It took three hours for him to answer my text. I didn’t even want to know why. Instead, I worried about packing an overnight bag for what would be our impromptu wedding trip to Vegas. Once I finished that, took a shower, and climbed in bed, my phone chimed with an incoming text alert. I took my time reaching to grab the phone off my nightstand. Once I had it in my hands, I took a deep breath and then glanced down at the text that awaited me.

Tucker: Does tomorrow work for you? I know you’re technically on spring break right now.

He wasn’t wrong, though I didn’t know how he knew that. I had never told him which University I attended, and they didn’t all go on spring break at the same time.

Mina: I am, indeed. Already packed. Pick me up whenever.

Tucker: Are you positive that you want to do this?

Mina: Already signed the paperwork, so I guess so.

Tucker: We aren’t married yet.

Mina: I think the question is, are you sure? Is your empire worth having to marry me?

Tucker: What kind of question is that?

Mina: The one you need to be able to answer before you say, ‘I do’. Good night, see you tomorrow.

There was no way I was going to spell that one out for him. I figure deflection should work since he didn’t really give two shits about me anyway. I turned my phone off, set it on the nightstand again, and closed my eyes. I’d like to say peaceful sleep found me, but I’d be lying.

I tossed, turned, got up, wrote a few thousand words, attempted sleep again, and finally managed to get about three hours in before there was a knock on my door. “Yes?” I called out.

“Mina, there’s someone here for you,” my mom called through the door. Perfect timing then. That meant my dad was off to work and wouldn’t be here to ask questions.

“Be right there,” I informed her before gathering up the bag I’d already packed. It was nothing more than an oversized laptop bag, so it would just look like I was taking my normal school bag with me somewhere and wouldn’t trip any parental red flags. Granted, I was nearly 21-years old, but when dodging your parents to go marry a man who didn’t actually want to marry you, things got a little tricky.

By the time I got downstairs, my mother managed to procure a drink for Tucker and was regaling him with an embarrassing tale about the time I painted the walls with my own shit as a toddler. I didn’t know whether to be appalled or thank her. Maybe she would scare him off and I wouldn’t actually have to go through with this whole mess.

To say I was having second, third, and more thoughts about marrying Tucker was an understatement. Still, I knew why I’d said yes, and despite my many misgivings about him, I was still going to follow through with this plan. It would save me a lot of heartache in the future. At least this way, I already knew exactly what I was getting. I would take the name of a man who would never love me, we would probably never have children that belonged to the two of us, and one day, he would get fed up with the farce and leave me when he found his perfect woman and fell in love with her. I had until then before I had to worry about what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life, because it was obvious that I couldn’t be trusted to make good decisions about who to believe in this world.