Woke Up Married to the Handsome Stranger

Elijah Anderson

My brain froze for a second. The number sat there in the room and turned my blood cold. One billion dollars. Is he out of his mind? Who has one billion dollars casually lying around their basement? I’m sure he doesn’t even have that kind of money.

“You cannot be serious,” I said, but I already knew the answer. He watched me, unblinking.

“It is standard, legal, and with your signature at the bottom of every page.” I checked through again, and my signature was indeed at the bottom of all the pages, along with my full name. s**t. I was sober enough to write my name in full and sign freaking documents, but still can’t remember anything.

“You tricked me,” I said, and the tears came then in a rush. I hadn’t in any way wanted this. I just got my heart broken by a man I was in love with for seven years. I loved him since I was in college, and I was so glad when he asked me out in my sophomore year. As if that wasn’t enough, another man is about to make my life even more miserable.

“You took advantage of me. I was vulnerable.”

“You were not vulnerable enough to be legally incompetent,” he said. “You were drunk. You were not legally incapacitated. You could form intent. You did. And you said you would do anything. I have it on record.” He closed the folder like he wasn’t just crashing into my life.

I got up because the dress felt like another person's reality and not mine. I paced in small circles, my footsteps like punctuation marks of panic. “This is a mistake,” I said. “I will call the police. I will call a lawyer. Someone will fix this. I will get a restraining order if I have to. You cannot force me to-”

He cut me off with a movement so quiet I might have imagined it. He walked to me and came close enough that I could see the pale lines at his knuckles, the faint scar at his thumb. He did not touch me, but his presence was intimidating enough.

“You will stay,” he said simply. “There are consequences for signing and leaving. You will stay, Diora, because you were the one who said yes. Until three years pass, the terms are binding. If you attempt to break them, you will owe me one billion dollars. If you refuse to live as my wife, you will forever be indebted because you and I both know you can’t cough up a billion dollars in ten lifetimes.” Ouch! Okay, rude……

The room tilted in and out of focus. For a while, I did not know if the sound swelling behind my teeth was a sob or a laugh. Everything I had been and everything I thought I would be lay in tatters at my feet. I had been reckless and drunk and foolish, and now I was trapped in a marriage.

“What do you want from me?” I asked finally, because if he had plans, I wanted them loud enough to be argued with.

He stood as if the question deserved the shortest reply he could give. “You will live in my house. You will attend events when required. You will not interfere in my business. You will not ask questions. You will do exactly as I say, when I say it.”

“You can’t make me do any of that. You may have successfully forced me into marriage, but you can’t make me listen to anything you say.” I countered. The back and forth was draining me mentally.

He smiled in amusement. “And I would make sure it is severely difficult for you to try.”

I stood up from the bed and began to angrily take off the wedding dress and let it pool around my legs. It was pointless arguing with him. He already had his mind made up. My life was officially ruined, and he didn’t have a care. I wanted to fall in love, get married, and spend the rest of my life with my loving husband. That plan is in the trash now though.

I stood before him in the fancy lingerie that whoever had dressed me in, but I felt anything but beautiful. I was miserable. How did this become my life? First, my best friend and boyfriend betrayed me, make that ex. And now this stranger has taken away my freedom. What more is to come?

“Please.” I tried one more time.

He did not answer. He left the room for a moment and returned with a glass of water. He set it on the nightstand without speaking a word. “Put them on,” he said while pointing to some clothes neatly folded on the dresser. “We are leaving. Don’t waste my time.”

I wanted to be furious that he gave me orders and then offered comfort in the same breath. I wanted to be furious at myself for even being in this room. I wanted to be furious that I had said yes, even if I had not remembered saying it. But I couldn’t. I was homeless, with a paycheck that offered close to nothing. I can’t afford a place and feed myself either. Not to mention the pile of student loans I have to pay off. I’ll find a way out, I just have to suck it up for now.

I stepped out of the dress because my body had decided it was time to move, and when I put on a plain shirt and jeans he had left on the chair, they smelled faintly of him and of money. I tied my hair back with fumbling fingers and tried to make myself appear ordinary, because ordinary was safer somehow than the glitter of a wedding dress.

As we walked out of the suite together, it was like I was stepping into a new reality. Something dawned on me…..I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know the name of the man I was married to. How pathetic.

“I don’t know your name.” I decided to air my thoughts. He chuckled in a deep, masculine tone.

“Oh, darling. My name……Elijah. Elijah Anderson.” My eyes went wide as saucers. If I didn’t know I was in trouble before, I certainly knew now, and it’s not going to end well.