CHAPTER 4
Three days until my wedding and my dress should come in today. I’m excited to see what it looks like in black. It really is such a perfect dress. Too bad it’ll be wasted on a man I will never love.
“Briar, someone is here for you,” my dad calls from downstairs.
I run out of my room and down the stairs, thinking it must be the delivery of my dress, but standing in my living room is him.
“What do you want? You have to show up here now?”
“I want to get to know my wife.”
“I’m not your wi—”
“Not yet, River, but you will be soon.”
I stare at him and refuse to break eye contact. He turns around, looks behind him, and starts laughing. Laughing, this man is full-on belly laughing while I continue to stare.
“I’m sorry.” He laughs. “You just look like you’re trying to burn a hole through me, so I thought I’d see if it was working.”
“Come on.” He grabs my hand and starts pulling me along.
“No, what, stop, I didn’t agree to go anywhere.”
He doesn’t stop, continuing to pull me to the front door.
“I don’t even have shoes on, Ezra! Stop!”
He stops and stares at me like I have grown another head now.
“What?” I ask.
“The way you say my name is beautiful. I can’t wait to hear you scream it.” And he continues to drag me.
I can’t help but think of all the ways he could make me scream and how I kind of hope he does. As if he can read my mind, he chuckles and shakes his head.
“C’mon, River, we’ll buy you new shoes.”
Fuck, the way she says my name does things to me. It’ll be so much sweeter when she’s screaming it. I have to keep my composure around her today so I don’t scare her already. I’ll have plenty of time to do that, but tonight, I want to spoil her and show her the man I can really be.
I look over to see her still staring out the window. I can tell that she’s pissed about me dragging her out of the house, but I want to know who I’m marrying. Arranged or not, I think it’d be nice for me to see what she likes.
“Are you planning on talking to me today?” I ask.
She doesn’t reply to me.
“Well, I’ll take that as a no…do you want to know anything about me?”
Again, I’m met with silence.
“Well, my favorite color is green. I’m a big Disney fanatic.”
This made her perk up.
I snicker. “They’re just about the only movies I can sit through. I don’t have the patience to sit through many others.”
I see her smirking from her reflection in the window.
“I have an obsession with tuxedo ice cream sundaes but with pecans, not almonds.”
She side-eyes me, so I continue with my description.
“There’s something about the warm fudge and gooey white marshmallow that’s just mmmm,” I groan. “It’s too good to pass up.”
She rolls her eyes at me and laughs.
That little laugh could solve wars. I will die making her laugh as long as I get to hear it as I perish.
Wait, wait, wait. What the fuck am I thinking? Get your shit together, Ezra, she’s a means to an end.
“Nope, you can’t make me.”
“River, let’s go.”
“Ezra, no. I don’t have any shoes on.”
We pulled up to a shopping area, and now he’s standing on the sidewalk staring at me with the passenger door open. He can’t make me go anywhere. I’m not going in unless I have shoes, and because he dragged me out against my will, I am shoeless.
He is leaning into the car and staring at me. I’m staring straight ahead with my arms crossed over my chest in defiance.
“So now I’m standing here, and you don’t stare this way any longer?”
To prove my point that he doesn’t affect me, I unbuckle and turn in his direction only to realize I’m now face-to-face with him. We’re so close I can feel his breath hit my face. I look down at his full lips and he sucks his lower one into his mouth to bite it. He leans in slowly and just as I close my eyes to embrace the kiss, he grabs my arm and pulls.
“Wha…” I start as he squats and throws me over his shoulder.
I went from staring at lips to staring at ass. I mean, my view could be worse, but that’s not the point.
“PUT ME DOWN!” I scream.
“No can do, River.”
“My name isn’t River, you dickwad.”
He closes the car door and starts down the sidewalk.
I am kicking and screaming when he brings his hand up and spanks me. This man just spanked me, and why do I kind of want him to do it again?
“I told you I’m not going anywhere without shoes.”
“Unfortunately, although I know you wear a size seven and a half, I don’t know which you would like to wear today.”
That information is enough to make me pause in my tracks. How does he know my shoe size?
Just as I’m about to ask, he chuckles.
“You can ask how I know, but I can’t tell you.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“My informant wishes to remain anonymous.”
What the actual fuck? This man is creepy as hell. He must’ve guessed. Seven and a half is average for a woman, right?
We get to the store and walk in, and I lift my head to look around. All I see are walls and walls of heels. I pray that there’s some type of flat-soled shoe around because this chick does not do well in a set of heels.
“Hi, how can I help you guys?” I hear an associate ask.
“My wife needs shoes.”
“I’m not your—” I get out before he smacks my ass again.
“Uh, yes,” the associate replies. “You can…put her down on the chair over here.”
He finally sets me down just long enough for him to sit in the chair and pull me into his lap.
“I think she meant for me to sit in the chair…”
“You’re fine where you are,” he replies.
I try to get up anyway, but he wraps his arm around my waist and holds me there.
“Is there something in particular that you’re looking for?” she asks.
“Anything flat,” I reply. At this point, I am so embarrassed and overwhelmed by the lack of options. She leaves and comes back, bringing a pair of black-and-white sneakers in a size seven and a half.
I slip them on, and of course, they fit perfectly.
“Do you like them?” Ezra asks.
I nod my head yes.
“We’ll take them.”