"How can I marry a man I do not know?" "You can't possibly do this." "Your father is the one who decides what can possibly happen." "Why do I have to marry him?" "Your father wants to do business with him, and it is so much that it would take us from top twenty to top ten." Nirelle’s fate is sealed. After a life of endless scrubbing, suffering, and silence, her father decides her worth lies in securing a business deal. A deal so massive, it promises to thrust their family into elite status—at the cost of her freedom. Married off to a man cloaked in more secrets than the night sky, Nirelle wants to run. But there's nowhere to go. With every ounce of strength she has left, she chooses to shift prisons—from her father’s oppressive home to her new husband’s mansion. Lucien Vexley is nothing like she expected. The name alone strikes fear on the streets, the rumours painting him as a shadowy, ruthless enigma. Yet the man sitting across from her at the dining table, caring for her in ways she’s never known, is nothing like the beast they described. Lucien is a mystery she can’t seem to solve. "You are handsome?" "It seems you were expecting me to be a beast?" "Well, according to the rumours," "Am I not here as a scapegoat for something?" Nirelle doesn’t understand the warmth beginning to stir in her chest, the way her stomach flutters when he's near. But something is changing. Something deep. Something dangerous. She’s not just learning how to survive anymore— She’s learning how to become her.
View MoreNIRELLE
It's my twenty-first birthday, but instead of partying with my friends like a normal girl my age, I am stuck in this bathroom scrubbing it down. I sigh as I wipe off the sweat on my forehead, trying my best to ensure the water from the gloves on my hands does not touch my body. I gag in reflex as the smell hits my nose. The only thing I can think of as I kneel there and scrub is when I can be done with this and go on to the next. "He is just a pig," I murmur to myself as I look down at the toilet seat that my brother uses. I had washed it just three days ago, but my mom had asked me to wash it again this morning so he does not get any infections. I scrunch up my nose and wipe off the sweat once again. When she had come to wake me up this morning, I wanted to hope for a minute that she had remembered my birthday and was there to wish me a happy birthday. Instead, she stood by the door and dished out commands of tasks she wanted completed before nightfall. Everyone had acted as if I were invisible. I look at the seat once again and scrub the stain of semen. I scrubbed harder, trying to erase it like I wished I could erase him. I finish up before I go on to the next assignment my mom had spelt out for me. "The lady wants to see." I hear a voice and I look up from the basin of clothes I had my head in for the last thirty minutes. The girl looks down on me with compassion and pity. It was almost like she was asking many unanswerable questions. I smile at her and nod. Rinsing my hands off under the tap, I wipe them off on the apron I had on before following her to go see my mom. As I walked through the mansion halls and saw the staff walk about, I wondered why my parents have domestic staff if they are going to make me do all the work. They should just fire them all and pay me their wages. I step into the study and the familiar scent of books hits my nose. I walk to my mother briskly, as I know she hates it when I act sluggish. "You asked to see me?" I ask and she raises her nose at me with some kind of disgust as if I were smelling. "Ma'am," I add, remembering what she had said when she slapped me across the face last night. She had her hair slicked back into a ponytail that shone under the dim light and was wearing a two-piece that screamed wealth. "Your father has something to say." She nodded toward the man behind the table—the one whose presence alone made my skin crawl. He looked like a random man, but to me, he was the scariest, and no matter how much my mom hit me, he scared me more. I move cautiously to the table and stand at arm's length. He drops the paper in his hand on the table and looks up at me through the rim of his glass. His face was covered with hair that looked all grey from where I was standing; it had been a week or two since I last saw him. "Why does she still look this way?" His voice thundered through the study walls, bouncing off the spines of all the books, and from the corner of my eyes, I saw my mom's body stiffen a bit. "I wanted you to give her the news first before I did what I have to do," she responds. I look at her and do a mental comparison between us. She looked prim, like all those women who looked like they came from money, and for her, the term "looks can be deceiving" was not true because she was indeed rich. Her face was tight, as she had facials done as many times as she liked, her nose was pointed, and a thin line for her lip. I always used to compare her to the evil cartoon characters. The door creaks open, and my brother stalks in with rough hair as if he had been out all night drinking. "Is my bathroom washed?" Those were the first words he said to me on my birthday. I look at him and swallow all of the malicious words I want to throw at him because all it would get for me would be an intense beating and then me being locked away by my mother. "Yes," I respond as he throws himself onto the couch and puts his leg up on the coffee table. "Good, you are finally learning to work." I had stopped resisting them and their maltreatment because I had no place else to go, and quite frankly, there was nothing more I could do about it. "Honey, why are you just getting in?" Yvette asked her son, but the boy responded with a wave of his hand. "There was a party and I had to attend," he said. I almost laughed out loud at the irony. I was never allowed outside the walls of the mansion except when there was someone to supervise me, and yet he was allowed to stay out all night? Just because he was a boy? "Nirelle," Enoch called me, and I stared at him from where I stood. I have no idea what he was about to tell me, but I am sure that it can't be anything crazier than what I was already going through with them. "Go and get ready; you are getting married