Page 29 of Save Me
“Good girl for asking,” he answers with an expression that looks like genuine respect. “I will explain one day, but I cannot until you have promised me your hand in marriage. If you agree, I will give your father’s business back to him on the day that we are married. If not, then I’m afraid your family faces a very unpleasant future.”
“What will you expect from me if I agree?” I ask with the loaded words tasting bitter on my tongue. “Is this like a fake marriage or a…erm…?”
“One hundred percent real,” he replies with the same hooded eyes with which he had looked at me yesterday. “If you say yes, you will be agreeing to be my wife in every sense of the word.”
“You would want me to…sleep with you?” I whisper, blushing with embarrassment.
“I will expect that, yes,” he says matter of factly, “I expect my wife to bear my children, to produce an heir, so that would fall to you, Beth, especially with your heritage. In fact, one of the conditions is you will maintain your purity until we are married.”
What the hell? This can’t be real; someone’s going to come out and yell ‘surprise’ at any moment. Only they don’t, and the look on Oliver’s face is anything but jovial. His talk of bearing children, marriage, and something to do with my heritage has me feeling dizzy again, so I gulp and grab a glass of water before downing it. He says and does nothing other than watch me with obvious amusement.
“But you don’t even know me; I don’t know you!” I finally blurt out. I become painfully aware that I’m now trembling, so force myself to put the glass back down before I drop it. “I’m not sure I can…I’ve never even…holy shit!” I place my face inside of my hands and try to breathe normally, which is becoming more and more impossible as his words sink deeper into the recesses of my brain.
After a few moments of watching me have a mini breakdown, something he must have been expecting because who wouldn’t in this situation, he silently takes hold of both my hands and grips them tightly inside of his. He is both gentle but very much in charge of the act.
“Beth,” he finally utters, “you will finish your education and remain in your family home until you turn eighteen, next April,” he explains. “Until then, I will make it a condition that we see each other so we can get to know one another. I will be the perfect gentleman.”
“I don’t know, this is-”
“Unexpected?” he tries to finish for me. It is the first time he has looked mildly human since I laid eyes on him this morning.
“Nuts!” I cry.
“I know, but it is the only other option for you and your family right now,” he explains, like we’re facts and figures again. “I would have liked to have earned your affections more traditionally, but time is against me. Your father’s indiscretion has provided the perfect opportunity to move things along a little more quickly. The question is, are you going to sacrifice yourself to me for the sake of your family?”
I end up gaping at him, both looking and feeling like a fish out of water, while desperately trying to think of something other than a long, high-pitched screaming inside of my head. Meanwhile, Oliver releases my hands and reaches over for some papers before calling my father back inside. He sounds like he’s summoning one of his own employees, and it makes me feel even more nauseated; no one is going to help me out of this. I finally close my mouth, taking note of how dry it feels, and settle my gaze upon the pattern of the grain inside of the wood of Dad’s desk.
“Here is a copy of the contract, complete with the conditions that I mentioned earlier,” Oliver explains with his business head back on. He then hands an envelope to me, which I tentatively take inside of my trembling hands. It suddenly occurs to me that these papers effectively contain the fate of my family inside of them.
“If you decide this is what you want to do, and believe me, I hope you do, Beth, then we shall meet here at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. If your father turns up alone, then we will arrange how the business and house will officially pass over to me.”
Mr Lawrence stands before planting a soft kiss on my cheek, which I can’t even feel. He then whispers inside of my ear, “Be mine, Beth, and I will give you everything!”
Before he reaches the door with a confidence that I’ve never seen on anyone his age before, he turns back to face me. He’s now looking less soft and more business-like again.
“You will need a guardian to sign the contract with you, Beth, seeing as you’re still seventeen. Your father can do it, or your mother can.”
“No!” I reply more firmly than I thought I was able to after being stunned into silence just now. Both men look to one another before settling their eyes back on me, waiting for some sort of an explanation over my sudden outburst. “Can I request someone else to be my legal guardian?”
“Of course,” Oliver replies with a professional looking smile. “Normally, you need to have been living with someone for at least six months before they can apply for guardianship, however, you will find I can bend anything to my will. If that is what you wish, I will have it sorted by the time we meet up again tomorrow morning. May I ask why?”
“My mother is not to know about any of this,” I explain, “that will be one of my conditions. Besides other things, it would break her heart and she would never agree to it. And as for him, he is not worthy of being my father right now.”
“As you wish.” Oliver smiles tightly, both of us now looking at my father who looks like I just stuck a knife through his heart. “Do you have someone in mind?”
“I do,” I reply decidedly, “Bodhi Mason.”
Dad gasps from the side of me, having only met him once when he was high as a kite and surfing butt-naked in the pitch black of night. To say he was unimpressed by his introduction to my choice of guardian is a massive understatement.
“Bring him with you, along with at least two forms of identification, and we will have it set up tomorrow,” Oliver says with a nod, then opens the door to leave. “I hope to see you again, Beth.”
He finally walks out and closes the door behind him, leaving me rooted to the spot in complete and utter horrified shock.
“Beth, I-” my father begins to plead.
“Don’t talk to me,” I snap through clenched teeth, “don’t look at me, don’t touch me, and don’t talk to me. I couldn’t think any lower of you than I do right now!”
I walk out of that office, and I don’t return home. Instead, I run straight to Bodhi and stay with him until we both walk into that same office, at eleven o’clock, the following day. The day I signed my life away. The day I lost my freedom. The day I lost my father. The day I agreed to become Mrs Lawrence to save my family.