Contractual Obligations

Copyright © Elle Rivers 2023All Rights Reserved To my younger self. She could have used some of these lessons.And to social media, for giving me inspiration for every comment in this book. A Note from Elle This work contains scenes some might find disturbing. In this book, you will find emotional manipulation from parents, pressure to consummate a marriage, extreme fatphobia from family, and discussions of diets/restrictive eating. The main character, Lily, feels she needs to look and act a certain way. She is told what to eat by her family multiple times. If this may upset you, then please take caution with this book.There is no dubious consent, or emotional abuse between the main characters.If you need more details on what is included, including spoilers, please feel free to reach out to me at EllesWrites on Twitter. Prologue The venue was ornate, just over the line of ostentatious. My dad had spared no expense in renting the ballroom for more than three hundred people to attend my wedding.And I didn’t know most of them.On paper, this was going to be a perfect wedding. I had a beautiful, custom-made dress. The aisle I was walking down was adorned with freshly picked roses, which were the perfect shade of pink. My soon-to-be husband was wearing a tailored suit and was guaranteed not to get cold feet and run away.I was the blushing, beautiful bride—the Juliet to the perfect Romeo but with a happy ending.“I’m going to throw up,” I said, and my bridesmaid, Jessie, shoved a plastic trash can under my face.Sasha, the maid of honor, and my soon-to-be sister-in-law, rolled her eyes.“You don’t have to do this,” Jessie soothed, rubbing strong and steady circles on my back.“Actually, she does,” Sasha said. “The contract’s been signed, and it’s more airtight than these vows are ever going to be.”Jessie looked up, a glare on her face. “Can you not do this right now?”Sasha shrugged. “I’m the maid of honor, and my job is to prevent you from getting her to back out. It’s a done deal.”A slow, ragged breath escaped me. “She’s right.”“What kind of archaic marriage agreement is this?” Jessie snapped. It was an argument I had heard since the moment I told her about this deal. “You’re a grown woman in the twenty-first century. Your parents don’t get to choose who you marry!”“They do if she wants her inheritance,” Sasha said, smirking from her corner across the room.Jessie’s glare returned, and I let out a resigned sigh. Sasha was right. If I wanted my inheritance—which was enough to buy me a house and get me away from my family—I had to go through with this.I was nineteen and had nothing of my own. My dad was the executor of every penny I’d earned since I was pushed into modeling. Not only would this marriage secure the money I needed to escape, but I’d also gotten my parents to agree to let me take a break from modeling while I was married.And while most people weren’t told who to marry, I was happy to exchange five years of my life to get the chance to run away and never look back. A small sacrifice for a much needed reward.Jessie didn’t get it, and I didn’t blame her. There was a part of me that didn’t get it, either.“I’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s only five years.”“We wouldn’t be here if your dad hadn’t been so against merging with us in the first place,” Sasha reminded me as she examined her nails. “Maybe instead of turning customers against Miller Industries, he could have let himself get bought out like every other small-time company.”I rolled my eyes at her version of events.Yeah, it was true that my dad called out Miller Industries’ desire to be a monopoly from the beginning. Before this acquisition, he was adamant that he would never let his small chain of stores be owned by anyone else, and actively turned his very loyal customer base into people who boycotted Miller Industries for years.But that was before my dad realized that he could never compete with their prices. By the time he knew he had to take the buyout offer, he also knew he would lose all of his customers when he gave in.That was where I entered the picture. If the daughter of the owner of Electronic Point fell in love with the son of the CEO of Miller Industries, everyone would see it as a love story and not a buyout.Jessie scoffed. “It’s not her fault her dad—”“Hey,” I interrupted, “it’s fine.”“But, Lily—”“I said it’s fine,” I told her again. “I’ll be okay. It’s just for five years.”“Five years is a long time.”“Freedom is longer,” I added. Maybe if I said it enough, I’d start believing it too.“Ugh,” Sasha said, “Lily, you’re being too emotional. Come on. Let’s get this wedding over with. I have an appointment with a masseuse at four.”“We better not make her wait then,” Jessie muttered as she helped me up. “She might miss her massage. Lord knows how much worse she could be without it.”I stifled a laugh and focused on not tripping over my own feet as we left the bridal suite and headed toward the ballroom.When we arrived at the closed door with all of the wedding guests and my future husband inside, I could only take a deep breath and hope I wasn’t making a mistake.My walk down the aisle was a mix of fairy lights, flowers, and flashes of cameras. My smile didn’t waver, and I was sure I looked just like I did on Instagram: tall, flowy, perfect in every way.Sebastian Miller stood still as a rod. Before this, we’d only gone on a handful of dates, ones where we took hundreds of photos for our social media posts about our relationship.He was a stern man. He didn’t really smile much, and I had a feeling he didn’t like me.But he was about to be my husband.When I