stand tall, Elira," a cold, sharp voice commanded from the plush chaise lounge behind me. The heavy, cloying scent of French lavender and expensive leather filled the room before her fingers even touched my skin. My mother. Erica. She stood up, her movements fluid and calculated, and walked over to adjust the hem of my dress. To the boutique designers hovering anxiously near the door, she was the picture of a doting, high-society mother ensuring her daughter’s special day was flawless. To me, she was a warden checking the thickness of the bars. "A wife of the Ashridge family does not slouch," she chided, her sharp eyes meeting mine in the silver-framed glass. "Dominic is a man who commands entire boardrooms. He expects perfection, and I have spent twenty-four years ensuring you are capable of delivering it." "Did you check your phone, Mom?" I asked. "Did Talia call? Is she on her way to the chapel?" Erica’s hands stopped midway. dead against the silk. "I told you yesterday, Elira. Talia’s father had another relapse. She is a penniless girl pulling double shifts at a municipal hospital. She does not belong at a wedding of this caliber, nor does she have the time to play maid of honor." "She’s my best friend," I choked out, turning around to face her despite the rigid boning of the corset pinning me in place. "She would have called me. She wouldn't just leave me alone today. Not unless... unless you did something to keep her away." Erica stepped closer. She then spoke those words that had stripped away my confidence for as long as I could remember. "I built this destiny for you, Elira. I pulled us out of the suffocating mud after your useless father died. I cleaned up the messes, I managed the debts, and I put you on a path to a throne. Do not look back at the ghosts of the past." "Dad loved me. But you never even kept his pictures. You wiped Mark out of our lives like he was nothing but a bad investment!" I fired back. A dangerous, terrifying stillness settled over my mother’s eyes. For a split second, the polished high-society matriarch vanished. "Your father was a weak man. He would have ruined us with his pathetic morals," she whispered. "I saved you from him. Now, dry your eyes. The boutique owner is coming and just then, the door clicked open. The boutique owner stepped in. "Ladies, the final adjustments are complete. Shall we begin the packaging process?" Erica instantly stepped back, her face locking into a flawless, serene smile. "Right away. We'll take it." The woman smiled warmly. "Wonderful. With the rush alterations, the total comes to sixty-five hundred." My breath caught. "Sixty-five hundred? Mom, wait... that's insane. We can't afford—" "We are marrying into the Ashridge empire, Elira," Erica cut me off smoothly, her eyes drilling into mine with absolute contempt as she slipped a sleek black card across the counter. "You don't have what it takes to think about the numbers. Leave the execution to me." The card reader beeped its crisp approval. The transaction was complete. The trap was locked. I pressed my forehead against the passenger's window as we drove to the Ashridge private estate chapel. At the steering wheel, Erica was unbothered by my silence. “You will thank me one day, Elira,” Erica said, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “A man like Dominic Ashridge doesn’t come around twice. You are stepping into stability, wealth, and an opportunity most girls would kill for. Everything I did, every sacrifice I made, was an investment to ensure you’d never know what it means to struggle.” I didn’t turn to look at her. I didn’t want her to see the bitter twist of my lips. An investment. That was all I had ever been to her. A project to be managed, a asset to be traded. “I don’t even know him, Mom,” I whispered against the glass, the moisture of my breath fogging the window. “The few times we’ve been together, you’re always there, standing over us like a hawk. I don’t feel like his bride. I feel like a piece of property being handed over to complete a corporate merger.” Erica’s tapping stopped. Her voice hardened, losing its maternal veneer entirely. “You know enough. You know his name, you know his bank account, and you know the status he gives you. Romance is a luxury for the foolish, Elira. Sentiment doesn’t pay for imported orchids or protect you from the ugliness of the world. Your father is six feet under because he thought with his heart. He couldn’t even see you grow up.” As soon as the car pulled into the sweeping driveway of the Ashridge estate, I didn’t wait for my mother’s help or the chauffeur’s hand. I hurried into the bridal suite with the heavy garment bag. In less than two hours, I would be at the altar. I sat on the bed and cried because I had no genuine support with no genuine support from people that cared about me. I thought of Talia, who should have been here cracking terrible jokes to break the tension. I thought of my father, Mark, whose soft, protective laughter had disappeared from my life far too soon, leaving me entirely unprotected against my mother’s ambitions. Stepping out of this room and into a marriage with Dominic was terrifying. But as I listened to my mother’s elegant, calculated heels clicking down the hallway outside my door, I realized something chilling. Even if Dominic Ashridge turned out to be a cold stranger, even if his world was complex and unforgiving, it would still mean escaping the cage Erica had built for me. Or so I desperately hoped.