Chapter 3
My dad looked at her, his face full of relief.
"Now Audrianna finally has a good match," he said.
"But I don't want to marry him," I protested.
Both of them started frowning, their faces getting tense.
"Audrianna, why don't you want to marry him? Draven is a great guy," Mom said.
She moved in to fix my collar, but her face suddenly felt so unfamiliar to me.
"Then why didn't you marry him, Mom?" I blurted out.
Her hand froze midair, and my dad, who was sitting on the stone bench drinking coffee, almost choked on his coffee.
"What are you saying? If I'd married him, you wouldn't even be here," Mom said.
Her tone was gentle, but her face was growing more and more rigid.
"Besides, I didn't even like him," she said quietly.
"I don't care. I'm not marrying him, no matter what," I yelled.
I shoved her away, bolted back to my room, slammed the door, and locked it tight. I stood there, breathing hard, trying to calm myself down.
For the first time, the Spencer Estate felt like a complete stranger to me.
But soon enough, my mom came over, and the maid started pounding on my door.
"Miss Spencer, come on out. Your mom's waiting for you!" The maid kept calling.
I stayed silent, so she just kept banging on the door. Finally, I retreated to my bedroom, dove under the covers, and hid with the blanket pulled over my head.
Not long after, I heard someone actually hacking at the door with an axe.
"Hey, Audrianna, you haven't eaten yet, right? Are you hungry?" Mom called out from outside.
I hid under the covers and stayed quiet, not making a sound until Mom finally barged into my bedroom.
"Audrianna, aren't you getting hot under there?" she called out.
I stayed still, so she just tugged the blanket right off me. I was way too weak to stop her.
"When I was young, I used to be a pirate, you know. Audrianna, you don't stand a chance against me," she joked, sounding proud.
I knocked the pasta out of her hands, spilling hot soup all over her.
"Eat it yoursel,!" I snapped.
I turned away, but her voice still reached me.
"If you keep making a scene like this, I'm really going to get angry," Mom warned.
"I'm not making a scene. Why don't you try marrying a guy twenty years older than you? He could be your dad," I shot back.
I waved my hands, trying to mimic what he looked like, but Mom just acted like she didn't hear a thing.
"Don't you talk to me like that. I never taught you to be so rude," she snapped.
"I don't want to," I yelled.
Mom gripped my shoulders, her face suddenly all business, staring me down. "Audrianna, listen up.
"There are way more important things in life than just age. Draven has them all. Marrying him means you'll never get the short end of the stick."
I wanted to cry, but I was so numb that not a single tear would come.
"Doesn't my youth mean anything to you?" I choked out.
After a long silence, Mom let out a heavy sigh.
"I owe him more than you can imagine. If you marry him, it's like you're helping me finally pay back what I couldn't," she said.
But I still had to ask the question that had been burning inside me.
"And what about me?" I whispered. "When you made all these decisions, did you ever think you might owe me something?"
She fell silent again.
"So I'm just your convenient tool, is that it?" I asked.
"Audrianna!" Mom raised her voice.
To me, that was just her guilty conscience showing.
"So, you like Trevor, huh?" she demanded.
This time, I was the one who went quiet.
She thought she'd finally hit my weak spot, so she kept coming at me, not letting up for a second.
"Audrianna, Trevor might be smart, but he's way too reckless. He's just not husband material," Mom said.
"Draven is good-looking, reliable, and comes from money. He's got everything a girl could want," she went on.
"Mom, if Dad wasn't the Duke of the Crownlands, would you still have married him?" I blurted out.
To my surprise, I caught a hint of hesitation on her face—just for a moment.
"Why are you bringing me into your marriage mess? The royal decree is final. When the day comes, you just go," she said.
After saying that, she rushed out like she couldn't get away fast enough.
I sat in front of the mirror, my mind slowly piecing together a truth so wild that it was almost too crazy to believe.
No wonder Dad agreed to the marriage so fast. It was all because I happened to look so much like Mom.
And with Draven head over heels for her, I was just the stand-in he settled for.
The next day, I started planning my getaway. There was no way I was going to let myself become someone else's substitute.
But I never expected Dad to have everything locked down ahead of time. The moment I tried to make a move, I got caught red-handed.
"When your mom was your age, her tricks were way slicker than yours," Dad said, shaking his head with a smug grin.
Watching him act so smug just made me even angrier.
So, the night before the wedding, I slipped some colorless, flavorless laxatives into his food as payback.
Too bad, when I tried to use sleeping powder on Mom, she caught me red-handed.
"Audrianna, quit messing around and just listen to me. Marrying him will bring you happiness," Mom insisted.
"How would you know? You never married him yourself," I shot back.
Both their faces turned even gloomier.
With the blaring gongs and drums, the disaster of a wedding kicked off.
I sat in the bridal sedan, peeking through the curtains at the crowds bustling outside.
Trevor was nowhere to be seen.
Maybe they kept him locked up at home. Maybe that was for the best. At least he wouldn't get caught up in my disaster.
"The ceremony is about to start," the officiant called out.