Wicked Snow

Unhappily Married

“Grace, do you take Kingsley, as your lawfully wedded husband, to love and cherish from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health?” the priest asked, turning the attention of the entire church to me.

I swallowed nervously the words stuck in my throat. That was the moment that would seal my fate for the next two years. I knew that saying those two seemingly harmless words would lead me into something I would resent for the rest of my life, and I wanted nothing more than to be able to walk out right then and there. I couldn’t do that though. Sarah and her parents were relying on me going through with it, even if they didn’t realize it.

So, I said the words I had to say, feeling like I was choking on them like the bitter lie they were. “I do.”

“Then I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the priest declared happily, unknowingly trapping me in a loveless marriage. “You may kiss the bride,” he added.

My body froze in shock. Somehow having to kiss my husband at the end of the ceremony hadn’t even crossed my mind. I seriously considered bolting at that moment, running from the church like Julia Roberts in ‘Runaway Bride’. Only, unlike her, I had actually gone through with the wedding vows, so it was too late to make a run for it.

I must have looked as stiff as a statue as Kingsley stepped forward, wrapped one arm around my waist, placed his other hand behind my head, and kissed me. The kiss lasted longer than I would have liked, but my new husband did nothing more than press his lips to mine, for which I was grateful for. It was a decidedly unexciting kiss, but the crowd in the church burst into applause as if they thought it was the most wonderful thing they had ever seen.

I had the urge to wipe my lips with the back of my hand, disgusted by the kiss that was as unwanted as the marriage itself, but I resisted the urge. Kingsley took my hand in his and with the wedding party behind us, we left the church as newlyweds.

I contained the urge to roll my eyes when I saw Lucas and Daniel, his bodyguards, were waiting for us right outside the church. There apparently wasn’t ever a time and place where Kingsley wasn’t followed by his shadows. They pushed back the reporters and photographers who hadn’t made the cut to be inside the church and were trying their best to get photos and statements from the ‘happily’ married couple.

“Why are you wearing black Grace?” one of them asked, causing a volley of questions about my choice to be shouted.

To my dismay, Kingsley paused on the steps of the church to allow a few photos to be taken. “Smile,” he ordered me, pinching my waist in warning.

“Your wish is my command, dear husband” I said sarcastically, putting on a fake smile for the cameras.

Just to pay him back for pinching me though, I turned to him and kissed him hard on the cheek, just above his beard, leaving some of my bright red lipstick behind. The sight of it put a real smile on my face, and I could only hope it would make it onto the cover of at least one magazine.

“Let’s go,” he said after a few more photographs had been snapped, none the wiser to the lipstick on his face.

With the help of Lucas and Daniel, we made it to the limo that was waiting to take us to the reception. I was even happier about my dress change when I realized how hard it would have been to step into a car in that poofy monstrosity. Instead, I easily slipped into my seat, the picture of grace in my sleek black dress.

“Want to tell me why you’re wearing a black dress?” Kingsley asked when the limo started moving.

Lucas and Daniel shifted nervously in their seats across from me and my new husband.

“What’s wrong with black?” I asked as with raised eyebrows, pretending that I didn’t see the issue.

“Black is what you wear to a funeral, not to a f*****g wedding,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Exactly,” I said simply, letting him know exactly what I thought of our wedding.

“You are f*****g impossible,” he muttered in frustration.

“Yeah well, you’re not exactly Mr. easy-breezy either,” I responded drily.

“What happened to that truce you wanted so badly?” he huffed out.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “Let’s just be civil,” I said with a sigh. “But in the spirit of our truce, I think it’s best to warn you that you have a little something on your face. Right over there” I said, pointing to the red stain on his face.

Kingsley wrinkled his brow in confusion and wiped his cheek roughly with his hand. When he saw the red mark that had transferred to the back of his hand, he looked at me with pursed lips. “Seriously? Could you be more of a child?” he said with an irritated roll of his eyes.

I looked across at Lucas and Daniel, glad to see they thought the lipstick stain was quite amusing. At least they found humor in what I had done, unlike their highly-strung boss.

“In my defense, I am half your age,” I pointed out while Kingsley tried to clean his cheek. “Compared to you, I basically am a child.” I shivered in revulsion at that fact, feeling grossed out that I was married to a man old enough to be my father.

“Could you just shut up for a f*****g second,” Kingsley snapped, losing his patience. “Why can’t you take anything seriously? Everything is just a big joke to you,” he shouted angrily, his voice loud and scary.

If there was one thing a man could do to make me shut down and be quiet, it was scream at me. My body had been trained to react to my dad’s shouting by going still and quiet. So, Kingsley’s angry and raised voice succeeding in doing what he wanted it to– shut me up. I swallowed down the sudden emotion clogging my throat, hating that anybody had the power to make me feel so belittled and insignificant. It was something my father was great at doing, and it was something Kingsley was apparently just as good as.