today." My heart rate increased as I felt as if it was about to jump out of my body. "Today..." I trailed off, knowing I was not supposed to speak back, but my tongue had a mind of its own. He stared at me without a change of expression on his face. "You are getting married today."NIRELLEBy the time we are done with breakfast, we lie down in bed; it is weird to eat breakfast and just do nothing."What was your childhood like?" His question catches me off guard. I look at him, tucking my hand under my face, and he mirrors my action. "The one before the Thamore mansion," he adds as if to correct himself."Well, I told you that Mom was poor and she owed a lot to feed us, but it was fun. I had a lot of friends and would play in the park all day until Mom came to pick me up and take me home," I said, and he smiled. "I feel like I am the one always doing the talking," I say, stopping myself from remembering those good memories because even though they were good, the woman in them was almost unrecognisable now, and that tainted the entire experience for me."I like hearing you talk," he said."And I don't?" I say, feeling my stomach rumble a bit. "I like hearing you talk too," I say, and he nods."What do you want to hear? About my childhood," he asked, and I gave a
NIRELLEI try to get out of bed again, but it is all futile as he pulls me back, and my head falls gently to the pillow, and a light squeak escapes my mouth."Why are you so eager to leave the bed?" He asked, and I don't have an answer to his question, but I don't like it. "You are trying to run from me?" he asked again, and I shook my head slightly. He props himself on his elbow so he can look at me, brushing away the hair from my face."Can't I make it back to my room?" I felt self-conscious about the linen nightdress I was wearing. When I had walked here last night, I did not think I would sleep over or even wake up the next morning with him by my side."Why?""I want to change," I whisper, trying to keep my voice as low as I can. He looks down at my body and then up at my face."I don't see anything wrong with what you are wearing." I see a strange expression dance in his eyes; I like it, I like it quite too much."But I still need to...""It's just fine," he cuts me off before I
LUCIENThe knocks on the door now are too urgent compared to the ones from last night. I gently wake and look around, seeing Nirelle still lying in my arms as we had fallen asleep last night. She looked too peaceful with her thick black hair beautifully sprawled across the bed.I stare at her, ignoring the urgency of the knock at the door. I know that whatever Theo wants to say won't be what I want to hear, and I want to savour this moment as much as I can. I look at the clock, and it is just a few minutes after six. We had barely gotten any sleep, and all hell had already broken loose outside. "How can anyone think of treating this angel this badly?" I ask myself gently as I stare at her.My conclusion is that everyone in the Thamore and Wolfe families is just pure devils who managed to possess a human because there is no way they would think of hurting her when she looks this ethereal. She had looked like an angel that stepped down right from the day she stepped in here with all of
LUCIENI keep tossing in bed. Nirelle had shown me the text that Cassian sent her after we said goodbye, and I can't help but think about what he must mean by that. Did he know my identity, or was this just bluffing? Considering all I know about him, I am really sure he won't be bluffing just like that. What did he know? I glance at my digital clock by the bedside and see how the time, 2:47 am, shone back at me. I have a meeting with some people tomorrow morning, meaning I have to wake up early, and yet I still cannot bring myself to fall asleep.I hear a soft knock on the door; it is too faint to be coming from my room, but it comes again, and I frown. Who would come to my door at this time, and why? I know that Theo can't come at this time, except if it were an emergency, and maybe it was lack of sleep that made me think I was hearing things. The knock came again, this time louder, so I got up and walked to the door."Nirelle?" I ask, and she looks up at me, shocked. "What are you d
NIRELLEWe walk around the house, and he has more rooms than he could use. If he had twelve children, the house would be quite sufficient to house them without any child feeling cheated. The thoughts of children made my cheeks redden with embarrassment. I had been so adamant about not having any children, and now I was thinking of it? What kind of double-minded person was I?"You are blushing a whole lot; do you like the house that much?" Lucien asked, and I looked away because I was not expecting him to notice. How did he notice that?"I am not," I lie, the lie rolling off my tongue easily."If you say so," he says, and I nod. We walk through the house, and then once we are done with the accessible floors, I am ready to get back to my room for the day."I am sorry to have pulled you away from your busy day to give me a tour," I say, stopping at my door."Why do you seem eager to get rid of me?" he asked, and I wish I could tell him that I did not want this moment to end, but I did no
NIRELLEI had come in to cook to take my mind off going back to the kiss I had shared with Lucien, but he had waltzed into this place to kiss me once again. How was I to survive? It would be replaying for days on end in my head. He tugs on my lower lip as though it were something that was giving him some kind of strength. His hand drops from my wrist and circles my waist. My brain is screaming at me; we should not be doing this here, in the kitchen, where anyone can walk in and see.I pull away at the thought of that, and he looks at me, breathless, with his eyebrow going up. "Why?" he raps gently. I saw his chest heaving as he spoke."Anyone can walk in and see us," I respond, almost not believing that he was asking me that. Why did I pull away? I don't remember giving him such a freeway with kisses that he had gotten so bold as to do them twice a day."In my house?" he asked, and it clicked. This was his house. "I can do whatever I want, whenever I want in your house," he adds, and
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