The Wrong Bride (Marriage by Contract #2)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Elsa

M erdé! I was married.

I looked at the man sitting next to me in the limousine, driving us from the Musée Rodin to my new husband's apartment on Avenue Montaigne in the 8th Arrondissement.

Duncan Archer was on his phone, ignoring me. He had been doing that, not always being on the phone but always ignoring me ever since my father announced that he and I were getting married. I'd told him that we needn't marry; but he said, “ You’re pregnant, yes? ” When I nodded, he shrugged. “ Then we’re doing this .”

He didn't talk to me beyond that, just silently went about allowing Papa to drag him into our marriage.

The truth was that since we had sex three months ago, he’d only said a few words to me, including when he said during our wedding , "Oui, je le veux." Yes, I do.

Besides that, he refused to engage in a conversation. He hadn't asked me about the baby. No, are you okay? Is the baby okay?

I wondered if he felt that I’d trapped him, which I hadn’t.

I'd been trying to free myself, so when my friend Angelique, an escort, wasn't feeling well, I told her, sure, I'd be her and have sex with her client. The plan was to have sex and then tell my father I wasn't a virgin and, therefore, not a good candidate for whatever arranged shit he was planning with his mafia friends. It was archaic, yes, but in the world of the mob, virginity was still a currency. I wanted to be defiled.

I obviously hadn't thought it through.

Angelique had tried to bring me to my senses, but I could be stubborn and arrogantly assumed I knew what was best for me.

"You're so young, Elsa. Don't make idiotic decisions," she advised as she blew her nose, a minute away from canceling her appointment with her client.

"I'm twenty-four."

She waved a hand. "I'm twenty-eight and I'm an escort, the expert on this."

"I'm a baker," I said inanely, "I'm an expert at baking a croissant, I can handle your client."

"Don't fall in love or something stupid like that," she warned.

I scoffed. "I'm too young to fall in love, but not too young to have sex. And you said this guy is good. Right?"

"Yeah, I've heard he's magic. The girls fight over getting him on their calendar. He'll make sure you'll have fun." She began to cough after that, ending our conversation.

Fun? Yeah, it was fun, but things didn't go my way, all the way.

First, I'd gotten pregnant. I had no idea how that happened because Duncan had used a condom. Second, my father tracked down the man I'd slept with.

Was he disappointed? Hell no, he thought I'd done an admirable job getting my hooks and therefore his hooks into the Archer family. He'd made it sound like I had done it on purpose. Like hell. I didn't even know who the Archer family was. I didn't know who Duncan was. I just knew him as Angelique's handsome client, the one who'd smiled at me when I told him it was my first time, asked me if I was sure I wanted to be an escort, and then proceeded to give me the best sexual initiation, any woman on this planet had ever had.

"You sure about this, ma chérie ?" he asked, handing me a glass of champagne.

He spoke French fairly well, even if he did so with an American accent. So, we had shifted to speaking in English at his request.

He wore a white dress shirt with the cuffs rolled, no tie, and suit pants. He looked like a cross between Javier Bardem and Nikolai Coster-Waldau—the hair, the blue eyes, the muscles. Mais oui!

"Yes," I murmured.

"You speak English very well," he remarked, leading me to a couch in his suite. Apparently, this was his place in the Ritz Carlton…like Coco Chanel?

"Thank you. I spent some time in New York. I went to school there," I told him.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Really? Then…why are you…?"

"Working as an escort?" I hurriedly asked. Angelique had told me to be prepared with an answer. "I have my reasons." I smiled broadly to let him know I wasn't being pressured. Most men wouldn't give a shit, but this guy looked like he would.

He nodded. "You sure?"

"Yes," I murmured.

He smiled then. "Okay. I've initiated a virgin or two. But I've only been with escorts for the past many years. There are some rules."

I raised both my eyebrows. Was he going to talk about anal? Blow jobs? What?

He spoke earnestly. "You tell me if I hurt you, if you're uncomfortable, if you want me to stop."

This guy was something else. "But you paid for me."

"The rules don't change just because you're a paid date." He drank some champagne. "There is no pressure on you, ma chérie . That's now how it works."

I was already half in love with him, and he hadn't even kissed me. Merdé ! I needed my head examined. So much for heeding Angelique's warnings!

After, he left me a tip of a thousand euros. Okay, so maybe I shouldn't be thrilled about that last part—but for some reason, I felt validated that this gorgeous and sexy man thought I was worth a tip. I gave the money to Angelique, who rolled her eyes. She knew I didn't need the money. I knew she did.

That was three months ago. Since then and in between seeing that home pregnancy test turn pink, a lot had happened. I'd told Papa I was not going to marry that guy from Corsica he thought would be parfait. I said, non. And then I told him I'd already had sex. He'd yelled and screamed. Papa liked to yell and scream. I'd walked out of his house, waving at his security guard, Guillaume, who shook his head disapprovingly at me.

When Papa said his guy in Marseille (the guy in Corsica apparently had his heart set on a virgin) didn't mind, I had to tell him I was knocked up. He yelled and screamed. We did a rinse and repeat.

Two weeks later, he asked me to come to his place, where he told me I was marrying Duncan Archer, who looked ready to throttle me.

I couldn't blame him. What man, outside the criminal world, would want to marry the daughter of Jean-Luc Moreau, the man who ruled all organized crime in France?

If he was resentful (which I couldn’t imagine he was not), he didn’t say anything. In fact, when I asked him after our wedding, where his home was, his driver, who had introduced himself as Guillaume when he congratulated me, told me. Duncan pretended I didn’t exist.

Merdé ! This was not good. This was what Americans called a clusterfuck of epic proportions .