His Paradise Wife (7 page)

Once pictures were taken of the women, the
men appeared, all wearing black tuxedos walking towards their
brides and taking them by the hand.

Emily studied the crowd of men, rubbing her
sweaty palms together while looking for Armand. She’d only seen his
picture online and now she wondered if it was perhaps an old,
outdated photo of him since she hadn’t seen any man who resembled
Armand in this sea of men.

She took a deep breath. Now she was getting
nervous. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. She’d spoken with
a few of the brides last night who had actually met their men in
person before coming here. Now she wished she had done the same
thing.

Again, she peered at the men, looking for
Armand and still, she hadn’t seen him. She did, however, recognize
one man – Dante Champion – and for some reason, he was walking
directly towards her with a smile on his face. What was he doing
here?

Emily cringed, broke her trance with him and
kept looking for Armand, avoiding Dante at all costs. Still, she
could feel him getting closer and closer, the heat of his eyes
stalking her.

Dante walked up to her, touched her hand and
with a smile on his face, he asked, “Are you ready to do this,
dear?”

Chapter 11

The disturbance in Emily’s forehead was
dominant and defined. She was convinced that Dante had a problem, a
serious one. Did he really follow her here? “What do you mean, am I
ready?” she asked, snatching her hand away from his grasp.

“
To become my wife,” he
responded.

“
Are you delusional? I’m not
marrying you. What are you doing here, Dante?”

“
I’m Armand,
Emily.”

“
No you’re not.”

“
Yes I am. I’m the man
you’re been instant messaging online for the last three months and
I can prove it.” Dante took a picture from his pocket, a picture of
some man’s face he’d found online to use as his profile picture. He
showed it to her.

“
That’s Armand,” Emily said,
pointing to the picture.

“
No. That’s the picture I
used on my profile. I found it of the internet. I knew if I used my
real picture, you wouldn’t have given me the time of
day.”

Emily’s frown deepened. She felt anger build
up inside of her. “You’re right about that, and I’m not giving you
the time of day now.” She attempted to take a step away from him,
but he grabbed her arm discreetly and gently before she could make
a run for it.

With his large hand still holding her
hostage, he said, “Need I remind you that you signed a contract. If
you back out now, you owe thirty grand. Do you have that kind of
money, Emily?”

Her lips quivered in anger.

“
Didn’t think so,” he said
in a cocky, supercilious tone. Then he took charge. “Now here’s how
this is going to play out. We’re
going
to get married. Right here.
Right now. We’ll spend two weeks on this island and after those two
weeks, if you still hate me, as you obviously do now, I’ll have my
attorney draw up annulment papers. Understood?”

Emily was speechless. All she wanted to do
was pack her bags and get as far away from this place as she
could.

When she didn’t respond, Dante said,
“Good.”

The minister welcomed the sea of couples to
Pleasure Island, then, after giving a small speech about love and
marriage, he instructed the women to face their men and repeat
vows. Some women were crying tears of joy. Others had the giggles.
Emily wasn’t laughing, and if she did begin to cry, they certainly
would not be tears of happiness. She was highly upset, so much so
that her entire face was a flushed, reddish color and did her brown
eyes darken in fury?

Dante reached for her hands and she snatched
them away. The mere thought of his hands on her made her skin
crawl.

“
Are you going to do this or
not?” he asked with a smile, finding her defiance comical because
he knew he had her right where he wanted her. Once she was settled,
he slid a ring on her finger.

Emily felt thoroughly deceived by Dante, but
given the present set of circumstances, she wasn’t sure how she
could back out now. She certainly didn’t have thirty-thousand
dollars and, with the low sales from her boutique and less than
two-thousand dollars in savings, she was already on a path towards
becoming heavily in debt.

She looked at Dante and with derision in her
voice, she repeated the vows from the minister out of mere
rote.

When it was his turn, Dante did the same but
not in a rancorous way as she had. He stared happily at her,
feeling his heart rate increase since he was finally getting what
he wanted. It would’ve been better had she been happy about this,
but he had two full weeks to convince her that he was the man for
her. He loved the idea of that challenge with Emily and it
certainly would be a challenge, but he would handle her as easily
as he did his businesses. If he played his cards right, he was sure
to get a huge return on his investment.

Chapter 12

After the ceremony, the couples took group
pictures, then private ones before going to a grand reception with
open bars, music, dancing and an open mic for brides and grooms to
publicly declare their everlasting love for each other.

Dante shared a stiff, first-dance with Emily
before taking the mic.

“
I just want to say that
this ceremony is special to me. I never thought I’d be able to find
another woman that I wanted to share my life with...a woman that
means so much to me. And to my sweet Emily, I want you to know that
I will always be there for you and I look forward to spending the
rest of our lives together.”

Emily couldn’t hide the confused look that
washed over her face if someone paid her to do so. Was he for
real?

As the crowd cheered and clapped after his
speech, Dante walked over to Emily, took her right hand and brought
it up to his mouth, kissing the smooth skin on the backside of it.
Emily flashed a fake smile and when the spotlight was finally off
of them, she made a quick run for the nearest bathroom. She slumped
over the sink, feeling dizzy for a moment, trying to wrap her head
around all of this. Rewinding the events in her head, she tried to
come to grips with the fact that Armand wasn’t really Armand. There
was no Armand. Armand was Dante Champion. How could she have fallen
for this?

Instead of going back to the reception, she
headed for the suite. She needed to call Melanie as soon as
possible to get some advice and to help her clear her head.

