CHAPTER FOUR

MARRIED TO MR. RIGHT

CHELSEA'S POV 

So this is my life now huh? Soon to be a married woman with a stranger I've never met or seen in my life before. From the words passing through the walls, I hear he's a monster and a playboy. 

“Gosh, Chelsea what have you gotten yourself into.” I wailed as I looked deeply into the mirror with the white dress on staring at the stranger in front of me. A part of me wanted to run away. Another part of me wanted to cry, but I knew deep down I just wanted to be with Ryan.

I still remember how he tried his best to fight for me. Yet, I betrayed his trust by signing. The walls surrounded me like a bird trying to escape. Windows dim, bridal stylists. The broken mirror and me in a tight dress. 

I heard footsteps coming towards the room and before I could blink twice I saw Victoria standing behind me with a sharp object. I was heavily frightened. “What are you doing here?” I said trying to keep my cool.

“Isn't it obvious? I'm here to kill you once and for all.” She said grinning.

“Good, you might as well save me the stress from jumping off the cliff tonight.” I gazed at her through the broken mirror, moving a side of my hair to give her access to my neck. I closed my eyes and uttered the words “it is finished.”

Victoria lunged forward, rage twisting her face, her closing around my throat and…

~ ~ ~ ~

Today was supposed to be my wedding day, but instead I saw my soon to be husband shoving his mouth down another woman's throat behind the church building or at least, I thought it was him. He's the only man in a suit dressed differently. Typically, no woman would want to see their soon to be husband doing that but I didn't care about him enough to start reacting towards any situation.

The dress was two sizes too small and the veil kept sliding. I had been standing in this bridal suite for forty minutes waiting for someone to tell me what to do next. Like how do people do this?

Nobody asked if I was okay, everyone was so fixated on their own thing. “Hmm, I guess you're truly alone in this world.”

I sat back down and let the makeup artist finish up what they were doing and thought about Ryan. 

I always thought about him. 

“Stop Chelsea, not today.” I slapped my cheeks in front of the makeup artists and they were looking at me like someone who's losing it. 

I gave them a weird smile and focused on my hands, intertwining them together. 

Not today.

~ ~ ~ ~

The church was really full by the time I was escorted to the side entrance. Four hundred guests, flowers that cost more than anything I'd ever known and of course, a dress that was miscalculated by two sizes.

I stood behind the doors waiting for the signal and the thought of Ryan. I guess thinking about him while I'm in a wedding dress was a special kind of torture I wasn't ready to entertain. 

The doors opened and I walked to the sound of Carribean Blue.

Four hundred or more eyes turned towards me simultaneously and I kept my face completely calm at the chin level. 

Victoria is in the third row in an ice blue dress. She has the smile of a woman planning to execute something dark. I smiled back until her smile flickered. Small victory, I was collecting every inch of it. 

Dominic was at the altar looking good. He was tall, handsome and had brown shoulders. So truly, he was the one I saw at the back of the church building with another woman. That explains the reason for his lateness then.

He kissed my cheek instead of my mouth when I reached him. Leaned close enough to say something in my ear that I was fairly certain was not a compliment. I turned to the crowd and found Victoria smiling until she giggled just slightly.

The ceremony began. 

We were four minutes into the vows when the doors at the back of the church burst open. It stopped the priest mid way and everyone looked towards the direction of where the door opened. 

She was beautiful. Red dress, heels that echoed on the marble floor and one arm wrapped around a small boy who could not have been older than four.

She held a gun in her other hand. "Interesting."

The church was quiet till I heard screams that threw me off the roof. The security guards moved fast and positioned themselves in different angles while the guests scrambled out of pews and Dominic's best man Marcus stepped directly in front of Dominic. 

She didn't flick or run but stood there in the middle of it all with her gun raised and her eyes locked on Dominic like no one else mattered.

“You were going to do this without telling ME??!!” Her voice carried over the screaming. “Without telling your SON??!”

“Like honestly, even if I don't matter to you. What about our son Noah?’

The boy looked around at the chaos with confusion. “He has your eyes Dominic,”she said. “He has your eyes and your last name. You were literally going to fucking stand up there and ,arry some girl you have never met before???”

Security reached her. She didn't go quietly or calmly. It took two guards to get the gun and a third to escort her towards the side door while she kept her eyes on Dominic the entire way. 

“Miss girl, watch out for him. You're getting married to a cheat,” she called out as they pushed her through the door. “His name is Noah Hartwell and he exists whether you like it or not.”

The door slammed behind her.

The boy was handed to someone … a staff member, a guard, nobody seemed certain but then he was gone too and the church was left with four hundred people and one priest and a silence that had weight.

I stood at the altar in my tight dress and looked at Dominic.

He was looking at the door she had just been taken through. He looked completely unreadable and did not move once during the entire thing.

He turned back to me slowly.

Our eyes met.

I raised one eyebrow. 

The priest cleared his throat.

"Shall we continue?” I turned back to face the altar.

"Yes," I said. "Let's continue."