THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (ebook reader android .txt) 📕

who had curves for days, but as soon as she dated him, she became a crash diet junkie.

“It’s a few pounds, I’m still thin.” I felt my voice wobble, and my confidence shatter under her gaze.

Stepping closer to me, her fingers pinched the skin on the outside of my leg, right below my waist. “A few pounds add up, Eve. It’s bad enough you have juvenile butterflies all over your wedding. I don’t know why you couldn’t just get married in Denmark.”

My facade faded pretty quickly when she insulted the butterflies that meant too much to my childhood with Bowen for her to shit on. Lifting my dress up to the tops of my thighs, I placed my heel on the nearest chair and showed off my newly tattooed thigh.

Her entire face lost all signs of life when she gasped at my leg while I incidentally flashed my blue lace panties to the few guests witnessing this interaction.

Grabbing the back of my arm, she made demands like she could still boss me around. “Wait until your stepfather hears that you let that menace deface your body.”

Deface my body? What did she think he was going to do on our wedding night?

 

I relaxed as soon as I felt what I knew was his hand against my lower back, and Bowen came into view. “Is there a problem?” He never liked my mother, he hated her for making me cry and blamed her for my bad dreams.

Spitting her words in his face, she was angry in ways I couldn’t comprehend. “How dare you mark my daughter like she’s your property! I knew you were trouble the minute you wouldn’t just give up on her. Always calling and hanging up, always sending those disgusting love letters, always trying to make her feel like we weren’t her family.”

My eyebrows furrowed and looked to him for clarification that never came.

He never gave up on me? How did she know that? Why didn’t I know that?

Reaching for the buns on the table, I bit off a bigger than ladylike piece, feeling like I was going to faint. My world was spinning, and I couldn’t find a focus point before it started.

Bowen’s mouth found my ear when he whispered, “No refunds, Eve.”

Swallowing down the carbs, I felt slightly stronger by his words. He wasn’t going to let her drag me back to Denmark to teach me more lessons to torture the rebellion out of me.

“Well, according to you, she is my property… or did you forget? We were always her family because you were too busy dating half of LA to be a mom. She slept in my arms in my fucking bed for years because hers didn’t feel safe enough.” Bowen lashed out in all his cruel glory, leaving me breathless.

Bowen was the only safety I had.

I looked for tears or any sign of pain in the woman who gave birth to me but there was none to find. She wrapped her shall around her frail body and pointed her finger in Bowen’s face, spewing her words, “Good luck keeping her compliant if Elias couldn’t. Your property is damaged goods, or did she not tell you? Due to her carelessness, you’ll never have an heir to your demonic empire. Why don’t you tell him, Eve? Now is as good a time as any.”

Grace must have been watching in the distance when she stepped next to me with her arms crossed over her growing belly and a look of shock glazed over her face. She stomped all over the parts of Bowen that looked ready to cut my mother to see if her blood had any answers. “I don’t really give a fuck who you are, mother or not. But I do care that you’re being a bitch, so you should really leave if you can’t keep your mouth shut. Don’t let the pregnant belly fool you.”

I felt defended beside Grace and steadied by Bowen’s hand. I wanted to believe the torture was over, but my mother was a cockroach—they never die.

My mother knew when to put up a fight and when to walk away, it came with her royal training too. Turning into Bowen, I took a big inhale trying to forget she existed when his arms wrapped around me lightly.

“I was going to read the room before I started handing out joints, but this is earned.” Khaos handed me a joint with a lighter ready as the rest of the party migrated inside the white tent for dinner to be served.

Bowen gave him a quizzical stare followed up with, “Aren’t you sober now?”

Grace held the lighter to the end and told me to inhale slowly while answering for him, “Events only. And try to blow it that way, girlfriend.”

Looking to Bowen, he nodded softly like a non-verbal cue that made getting high on our wedding day okay. Standing planted in the same spot, I watched him get further away while his friends walked me away from the scene my mother had tried to make.

Feeling Khaos’s arm around my neck, I held the joint like it was a loaded gun as they walked me to the side of the tent away from anyone who may have been looking. Justice stood in front of me with eyes seemed too sympathetic for her fun hair. Out of nowhere, her arms wrapped around me tightly and held me against her.

“I’m so sorry if I was anything like that.” I couldn’t help but forgive her and wrap my arms around her too.

I watched Vic hold a vile to his nose, taking a big sniff, clearly ready to have a good time. Jus made her way back over to his side and gave him a smack on the ass as soon as she was close enough, making me laugh before he pulled her