Lucas and Daniel gave me sympathetic looks, clearly unimpressed with how their boss had spoken to me. I looked down at my hands to avoid their gazes, my eyes catching on the overwhelmingly large diamond wedding ring Kingsley had placed on my finger during the ceremony. It was as garish as the wedding dress my father’s assistant had picked out and was as far from what I would have wanted as possible. The flashiness of their world just wasn’t me.

“The people at this reception are important,” Kingsley said as the limo pulled to a stop what must have been ten minutes of silence later. “Don’t embarrass me, and for the love of god, just try to pretend like we’re happily married,” he said in exasperation, again scolding me like a child.

“Okay,” I replied morosely, not having a cheeky or sarcastic response for him that time. His snapping at me had ensured that I wasn’t in the mood to fight his commands with dry humor. I hated being screamed at because I had come to associate it with both watching my mother being abused by my father and being hit by him myself.

“I should have just married a goddamn middle-aged housewife,” he muttered before gesturing for Daniel and Lucas to get out the car and clear a path for us.

“Yes, you should have,” I said softly, responding to his comment. “Because I’m not going to just obey your every command like a trained lap dog. I’m a person, and I deserve some respect.” My voice lacked the strength the words merited, but I was proud of myself for saying them. After treating me like a petulant child and belittling me in front of his bodyguards, I needed him to know that I wouldn’t stand for it.

“I’ll show you some respect when you stop making it so obvious you don’t want this marriage,” he replied. “You couldn’t fake a half-decent smile when we staged that date, you wore a black wedding dress for god’s sake, and you looked f*****g miserable the whole way through the ceremony. If you want my respect, then you need to start acting the part.”

“You’re right,” I admitted. I had goaded him by wearing the black dress and by being so cavalier about it when he brought it up. If I had just done what was expected, he might have been nicer to me. However, that didn’t change the fact that he was also part of the problem. “But you also need to realize that it’s a two-way street,” I pointed out. “If you want me to act like your happy wife, then maybe you need to treat me a bit better.”

He sighed loudly and gave me an assessing look, probably weighing the merits of what I had said. “Yeah, okay. I see your point,” he agreed reluctantly. “Let’s just get this night over with, and then we’ll be in Paris, where nobody will even know we exist,” he said, putting a somewhat positive spin on things.

He helped me out of the limo, and we made our big entrance into the hotel ballroom where our reception was taking place. I put on a smile and tried my best to act like I wasn’t dying inside at the thought of spending the next two years of my life with a man who made me feel small and unimportant. My father was the first to come up to us and congratulate us on the marriage, but after that people I had never met before lined up to give us their best wishes.

I felt like an outsider as Kingsley greeted them all with familiarity and friendliness, while I stood off to the side quietly. Luckily, Sarah saved me from looking like the awkward third-wheel, running up to me and pulling me in for a crushing hug.

“How are you holding up?” she asked, keeping her voice down, so we weren’t overheard by Kingsley.

“I’m okay. I mean my husband is an asshole and I can’t stand him, but otherwise everything is peachy,” I replied, falling back on my habit of using sarcasm to hide what I was really feeling.

“I’m so sorry Grace,” she said sympathetically. “This whole this is unreal. I thought arranged marriages were something that only happened in the mafia.”

“You would think so. I just don’t see how this situation could get any worse,” I said pessimistically. I felt like I was at my breaking point, and soon enough I would just snap.

“Well… you might want to hold off on saying that before you meet your new stepdaughter,” Sarah told me with a grimace. “She’s probably the most obnoxious person I’ve ever met.”

“She can’t really be that bad, right?” I asked her, hoping she was exaggerating. The poor girl was probably just having a tough time coming to terms with the fact her dad was getting remarried. It couldn’t be easy to see her father move on.

“You can see for yourself,” Sarah said with a groan. “She’s heading right for us.”

I followed her gaze to see a beautifully striking young woman with pale skin and short raven black hair cut to just below her jaw. She was wearing an A-line dress that had a pale-yellow skirt and a dark navy-blue bodice, and on anyone else it would have probably looked bizarre and unflattering, but on her it worked. The light-yellow taffeta gave her an air of innocence and softness, but when she got closer and I could make out the features of her face clearly, I knew she was anything but.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered in complete defeat. If that was my stepdaughter, then the world must hate me.

“Wait, do you know her?” Sarah asked in surprise as the girl in question continued towards us.

“Yes. That’s Whitney. One of the girls who used to torment me in high school,” I admitted.

“But isn’t she two years younger than you?” she asked in confusion.

“Yep, but that didn’t stop her from making my life a living hell,” I replied in embarrassment. “She practically ruled the school even when she was a sophomore.”

“How come you didn’t know she was going to be your new stepdaughter?” Sarah whispered as Whitney got closer.

“From what I’ve gathered, Kingsley has tried to keep her out of the spotlight, especially when she was younger.” It also didn’t help that I hadn’t gone out of my way to find information about her, and it’s not like I ran in the social circles where I would’ve run into her or heard about who her father was. “Besides, she must have her mom’s surname or something,” I added. I wouldn’t have been able to connect Kingsley with her because of that. “Her name’s not Whitney Hall– it’s Whitney Snow.”