Chapter 5

For more than twenty years, Victoria had been the obedient daughter in front of her parents. This time, she wanted to decide her own marriage instead of being forced to marry an old man like Larry.

Her parents had gone so far as to accept Larry's 2,800-dollar deposit without asking her. That meant they'd made up their minds to sell her to him.

There was no telling what awful lengths they'd go to in order to force her to agree.

Or they'd just keep setting her up with some other random guy.

Seeing that she'd agreed, Jax's expression still didn't show much, but his eyes softened considerably. He said quietly, "Then let's go to the county clerk's office now."

Victoria nodded. "Okay."

…

Outside the county clerk's office.

"Could you two stand a little closer?" The photographer looked at the gap between them, wide enough to drive a car through, and broke into a sweat.

Jax frowned and reluctantly shifted a little to the left.

Victoria, on the other hand, didn't hesitate at all and walked up to him.

Their shoulders bumped.

He was nearly thirty years old, and this was the first time Jax had ever been this close to a woman.

His whole body went rigid, his jaw clenched tight.

Victoria, meanwhile, was completely relaxed. She straightened her back, hands resting naturally in front of her, a natural smile on her lips.

The photographer looked at Jax's stiff face through the camera and frowned.

But Jax's presence was so commanding, so intimidating, that the photographer didn't dare say anything and just got it over with as quickly as possible.

"Done."

The photo soon arrived on both their phones.

When Victoria saw Jax in the photo, looking as gloomy as if someone owed him millions, she found it oddly funny.

But the colder and more distant Jax was with her, the more at ease she felt.

It meant he didn't have any bad intentions toward her.

He was just a marriage partner, someone else being hounded by his family and desperate to find someone to marry.

...

Holding the freshly printed marriage certificate, Victoria introduced herself. "Hello, Mr. Merritt. I'm Victoria Larsen. I look forward to getting along with you!"

Jax nodded. "Mm. Ms. Larsen, I'm Jax Merritt."

They exchanged phone numbers.

Jax saved her contact as "Mrs. Merritt."

Victoria saved his under his full name: "Jax Merritt."

The clerk's office staff were dumbfounded. These newlyweds were total strangers?

They'd seen whirlwind marriages before, but never one where the couple didn't even know each other's names.

Young people these days were so impulsive.

Impulse was the devil. Plenty of these rushed marriages ended up right back in this building filing for divorce within three months.

They'd seen it happen many times.

Walking out of the clerk's office with the marriage certificate in hand, Victoria still felt it wasn't quite real. She'd actually just married a total stranger on a whim!

Just then, the phone in Jax's pocket rang. He took it out and saw that it was his father, Charles.

He signaled to Victoria that he needed to take the call.

As soon as it connected, his father's irritable voice came through. "You brat, where are you?"

"At the county clerk's office."

Charles was shocked and wondered if he'd misheard. "What are you doing at the clerk's office? The young lady showed up at the restaurant right on time, and you were nowhere to be seen!"

Jax watched the woman walking ahead of him. "I found a girl I liked the look of at the restaurant, had my own blind date, and got married."

He'd arrived fifteen minutes early today, and his blind date hadn't shown up yet.

So, by sheer chance, he'd seen Victoria.

Charles felt as if he'd been struck by lightning, scorched to a crisp. "You... this is absolutely ridiculous! Every girl I set you up with is an heiress from a family of our standing, and you go and marry some random woman you don't even know?!"

Jax said nonchalantly, "Weren't you all nagging me to get married every day?"

Now that he'd finally done it, his father wasn't happy about it.

Charles felt this son would be the death of him sooner or later. "The problem is, you know nothing about her! You don't know her background, her personality, or her character, and you just rushed into marrying her! Let me tell you, the Merritt family won't accept this daughter-in-law!"

Jax stood with one hand in his pocket, leaning against the wall, his tone turning icy. "Do I need to remind you? When you married Eliza back then, you didn't get Grandpa's approval either..."

"You..."

The retort stuck in Charles's throat.

But how was that the same?

Eliza had already given him a son. He had to let his boy claim his rightful place in the family!

"Here's the deal. I'll give the two of you one year. If after a year you still think she's worthy of being the wife of the Merritt heir, then I will accept her as my daughter-in-law. The condition is that for this year, you can't reveal that you're the heir to Titus Group."

"And if I refuse?"

Living as an ordinary person would be very inconvenient for him.

Charles snorted heavily. "If you refuse, I'll step in and force her to divorce you!"

Jax knew his father was perfectly capable of that.

Picturing it, he frowned even harder and had no choice but to agree for now.

Anyway, Victoria hadn't asked much about his salary or savings earlier, so presumably she didn't care about those things.

Jax put his phone away and strode after Victoria. "Where do you live? I'll drive you home."

"I live at Hollis Avenue."

Victoria couldn't help asking curiously, "Your family seems really unhappy that you got married without telling them?"

She'd deliberately kept her distance during the call, but she could still faintly hear the person on the other end getting much louder after hearing he'd married.

"It's fine. I can make my own decisions about marriage."

Jax walked over to a black Rolls-Royce and opened the passenger door for her. "Get in."

The Rolls-Royce emblem gleamed coldly under the blazing sun.

Victoria rubbed her eyes in shock. She stepped forward and pointed at the car, stammering, "Th-this is a real Rolls-Royce?"