Chapter 4

But in the next instant, Phoebe Sanchez strode forward and clamped down hard on his arm.

"Douglas, stop right there!" She lifted her eyes to me, her gaze full of contempt.

"I don't know this young woman. The Sanchez family has no such disgraceful acquaintance. My son's bride, from beginning to end, is only ever Daphne Henson."

"Throw her out!"

Phoebe's voice cut cold.

Two guards came at once, gripping my arms roughly, and the little lamb bleated in fright.

The night wind outside knifed through me. A message from Douglas came through on my phone.

"Delma, my mother didn't mean to make things hard for you. Wait for me at home, I'll explain everything tonight. After what happened, you can't go back to the prairie anyway. Just stay at the house, all right?"

Daphne came out after me, unhurried, nothing in her eyes but disdain.

"Delma? Don't be upset. Let me take you somewhere nice. Anything's better than making a spectacle of yourself here."

I was shaking all over. I bit down and backed away.

"I'm not going!"

Daphne didn't force me. She just cast a faint glance toward the shadows, and my mind slid quickly into fog.

I don't know how long it was before I jerked awake.

A strange, run-down room. Daphne was gone. But standing beside me were two men I knew all too well.

Their mouths and eyes were twisted, drool sliding down, their vacant, half-witted stares fixed straight on me.

Sheer terror seized my heart in an instant, and the memory I'd fought so hard to bury blew open.

Three years ago, my brother couldn't scrape together the bride price for his wedding.

The family talked it over all night and decided to trade me off to the bride's two mentally disabled brothers in a marriage swap.

I remember the day they held me down, those sticky eyes pressing closer and closer to my face.

Just as I was about to give up all hope, it was Douglas who broke through the door, took a horse, and carried me down the mountain through the wind and snow, all the way to his hometown.

I once believed he was the one heaven had sent to save me.

So it turned out that after everything, I'd fallen into the very same dead end all over again.

Back in the banquet hall, Douglas was on edge the whole time.

He gave the secretary a low order.

"Check Delma's phone location. Make sure she got back to the villa safely."

The secretary kept his eyes down, his face steady as he hid everything, and answered softly.

"Mr. Sanchez, Miss Colton's location is normal. She's already back at the villa, safe."

The knot in Douglas's chest eased a little, but it couldn't hold down the unease underneath.

The more he thought about it, the more wrong it felt. He couldn't shake the sense that those despairing eyes from before might never look at him again.

He broke away from the party and logged into the backend himself to check the original tracking records.

The moment the screen lit up, Douglas felt the blood in his whole body run cold to the bone.