When she stepped in the suite, she noticed
Dante’s luggage by the door. The room smelled like his cologne.

Ugh...

She continued on to the closest bathroom,
peeled the tight, uncomfortable wedding gown off of her body, then
took a pair of shorts and a tank top from her suitcase. She sat
down on the bed humiliated. Then she dialed Melanie’s number.

“
Hey, girl,” Melanie
answered excited. “You already know I have a million
questions.”

“
I know you do...” was
Emily’s unenthusiastic reply.

“
So are you
married?”

“
Yep...I’m
married...”

“
I can’t believe you went
through with it.”

“
Neither can I.”

“
So tell me all about Mr.
Armand. Is he as dreamy as you thought he’d be?”

“
He’s definitely a looker.
He’s so far from what I expected.”

Melanie screamed and cheered. “Wait...why am
I the one cheering? You don’t sound excited at all. What’s
wrong?”

Emily sighed. “You remember our conversation
a few days ago about being catfished?”

“
Yeah...don’t tell me Armand
is an old, toothless man.”

“
No, it’s worse.”

“
He looks like a
catfish?”

“
Even worse. Armand is
really Dante Champion.”

“
What!”

Melanie screamed so loud, she left ringing
in Emily’s ear.

“
Yeah...apparently he found
some guy’s picture online, used it for his profile picture then
created an account on Grieving Hearts Connect so he could talk to
me.”

“
Hold up...stop the presses.
Are you telling me that the entire three months, you thought you
were talking to Armand, it was really Dante Champion the entire
time?

“
Yep. That’s what I’m
telling you.”

“
So you’re married to Dante
Champion?”

“
Dreadfully so.”

“
Okay...wait...rewind...tell
me exactly how this played out.”

Emily took a breath. “All
the brides were standing on the beach, then the grooms came walking
towards the women, taking their brides by the hand. I was getting
worried when I didn’t see anyone who resembled Armand and while I’m
scanning through the men, desperately looking for
my
man, I see Dante. He
was staring at me like I was a T-bone steak, so I quickly looked
away. But he walked right up to me, took my hand and, at this
point, I’m looking at him like he’d lost his mind. Anyway, he pulls
out the profile picture he used online, told me he was the ‘Armand’
that I had been talking to.”

“
Oh, that’s
dirty.”

“
Tell me about
it.”

“
You could’ve walked away
though. Why’d you still marry him?”

“
Because I signed a
contract. If I breach the contract, I have to pay thirty-thousand
dollars, remember.”

“
So what are you going to
do?”

“
I’m going to fulfill the
contract terms...stay here with this man for two weeks and when I
get back home, this marriage will be immediately
annulled.”

“
Goodness. I knew the man
liked you and all, but I didn’t think he would do something so
sinister and underhanded.”

“
Yeah, well he
did.”

“
It’s almost
flattering.”

With raised eyebrows, Emily asked,
“Flattering how?”

“
You know...he likes you so
much that he was willing to create a fake profile, talk to you for
three months without blowing his cover and convince you to marry
him. If you ask me, the man has skills, and for you, my dear, he
has a plan.”

“
Well, I don’t see anything
about a liar flattering. It’s disgusting. I mean, who does he think
he is?”

“
Guess you’ll find out who
he
really
is
within the next two weeks.”

Emily sighed. “You’re not helping, Mel.”

“
Girl, I’m sorry, but given
the circumstances, I just think you should make the most out of a
bad situation. Have fun, live it up, then come back home and resume
your life as normal.”

“
It’s difficult to have fun
with a lying stranger.”

“
Well, technically, he’s not
a stranger. You’ve had several conversations with him before. And
what has Dante done to you to make you not like him? Well, other
than this incident?”

“
He’s an arrogant womanizer,
Mel. You heard the rumors about him and his brothers.”

“
Yeah, and you’re the first
to tell me not to believe everything I hear. I think it’s time you
took your own advice.”

Emily shook her head. She could recall
overhearing some women in her store talking about one of the
Champion brothers – how he’d wined and dined her, slept with her
and she never heard from him again. She heard a similar story at
the coffee shop next door to her store.

“
Well, I’m going to go and
figure out where I’ll be sleeping tonight,” Emily said. “I’ll call
you later.”

“
Okay. Later.”

Chapter 13

“
You’re done celebrating?”
Dante asked Emily after stepping into the suite. He noticed she had
changed out of her gown and into some casual wear as she rested
comfortably, her buttery-brown legs stretched out on the expanse of
the couch.

“
I wasn’t celebrating to
begin with,” she said flippantly.

Dante loosened his bow tie, unbuttoned his
crisp, white shirt a couple of buttons down as he walked to the
couch where she was resting. He sat on the edge of it near her
feet, studying her French-pedicured toenails while his eyes roamed
up her legs, to her thighs, her middle, flat stomach, breasts and
finally her face.

“
Listen, Emily. I know this
is a little uncomfortable for you.”

“
A little?” she said, the
heat of her eyes beaming towards him.

“
Yes. It’s not ideal. I’m
aware of your frustration.”

“
Oh, you have no idea,” she
hissed, watching him remove silver cuff links and place them on the
table. For some reason she was drawn to his hand as he did so,
watching how large they were again. Even his knuckles were
well-formed and sculpted to perfection. If he wanted, he could
punch a hole through a brick wall with those healthy
hands.

“
Well,” he said with a smug
look on his face. “Let’s make the most of it.”

“
I’m not making the most of
anything.”

“
Then what are you going to
do, Emily? Pout and whine about it?” he asked, mildly
amused.