Page 13 of His Forced Bride

"Yes. My son is dead." The words come out flat, emotionless.

If he feels grief, it doesn't show on his face. "Which changes our arrangement."

"There is no arrangement anymore."

He stops three feet away from me, close enough that I can smell the tobacco smoke clinging to his coat, the expensive cologne that doesn't quite mask the scent.

Up close, he's even more imposing.

His face is all hard angles—sharp cheekbones, a jaw that could cut glass, eyes that have seen too much blood.

He's a handsome man, probably where Dominic got his good looks, but looks aren't everything.

At least with Dominic, we had a sliver of a chance that there would be something in common between us.

With Yuri, I'd have nothing.

I'd be a prisoner, a sex slave, and if I was lucky, he'd let me work.

"You're wrong." He reaches into his coat and pulls out a manila envelope.

"The contracts your father signed are still binding. The alliance between our families still stands."

"The alliance was between Dominic and me."

"The alliance was between the Gravitch family and the Mirov family."

He drops the envelope onto my drafting table, scattering my funeral dress sketches.

"Your father made certain of that in the fine print."

I grab the envelope with shaking hands and pull out the papers inside.

Legal documents, thick with clauses and subclauses written in the dense language that lawyers use to hide their true meaning.

But the relevant sections are highlighted in yellow, impossible to miss.

The marriage arrangement isn't between Dominic and me, specifically.

It's between the heir of the Gravitch family and the heir of the Mirov family.

If one heir dies, the other steps in to fulfill the contract.

"This can't be legal," I mumble as my eyes pore over the pages.

"Your father's signature says otherwise."

Yuri takes another drag from his cigarette. "As does yours."

My signature is there at the bottom, right next to Batya's.

I remember signing this document three months ago, barely reading it because I trusted my father to handle the details.

I was so focused on the wedding arrangements, on the dress fittings and venue bookings, that I never bothered to understand what I was actually agreeing to.

"I won't marry you," I snap, and I throw the papers down on the table, making more of the sketches fly off to the floor below.

"Then you'll lose everything." He moves to the window and looks out at the city below.