Chapter 1

Present Day

Rhylan aimed one long, hard look at the full-length mirror and knew she hated her wedding dress. The silky fabric, dotted with crystals, flowed down her ankles in dizzying swirls of white and gold. The fabric crawled up her arms to twine around her fingers like gloves. Then, there was the tight corset that cinched her waist and made every effort to breath a painful one.

But that wasn't what hurt the most. What hurt most was the way the tight gown amplified her small curvy body and generous breasts. She stared once more at the hourglass figure staring back at her in the mirror and shuddered.

In the small town of Utopia, anything above forty pounds was considered fat for young, unmarried women. Rhylan was a fifty. It was also considered ugly for young girls to have body parts that were noticeable in tight clothes from afar. The bachelors frowned at the desperation.

The older folk spat over the indecency and the other spinsters termed the unfortunate girl ugly. Rhylan had been the unfortunate Utopian damsel for three years in a stretch. The fact that exercising didn't trim her down enough had never hurt her pride, until today.

Today, she wished she was bone lean like her peers. Why were her breasts the size of avocados and not tangerines? She thought bitterly. Why did her ass gape when she turned to the side? A flat ass was beautiful but an invisible one was the silent dream of utopian bachelors and spinsters alike.

Tears shimmered in her eyes as faint flashes of being taunted flitted across her memory. Wearing clothes twice her size had never eased the sting. Why wasn't she beautiful like all the other young girls in Utopia? Rhylan quipped.

She shook her head to banish the thought. The pressure of the wedding was indeed getting to her. Pressing her eyes shut, she felt a muscle throbbing at the base of her skull and ran a finger over it. There was a loud snap and tear under her arm. She gritted her teeth.

"Great." She said, "Just one more reason for everyone to laugh when you walk down the aisle, Rhyan Hicks. Yes, everyone would definitely laugh at your hideous form in this abominably tight wedding dress." She sighed.

Everything about the wedding felt wrong. The heavy decorations which were an overstatement of the groom's wealth. The fact that, for reasons best known to the groom, the wedding preparations had to be rushed.

Rhylan had had absolutely no say in any of it. One moment, she was a fresh eighteen years old adult tucked away in her favorite library, escaping the blandness of her own life in the exciting pages of a riveting romance novel, as she had done hundreds of times before.

Then in a flash, against her will, she had been offered up by her father as a bride to a stranger seeking to marry a utopian damsel in exchange for a handsome pay. Ha, a real bride! Rhylan laughed at herself in her head. She was the worst pick of the crop and anyone who thought she wouldn't suck at being someone's wife probably didn't know her or hated her enough to not care if she fumbled the role. Somehow, she was convinced her father was both; he didn't know her as a teenager and hated her altogether.

He didn't know her because she had drifted away from her family ever since her mom passed. The library was an escape. He probably hated her because he chose to wed her (knowing her struggle with being branded an ugly damsel) to a faceless man whose proposal was massively rejected by other families in Utopia for their daughters. He might as well had walked around with a placard that read, 'I HATE MY TEENAGE, FAT DAUGHTER AND CAN'T WAIT FOR HER TO BE SOMEONE ELSE' PROBLEM FOR THE NEXT TWELVE MONTHS.'

And maybe she hated him for giving the town one more reason to taunt her pitiful existence for the rest of her life.

According to her father, it hadn't been an easy choice. The proposal had arrived at a time when her family was struggling to survive and couldn't pass up the money.

But Rhylan knew that wasn't the truth for two reasons. Firstly, she had two older sisters who were done with college and helping out in their father's flower shop. Her father hadn't given them up.

Secondly, though it was true that the flower business had been rough for some months preceding the marriage offer, her family wasn't worse off. They were doing fairly better than most homes in utopia. They could have been fine without taking the payment.

It beat her why her father needed to give away a daughter in order to claim the cash prize. It hurt her that he did. Sure, she barely graduated high school with her poor grades. Sure, she hadn't had any suitors bidding for her since she turned sixteen. Those didn't justify his decision to marry her off to a faceless stranger who didn't bother to propose in person but sent a marriage agent.

Why didn't it matter to her father that the mysterious groom was rumored in town to be an old, terminally ill geezer who was still under police scrutiny for causing the death of his first wife? Why didn't it matter that the marriage proposal came with a one-year contract and a clause that the wedding be concluded no later than a month after the proposal was accepted?

Why did it only matter that for a chunk of cash, a stranger was willing to take his daughter off his hands for a year?

So here she was, days after kicking, bitching and moaning to get away from this sick-twisted ploy to ruin her life. Here she was, fated to marry in a manner that shattered a lifetime of romantic fantasies built up over the years, in the nook of the library, from the pages of her favorite romance novels.

