Chapter 1 :Force marriage

"Mummy!  Here comes mummy!" Two kids competetively tried to outrun each other to meet their mother

"Kids be careful you will fall!" Niki always welcome the feeling of coming home from work when she knows that her kids are waiting for her.

A memory crossed her mind when she almost lost them and she would have been forever be guilty regretting of what could have been. 

"Mommy we have a surprise for you!" The twins said in unison.

"What is it?" She fake innocence. The kids suddenly gave her a kiss.

"Oh is that it?" She fake a dissapointed look.

"Not only that, I have completed my design for our future house." Mark replied.

"And I completed my new designs for our next  collection." Moira said.

Mark and Moira were just six years old twins a reminder of what hardship she had to endure after leaving Santa Elena. On the run from the influence of Tristan Hewitt.

"Mark, Moira come let your mother rest from a long trip she must be exhausted"  Helen Hayes  told the kids. She was Nicole's paternal grandmother who she never knew existed until after her father's death.

"It's nice to be back grandma. How are you did the kids gave you difficulties?"  She hug her grandmother.

"No, they are adorable, they have totally behaved just like always. How was your trip?"

"It was a success grandma I was able to get more clients for our clothing line and maybe our accessories will follow." She said optimistically.

"Good." She smiled showing the wrinkles that begun to form from years of her existence.

In her room after the twins have sleeping in their room, she check on the sketches that Moira and Mark made. Day by day they are getting better with their God given talents.

Moira is more like her and her grandmother, who likes designing clothes. While Mark is more incline into designing building and computers. Just like their father. Then a memory came back to her, of how it all started.

Flashback:

Nicole looked at her reflection in the mirror, she felt distant to the image staring back at her. This is supposed to be the happiest day of a woman's life, her wedding day, but...

"You look absolutely a beautiful bride Nicole Hayes." Ginger her best friend or rather the only friend she had in her eighteen years of existence.

"Do I? Why do I feel I'm the ugliest woman in the world that my father had to sold me out to a stranger to be his bride?" She said teary eyed.

"Nonsense Nikki. You are beautiful much more beautiful than some of the actresses we see on television." Ginger replied.

"Yes!" Nicole admitted to herself  the women in television but what's the point of comparison when she never knew anyone in person aside her ever loyal friend Ginger. 

"Be happy my dear friend you are not marrying just anybody but the most sought after bachelor in the country. With his good looks and wealth, I'm sure he's the right person for you. He is also known as a philanthropist. A kind hearted man, So I think he will look after your welfare just like your father..."

"Who treated me like a prisoner." She retaliated.

"Nikki...with all his experiences you cannot blame him if he shielded you from the harm." She consoles her ward.

"But what is harm Ginger? How will I know if I never experienced it." Ginger kept quiet. There's no used arguing with Nicole when she herself questioned the way her father raised her ward.

Deep in her thoughts Nicole could never forget  the night when she got lost, her first encounter with how a man and a woman interact with each other, her driver step out for a while to have a pee. Leaving  her in the car.

She wondered outside their car  in the parking lot, and witness a couple  making out outside their car.  The experience is so new to her, she can't  help but stare. Glued in her place watching them until the man sense her presence.

"Who are you?" Angrily the man confronted her.  She saw the face of the man by the reflection of the lights coming from the establishments nearby.  He was the most handsome face she had ever seen  not even the most handsome face on television can compare to him.

"Who send you? Give me your phone!" The man angrily bellows. Nicole felt threatened by the anger of the man.

"No!" In a sense of panic  she look for an escape.

"Tris darling, come over here let the girl earn her living  what's a few pictures, as if the world unaware of our relationship." As the woman seductively called for the man. Nicola found an escape she ran away from the place and got lost in the sea of parking cars.

Just in time that their driver found her crying and shivering in one corner. But the image of the man stayed in her memory.

Her musings stop when they were called for the start of the ceremony.

As she started to walk in the aisle to the beat of the wedding march, Nicole recalled how she was so excited the day when  her father took her with  him visiting her father's close friend house. Of couse she doesnt know them in fact she doesn't know any of her father's acquaintances.

After her mother died her father became distant or much more like as her world revolve only to him the house, the helpers and the closest person's around her aside from Ginger is her bodyguard, which was not entirely what you can call confidante.

Nicole had for a short time remembered her father's mistress  and how Bianca told her that her mother left them contrary to what her father said that her mother died in an accident. that contributed to her father's reclusion. After Bianca Blanco left them along with a huge amount that almost crippled their business. Nicole became a prisoner in their home.

After their visit from the mansion of Jacob Hewitt,  she came to know that her father entered into agreement with his friend to marry her off with the old man's grandson. Nicole had a confrontation with her father. She felt devastated and useless even to choose her own destiny, or chose the person who will share her life.

" But Dad I cannot do that, I cannot marry that old man . I don't know him,  I don't love him."

"Nicole dear,  Tristan is not an old man. He may be ten years older than you. His father is a good friend of mine. Besides he is a man of honor and righteous person." Her father insisted

"But Dad I'm still young I have not yet enjoyed my single life, I want to go places, I want to experienced what is life outside this prison life existence." She voiced out her desires.

"Pumpkin... life outside this walls are dangerous, you may feel like a prisoner but it's for your own protection."

"Why don't you allow me to experienced it for myself to learn from it Dad?" She said desperately.

"Nikki I can't bear to see you broken when things won't go the way you expected it to be. I gave my promise to your mother that I will take care of you." Her father made a promised in her mother's grave that he will take care of their only child

Thus he never remarried after he took a woman who  he thought would take care of his only child Nicole. But Bianca had only one thing she wanted from him and that is his wealth. He just spent his time building their business and raising Nicole single handedly. He even shied away from romantic entanglements after Bianca left them, despite being a single parent early.

Nicole stopped her daydreaming when heard the whispering  and hush noises coming from the pews with the handful  of guest attending the ceremony. She shook her head and noticed the switching positions of the men standing near the altar

she noticed that she is already at the foot of the altar.  Her father handed her over to the man who reluctantly shook his hand with her father but the expression on his face is something she will never forget.

"Oh my God it's him." As the terror in her mind took her to fall unconsciously on the foot of the altar. She clutch for something to steady her fall as her world begin to darken into oblivion. Unconsciously held his collar and took him with her.