Paper Promise: The Substitute Bride Novels & Stories

“Does my father know about this?’ “He does but this is the easiest way for you to get permanent residence in this country. Don't worry. It'll be a contract and nothing more. It's called a paper marriage. You won't have to live together for long.” A Paper Marriage is a marriage of convenience made with no intention of forming an actual marital relationship. The term is commonly used to refer to marriages made to gain permanent residence in a particular country. “I can't do something like that,” I protested. “And if I’m going to ever get married, it’s going to be to my boyfriend Henry not some American man. I cannot trade him for anyone.” “Do you want to go back home to die?” “No, aunt.” “Well

She followed my instructions and placed all of the documents on the table. "Claw one: When you cancel the contract with me, you must pay me all of the loans that I lend you to establish your firm, with doubled interest, and if you fail to do so, you must sell your company to me" I opened the files and began turning the pages. While my sight was still set in the file, I said with a smile on my face. "Wha..aatt are you saying.???,'' he said while his words stammered.

"Please the groom first followed by the bride." Jordan let go of his hand and pulled out a white paper from the pocket of the black tuxedo he was wearing. On that paper, Jordan made a promise that he never thought he would ever say. Moreover, he said to a foreign woman who in a few minutes would become his wife. "I'm Jordan Gerald Hayden, accept you to be my wife, Lala ..." Jordan thought, he didn't remember Clarabelle's name correctly. But she was called Lala, it was funny too. "Well, Clarabelle, right?"

The priest asks, and he hesitates for a few seconds before he replies to the priest. "Yes, I do," He replies hesitantly. "Do you, Tracy Williams, take Ren Bradford as your lawfully wedded wife? To hold, and to cherish, to love, and to care for, in sickness and in health, till death do you apart?" The priest turns to Lilian and asks her. "Yes, I do," She replies after a few seconds of silence. She never imagined that she'd ever become a substitute bride, but turns out that it was her fate that she needs to embrace. It's the fate that she was destined to suffer in her lifetime.

Actually, I didn't doubt that anything would look good on him. It seemed that the hearsay was true. He was poor and couldn't afford to buy a new suit for the wedding. Or he just thought it wasn't worthy of doing so. The elder interrupted my thoughts, "Bride and groom, for some reason, you can't swear to the Moon Goddess now. As a substitute, you can exchange rings as your proof of oath that you accept each other completely and will never separate." The word "substitute" rang the bell in my mind.

With a mischievous twinkle in her eye, she said, “But words alone aren’t enough. What if you go back on your promises? We need proof!” At her cue, the bridesmaids brought out a long table from nowhere. On it sat a stack of papers and a pot of red ink. Each sheet was filled with written promises, leaving a blank space in the bottom corner for Wilfred’s handprint. The bridesmaids grabbed his hand, pressing it into the red ink and then onto the papers, one after another. Their speed left Wilfred no time to even glance at the contents. He could only catch glimpses of words as they flew by.

Ater ten minutes, Cayden heard a knock on his office door before it was flung wide open and his friend came to his full view. “What’s the rush?” James asked while he sauntered to his desk. Cayden sat up straight and reached for the stack of papers on the corner of his desk to hand it to James. After a moment, a frown appeared on James’s face as he flipped through the pages that contained vital information about the most beautiful women on the planet. “What are these?” James could not help but ask when he came to the last page. “That my friend is where we are going to look for my substitute bride,” Cayden said matter-of-factly.

She smiled in rehearsals, played the part of the docile bride, and promised to save our father’s crumbling empire with her dowry of submission. But Bianca disappeared last night. No note. No goodbye. Just a shattered phone, a bloodstained scarf, and a phone call from a blocked number at 3 a.m. Only two words: "She's gone." The next morning, my father was pale and shaking, sweat beading under his temple like he’d aged ten years in one night. “You’ll take her place,” he said with dead eyes. “Or the De Lucas will kill us all.” And just like that, I became the substitute bride.

At this point, he searched his vocabulary but could not find the right word. The girl looked at him silently for a moment and said, “At Slivana’s wedding, the bride is not me.” She opened her mouth and said coldly. The man raised his head in surprise: “Isn’t the bride you?” She shook her head: “Your grandfather personally chose the bride for him. I am just a representative of the Patterson Group participating.” “Then you…” Suddenly his soul seemed to be blessed. Regardless of whether the other person agreed or not, his big hand still tightly held the girl’s slender hand. After the pain was joy, and his mood was hard to calm down.

“Ten million for a substitute bride. To be paid by the bride’s family.” I closed my pricing booklet. The original price written inside had actually been four million. Sean let out a cold snort, while Crystal paid without hesitation. “Some traditions exist for a reason. People who break the rules usually end up regretting it.” I shot Sean a glance, put away my phone, and turned to head back into the bridal chamber. I completed the ceremony again and lit three candles beside the bed. Then, on the twenty-seventh line of the marriage document, I carefully wrote Blake’s name.