The BadBoy's Pre-planned Future Bride

2: Stupid Contract

"What do you mean by Jax Dawson?" I scoffed. My mouth was left agape, my hands fanned my face incessantly. "Mom! Are you kidding me?" I yelled louder than I intended to, grasping her shoulders really tight.

"Please calm—"

"Don't tell me to calm down." I cut her off, shooting her a glare. "Why'd I have a Pre-planned marriage? What am I? A character in an arranged marriage romance novel that'll accept that as her stupid fate? Well… guess what, Mom?"

"Lexi, will you hear me out?" She sighed, ran a hand over her face and dug her fingernails into her perfectly braided Afro.

"There's no way I'm hearing you out!" I snapped at her. This all felt like a dream to me. "I have a boyfriend." I stated the obvious to her.

"I know…" she furrowed her eyebrows in worry, glancing around. "I understand how you feel."

"No, you don't." I shook my head. "J–Jax Dawson? Of all people, it just had to be Jax Dawson?"

"You know him?" She drew her eyes in askance.

"Well, duh." I rolled my eyes. "Jax Dawson— the stupid dude who thinks he's the best of all dudes out there, who acts like a crazy grim ripper?"

"My goodness, you know him…" she grasped my shoulders, wearing a smile. "That's perfect!"

"No, it isn't. I hate him." I slapped her hands off me. "Plus, I have a boyfriend, Henry Camera, as you all know." I rolled my eyes, shaking myself out of her grip.

"Of course, I'm aware of who your 20-year-old, College student, long-distance relationship boyfriend is." She almost rolled her eyes.

"So? Do you want me to leave him and accept my fate that Dad signed a crazy Business contract, literally selling me out," I emphasized in the last words. "... Just to get married to the person I hate the most in this World?"

"No. I don't want you to feel pressured by this Contract. You can have your boyfriend or future boyfriends, do whatever you wanna do with yourself and enjoy your life but I want you to have it at your proximate memory that you're to get married into the Dawson's, else you want your Father's Wealth to drop from Billionaire to Thousandnaire, if that's a thing."

"It's Thousandaire, Mom." I corrected, drawing my eyebrows in askance. "So… you mean, I can do whatever I want and not bother about already having a planned marriage?"

"Well… if you choose not to accept this, I won't force you to. I promise to stand against your father if he tries to force you into this." She flashed me a supportive smile.

A smirk slowly appeared on my lips. "Well… okay."

"You know, you can try to know Jax better and maybe…" she shrugged, "...fall in love with him to avoid huge problems for this family."

"Mom!" I snapped.

"What? It'll be a better idea. I think your Dad plans on hosting a dinner party for both families so you can meet each other and get to know each other better." She shrugged again.

"What?!" I huffed. "Me?... Jax… together… party? Dinner? Know each other?" I stuttered, not able to balance my words.

"So what?" She frowned. "You can't fall in love with someone without knowing the person. Jasper wouldn't force you to marry Jax Dawson so we'll try to make you both a couple."

"Mom!" I groaned. "I have a boyfriend, remember?"

"It's not stopping you from having your boyfriend or more." She reiterated. "You just have to get to know each other before you finally make your decision in the next few years."

"And you think Henry would like the idea of this if I tell him?" I raised an arched eyebrow at her, leaning my body's weight on one side.

"You'll not be so stupid to tell him if you don't want to break your relationship, right?" She lifted her eyebrow as well.

I heaved a sigh. "This is terrible."

"So you agree?" She grinned.

"No way! I still hate Jax and I forever will." I yelled.

"Wait… why do you hate him?" She squinted her eyes. "Did he perhaps… hurt you in any way?"

"No," I shook my head. There was no way I could tell her it was for no reason. My stance on objecting this was going to be almost pointless if I told her that. "You don't have to know why." I folded my arms across my chest.

"We'll save that topic for later. So… you'll talk to Jasper soon." I was surprised to know that she brushed the topic off. Mom never stopped pestering me till she got the information she needed from me.

"Talk with Dad soon…"

***

Our (Nora, my 15-year-old rude and dumb younger sister and my) driver, Mr Mike Thomas, pulled the car to a stop in front of Nora's High School. We attended separate High Schools because it was going to be a hell of a problem for both of us if we attended the same school.

"Bye, Nora." I waved my hand to her side, not raising my head from my phone.

She huffed. Through my sideways glance, I observed her fold her arms over her chest, not getting out of the car.

I sighed, setting my phone aside and fixed my gaze on her. "What's with the attitude now? As far as I remember, I haven't stalked you for your new boyfriends or crush, or taken something that belongs to you, so what?"

"So what?" She gruffed, pointing her index finger at me. Jeez, she knew how much I hated being pointed at. "I overheard your conversation with Mom yesterday." She dropped her hand.

"Yeah… so?" I rolled my eyes.

"So? You're not crazy, are you? If you don't get married to him, you'll ruin father's business. I can't bear the pain of not being a Billionaire's daughter anymore. I'm better off this way than a wretched man's daughter." She stated as a matter of factly.

"So you're in support of this pre-planned marriage? Would you accept this if it were you?" I creased my forehead.

