Chapter Four: The Seven-Minute Marriage
1426 Words
They were married on a Thursday no one would remember.
No flowers, no guests, no music.
Only a judge, two witnesses borrowed from the Drexler legal department, and the smell of rain coming through an open window in the east salon of the Drexler estate.
Alara wore a plain ivory dress Ismena had sent over the night before, silk, high-necked, long-sleeved, the kind of garment that cost more than most wedding gowns but looked almost austere.
Someone had braided her dark hair into a low knot. She could feel the weight of it against her nape like a collar.
She had not seen her father since the hospital.
He had not asked to meet her.
He had not sent a note.
He had simply signed the license the day it arrived and flown back from London the night before.
Now he stood three feet away, and the air around him felt refrigerated.
Alara knew it was him before anyone would have known by the way the room rearranged itself around his silence. Footsteps stopped. Breathing quieted. Even the judge lowered his voice.
“Miss Tyrell,” the judge began.
“Mrs. Drexler-to-be,” Ismena corrected softly from her seat on the velvet settee. The old woman had insisted on attending.
Alara felt Zavian move closer. Expensive wool brushed her sleeve. His cologne was winter night and cedar smoke, no warmth, only precision.
The judge cleared his throat. “Do you, Alara Marie Tyrell, take this man…”
She tuned out the words. They were meaningless anyway.
She was trading one prison for another, only this one came with better wallpaper.
When it was Zavian’s turn, his voice was exactly what the tabloids promised: low, flat, lethal.
“I do.”
No hesitation. No tenderness. Just fact.
The ring he slid onto her finger was cold platinum and a single black diamond (sharp enough to cut if she pressed too hard). She wondered, distantly, if he had chosen it himself or if his assistant had.
“You may kiss the bride,” the judge said, awkward in the silence.
Zavian didn’t move.
Ismena’s cane tapped once on the marble. A command.
Alara felt him lean in. His lips brushed the corner of her mouth, not a kiss, an acknowledgment Then he stepped back so quickly the air shifted.
Seven minutes from entrance to exit.
The judge and witnesses left first. Then Ismena, who paused to press a papery kiss to Alara’s cheek and whisper, “Be ferocious, darling.”
Then Zavian.
He stopped at the threshold. She heard the soft rustle of his coat.
“I’ll be in Tokyo,” he said to the room, not to her. “My grandmother will handle anything you need.”
And he was gone.
The front doors closed with the finality of a vault.
Alara stood alone, still wearing the black diamond that felt like a shackle, and laughed once, a sharp, bitter laugh.
A soft voice came behind her: “This way, Mrs. Drexler.”
The butler, Graves. Seventy years old, his voice like dry leaves. He offered his arm. She took it because pride was useless when you couldn’t see the staircase.
They walked through corridors that smelled of beeswax and salt air. An elevator hummed. Another hallway. A door opened onto a suite so large the echo took four seconds to return.
“Your rooms, madam. Madam Ismena thought you would prefer the south wing, because of the ocean view...." He stopped, embarrassed.
“It’s fine,” Alara said. “Describe it to me.”
Graves cleared his throat. “Floor-to-ceiling windows, white oak floors, pale blues and ivories. The bed is king, low to the ground. Bathroom is to your left, ten paces, handle on the right. Closet is already stocked. The intercom button is a large circle beside every doorframe. Press once for staff, twice for Madam Ismena, hold for security.”
“Thank you, Graves.”
He paused. “May I say, madam… welcome. And… I am sorry.”
She heard real grief in the last three words. It almost undid her.
When the door closed, she was finally, completely alone.
She counted steps until her cane found the bed. Sat. Removed the heels someone had forced onto her feet that morning and Let the silence settle.
Then she did what she had promised herself she would never do in this house: she cried.
Not for the marriage.
Not even for her eyes.
But for the girl who had believed, for one stupid moment, that someone might choose her.
F
She heard ootsteps in the hallway and then A knock.
“Mrs. Drexler?” A woman’s voice, young, nervous. “I’m Celeste, your personal maid. Madam Ismena sent me.”
Alara wiped her face. “Come in.”
Celeste entered like a frightened bird. “I’ve brought tea. And… and Mr. Drexler left instructions.”
Alara’s mouth twisted. “Instructions?”
Celeste read from a card, voice trembling:
You have full access to the house and accounts.
Medical appointments will be scheduled at your convenience.
I will return when business permits.
He had signed it simply: Z.D.
Celeste hesitated. “He… he also sent this.”
Something heavy was placed in Alara’s lap. A box, velvet, long and narrow. Inside: a white cane, custom, lightweight carbon fiber, folding, with a crystal handle cool against her palm.
On the shaft, engraved in braille the maid read it to her:
Property of A.T.D.
Use it. Do not fall.
No apology. No warmth. Just brutal practicality.
Alara closed her fist around the cane until the crystal bit into her skin.
That night she explored her new cage by touch.
The bedroom opened onto a terrace, she found the door because the wind tasted of salt. Beyond the railing, waves crashed against cliffs she would never see. She stood there until her hair whipped wild and her dress plastered to her legs, letting the ocean scream for her.
Somewhere below, a car engine roared to life. Tires on gravel. Fading into the distance.
Tokyo, she thought. Of course.
She did not sleep.
At 3:17 a.m. the intercom crackled.
“Mrs. Drexler?” Graves again, apologetic. “Madam Ismena is here.”
Alara found her way to the sitting room. Ismenabwas waiting in an armchair, wrapped in cashmere despite the mild night.
“I won’t ask how the wedding was,” the old woman said dryly. “My grandson has the romantic instincts of a tax audit.”
Alara managed a smile. “He gave me a cane.”
“He’s efficient,” Ismena allowed. “Also terrifying. The cane is the closest thing to an apology he is capable of right now.”
Alara sat. “I don’t want his apology.”
“Good".
Silence stretched, filled only by the ocean.
Ismena’s voice softened. “He hasn’t let anyone touch him since his parents died. Not truly. You’re the first person in twelve years who has forced him to feel something he can’t buy or intimidate away. Guilt is a beginning.”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s beginning.” Alara said.
“You already are,” Ismena said. “Whether either of you likes it or not.”
She rose. “Tomorrow we start your new life. Lessons, doctors, whatever you need. And Alara?”
“Yes?”
“Make him come home. He thinks distance is safety. Teach him it isn’t.”
After Ismena left to her bedroom, Alara returned to the terrace.
She raised the crystal-handled cane toward the invisible stars and spoke into the dark.
“Zavian Drexler,” she said clearly, “you just married the one person who will never beg you for anything.”
The wind carried her words out to sea.
Somewhere over the Pacific, thirty thousand feet up, Zavian stared at the same black diamond on his own finger and felt, for the first time in twelve years, something perilously close to fear.
- Writer