She took one painful grunt of air and tried not to think of the wedding hall crammed with Utopians waiting to laugh when she walked out as the unfortunate bride of an alleged wife killer. She felt her fingers tremble around the stem of her bouquet. Her heart thudded violently in her chest as she turned away from the mirror.

At the moment, something else weighed heavily on her mind. Her shaky, sweaty hands and clogged throat were spurred by something bigger than childhood trauma.

Just a few days earlier, she had done something that could potentially alter her fate favorably for the next twelve months. Something that could easily turn the table and make her the most envied bride in all of utopia for a long time to come. Something she could never have thought was possible.

Something no utopian was prepared to believe, if it worked…

Damn it. It had to work or her life will forever be a cautionary tale. This cold reality was behind the prickles of fear that flared inside her, tightening her gut like an angry, clenched fist.

"Please' she muttered quietly, tears stinging her eyes. "Please God. I need this to work."

 A simple hand on her shoulder had her jolting in terror.

"Woah, relax. It's just me." Gillian said with palms spread in surrender.

Rhylan blinked at her pencil-thin childhood best friend and maid of honor. Gradually, her thumping heart lighted to a gentle pump. Her watery vision cleared once more.

"Are you okay? Gilly asked. Her voice was edged with worry. She wore a strapless gown that skimmed her ankles in blending pastels. Her boobs were a thin line across her chest. She was really beautiful by utopian standard. With a twinge of envy, Rhylan exhaled.

"Yeah, I am okay." Then almost immediately, she shook her head. "Actually, no. I can't get my fingers to stop shaking" she trudged to the icy blue sofa in her dressing room and carefully sat down to avoid snapping another thread in her dress. "Who picked this stupid dress anyway?"

Gilly smiled maternally. "My guess would be your groom. You know everything happened in a flash. You only had one job; to say yes to this marriage. Everything else: picking wedding colors, the flavor of your cake, decorations and whatnot were privately handled by the groom or some fancy event planner he hired, as I heard." She bent down to scoop up and arrange Rhylan's gown to prevent creases.

Gilly tipped her head to study her friend's face. "You're pale as a ghost. Does it have anything to do with not knowing who you will be marrying soon?"

Rhylan clenched her fists to hide the tremor in them. Something nasty and nauseating was unfurling in her belly as she struggled to breathe again.

Gilly knelt next to her and took Rhylan's hand in hers. "Look, I know this isn't the happy ever after we pictured for ourselves. We developed very high expectations of the type of men we will end up with because we read too much fiction…"

"You mean to say I developed very high expectations of the type of man I will end up with."

Gilly's guilt-stricken face lighted to surprise at the thin smile Rhylan shot her. "It's fine Gillian. I have made peace with the fact that nobody wants girls that look like me. They want skinny girls. I guess I enjoyed reading novels because all girls; skinny, curvy, stubborn, subservient etc. had a shot at true love with dreamy guys. That's not the case in utopia and I tend to forget that a lot" She sighed wistfully.

"What do you think he will look like? Your groom." Gilly whispered, tightening her grip on Rhylan's hands. "Do you think any of the rumors are true? That he is over forty, obese and bald?"

Rhylan's breath hitched as the question jabbed through her gut. It wasn't out of fear that the rumors might be true. It was as a result of faint excitement that he wouldn't be. How would her guests take it? How would she handle it if her plan actually worked today?

"We only know he's a billionaire but have you considered what he looks like?" Gilly pressed on. She swallowed the other burning questions on her tongue to prevent worsening her friend's mood.

Surging to her feet, Gilly ran a hand over her dress to smoothen it. "You need a little retouch of your makeup." she mumbled. "I'll just be a second." Rhylan watched her take shambling steps towards the vanity mirror and fuss around with makeup brushes.

She choked back a whimper at the concern in her friend's voice. She parted her lips to speak, hesitated and clamped it shut again. She wasn't ready to tell Gilly or anyone else gathered outside for the wedding what she was feeling down to her marrow; that the rumors wouldn't hold true today.

She could sense it now, a strong riot of emotions that could only mean one thing; the man coming was going to be the only man Rhylan Hicks was prepared to marry and be a wife to in a heartbeat, and for free.

The whole of utopia had no idea who her groom was, and neither was she supposed to.

But she knew.

Calvin Banks wasn't over forty. He was only slightly older than her. He wasn't obese, he was fit and toned. He was no wife killer. He wasn't bald but had shoulder-sweeping brown hair. He was…breathtaking. And she knew all this because she chose him from the pages of her favorite romance novel!