"Pfft. No way." She scoffed.

"And you want me to accept it as me?" My frown became harder.

"Lexi, I did my research." She held out her iPad, swiped on its screen then pointed it to my face. It had tons of Jax's pictures in different outfits. "The dude is hot and good enough for you. What's stopping you?"

"I hate him and I have a boyfriend." I clicked my tongue.

"Henry? You know I dislike him so he shouldn't be a limiting force." She dropped her iPad between us. "Lexi, please…"

"What?!" I screamed, causing Mr Thomas to flinch. Sometimes, I forgot the presence of the driver. "You don't like Henry but I do."

Her facial expression turned into a sad one which I found hard to believe; Nora was such a pretender all the time. "You've got to accept this." She placed the back of her palm on her forehead, rested her head on the Headrest and wailed dramatically. "My life will be ruined! I can't be poor!" She cried.

"You selfish little Devil, get out of the car!" I almost laughed at how dramatic she always was.

"You're so mean and annoying. I'll be your worst nightmare if you don't agree to this." She opened the car door, angrily pulling her school bag out with her. "Mike, make sure to break her legs and ruin her face when she gets out of the car so no one will ever like her and she'll be forced to go with Jax, okay?" She barked.

Mr Thomas, as I respectfully and preferred to call him, only chuckled.

She glowered at him. "You're chuckling? Is it funny?" Her voice possessed authority and lack of respect. "It's an order, not a joke."

"I'm sorry, Miss." He bowed politely.

"Dumb." She huffed, ignoring how rude she was to the man that was probably old enough to be her father.

"When will you stop being the rude dumbass you are?" I shook my head, embarrassed at her behavior. "I'm so sorry on her behalf, Mr Thomas." I apologized.

"No problem." He chuckled, starting the car and zoomed off.

***

I hadn't seen Ensley all day and it bothered me like hell. I needed someone to let my anger out to and she was the only one that was perfect for that.

I didn't understand why she wasn't here yet. Okay… she hadn't been in today's classes but she was in Spanish class right now. I had to let go of the eagerness to blurt things out and focus on my Latin class right now.

***

Class was finally over and the weird-looking Latin teacher left the class. I jumped to my feet, quickly shoving my books and other stuff in my school bag.

"Ensley, Ensley, Ensley." I whispered to myself, zipping my bag close and hung it's straps over my shoulders.

As a result of hurrying too much, I happened to bump into someone. Well… if you guessed that someone was an extremely tall figure with a rock hard body, you were right. I hit my nose really hard on the figure.

I raised my head to catch the grin from Julian Brooke, Jax's best friend.

"Ouch!" I rubbed my nose. "Why were you standing there? My nose hurts so bad now." I hissed.

The grin didn't peel off his lips. His dark brown eyes shimmered with delight and his dark skin didn't miss the spotlight. What was so happy-causing about me that made him smile that much? 'Stupid, it's obviously not because of you'. It was so obvious that he was in a good mood.

"Hi, I'm Julian. You bumped into me out of hurry." He held the strap of his bag.

"I know who you are and I'm sorry." I wanted to discharge him rather than get into an argument. This baby badly needed to talk to her bff.

I dashed out of the classroom.

"Bye, Lexi." I heard him shout.

"Ensley, where are you?" I muttered, running towards her Spanish class.

As perfect as it seemed, Ensley walked out of Spanish class with… stupid Cora beside her, giggling like chirping birds. Cora's blonde hair was tied up in two ponytails and secured with two pink hair bands. Her emerald eyes glimmered with happiness unlike the look of hatred they directed at me.

I held Ensley's wrist, pulled her and started running.

"Hey, Lexi!… Bye Cora!" She yelled to Cora behind us. I didn't dare look at that Demoness' face. Okay— could someone define my problem? Why did I hate Cora this much again? Well… many reasons.

After I was certain I had run quite a short distance away, I brought myself to a stop, placing my hands on my knees and panted to catch my breath.

"Now will you explain what this drama is for?" She stood in akimbo, quirked a corner of her full lips. "Drama queen."

"There's an emergency." I stood straight. "I went home yesterday, Mom pulled me into her room nervously then— boom— I found out that my Dad signed a contract a couple of years back to boost his company's growth to the stage it is now. The contract stated that I'd have to marry their son when I'm of a marriageable age."

"Whoa—" she widened her round brown eyes. "That's…"

"You haven't heard the most terrible part."

"What could be more terrible than that?" She puckered her forehead in concern.

"His son happens to be Jax." I announced aloud, immediately regretting my loudness after realizing a few students were walking past us. Well— they didn't seem like they paid attention to what I yelled about. They were probably interested in other things.

"J–Jax?" She stuttered, widening her eyes more than they already were.

"Yes! Jax Dawson!" I lowered my voice.

"Oh… so you're the one?" My entire body froze, my heart skipped to my throat then fell down to my feet at that authoritative voice that talked behind me.

With my eyes tightly shut and my fists clenched, I pivoted to the sound of his voice, already knowing who it was. I gained the courage to open the eyes and catch the gaze of Jax fixed on me.