The Substitute Bride He Could Never Replace

Neriah's POV

"What the." I mumbled as I opened my eyes due to the warm liquid I felt on my lips.

The blooms were like ink spilled on the water, red everywhere.

I sat up too fast. My head spun.

"No, no, no," I whispered to myself, putting the back of my hand to my nose. Blood dripped between my fingers, thin and steady, I couldn't stop it from flowing.

I didn't waste my time panicking or wondering what's happening... I know too well what's happening. I got out of the tub, wrapped a towel around myself and picked up the first clothes I could get. I was shaking so much that it took me three times to button my shirt. I looked up, pressed a tissue into my nose and took my bag.

I made it to the front door and the tissue was already wet... the blood soaking it and dropping on the floor.

I don't recall many of the miles driven. I could k Lu recall reminding myself to not die. "You're fine, Neriah. You're fine. Just get there."

I wasn't fine.

I made it as far as the hospital's waiting room before my legs gave out from under me. The final memory I registered was me missing a stair and someone yelling for help.

After I opened my eyes again I was lying on the hospital bed with an IV taped to the back of my hand. There was a nurse standing over me watching the monitor next to my bed.

"Miss Vale? Can you hear me?" she asked, leaning towards me.

"Yes," I said. My voice came out hoarse. "I hear you."

"How do you feel?" She asked in a gentle voice.

"I'm fine." I replied. "Just a bit light headed."

She looked at me as if she didn't believe it, but she didn't say anything. She took my pulse, my blood pressure, and made notes on her chart.

"The doctor will be in shortly to go over your results," she said, and left.

I looked at the ceiling and worked to calm my breathing. I was not fine. I hadn't been feeling well for weeks. I have become really good at pretending.

A few minutes later the door opened again. Dr Whitfield comes in with a folder under his arm and already his face says to me this is not going to be a short chat.

He pulled a stool over to sit by my bed, "Neriah," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Better than I look, I promise," I said, doing my best to give a smile.

He didn't smile back. He flipped the folder open and scanned through the pages of numbers that I couldn't make heads or tails of.

Finally, he said, "Your latest results aren't good. Your kidney function is down again, so is your platelet count, that's why you had the nosebleed."

I said quietly, "Okay."

He looked up at me. "When was the last time you got your injections? Your medication?"

I hesitated. "It's... It's been a long time."

"How long?" He asked.

I said, "I suppose it's been about six weeks."

His jaw tightened. "What happened? Why?"

I didn't look at him, I looked at my hands. "All my mother's trust fund money has been used - months ago - and I can't afford the meds anymore - at that price."

He took a while to say it. "What about your dad? Is he involved in your treatment in any way?"

My stomach clenched when I heard the question. "Let's discuss something else, right?"

"Neriah-"

"How long do I have ...without my drugs and injections?" I asked, desperate to change the topic.

He studied my face for a long time, as though he wanted to go deeper into the question about my father, but he didn't.

Tapping on the folder, he said, "Based on these results, the damage will begin to spread to your other organs within two months, if you don't treat it. Maybe sooner."

Two months.

I knew I had a short time left on earth, but hearing it from a doctor didn't make me feel better. It had been a thing I knew for years since I was a small child, and my doctors told my mother I may not make it to twenty-one.

"Do you think there is something I can do?" I asked. "Any other option? To get the money for the drugs or just the drugs at least?"

Dr. Whitfield exhaled. "There is an NGO; they help those who cannot afford medical treatment - I've referred patients to them before; it's competitive but your case is severe enough that you have a good chance - I can give you their information, I'd suggest that you apply as soon as you can."

I said 'Thank you.'

He gave me a small card containing the organisation's name, and an email address for contact, and patted my shoulder lightly and reassuringly before going outside.

I didn't move from my seat for a while, I just looked at the card in my hand, and then I got up.

When I arrived home, there was a quietness in the house. I immediately headed to the bathroom, and there I discovered the blood stains there - smeared along the rim of the tub, and a few drops on the tile floor. I knelt down and slowly began cleaning it, methodically, as I would most things when I didn't want to think too deeply about what had just happened.

As the bathroom was once again clean, I sat on my bed with my laptop and opened a new email.

I was very careful in my typing, telling them what I diagnosed and my prognosis and my financial situation. I explained my treatment and the need. I took my laptop out, read the email twice and then only sent it after I attached what medical records I could save.

I propped myself up in my pillows and shut my eyes, I hoped it just would be enough.

I was interrupted from my thoughts by a knock at my door.

"Miss Neriah?" Rosa, one of the maids, stuck her head in. "Your father is calling you, he wants you in his study."

I blinked at her. "Me? Did he really say 'me'?

"Yes, miss, he said to come right away." She added.

I frowned. This was the first time in years that my dad had called me to his study. That man acted like I didn't exist 90% of the time. My stomach twisted with unease at something about it.

"Alright," I said.

I closed my laptop, changed my clothes and combed my hair down and headed down the stairs, my brain buzzing with all sorts of possibilities of why he might have wanted to see me. I could think of not one that would make sense.

At the time of my arrival, the door to the study was open. When I went in, I saw Elara sitting in one of the chairs, looking bored and with her legs crossed, facing our father's desk.

She looked at me as I came in, but didn't say anything.

"Sit," Darius replied, without raising his eyes from his desk.

I sat down in the empty seat next to my sister.

At last my father raised his head and thrust a folder over the desk at me. "Read this."

I took up and opened it. I'd had to pore over the pages of financial statements and revenues and debts for a while before I understood it. I got my stomach churning the more I read. The results were lousy. Worse than bad.

"This is-" I raised my head to him. "The company is in an imminent danger of bankruptcy."

Darius responded with a flat tone. "I know/"

He then went into his desk drawer and produced yet another document, handing it to me in the same manner. I placed the first folder and took up the new one.

This one was special. It was a proposal for an investment, a lot of legal jargon I didn't fully grasp: clauses on capital injection, ownership stock, terms of agreement. In the financial jargon, I saw other terms I would have never seen in a business document.

Marriage terms.

I peered up, puzzled. "What is this? What is the reason for investment proposals to have marriage clauses?"

"I have an investor now," Darius said. But he has asked one condition to be met: "Someone willing to save this company from collapse.

"Which is?" I asked.

"Elara, he wants to marry your sister." He said.

I blinked, and looked at my sister, who was staring at her nails, like nothing could worry her.

I turned to my father and still didn't get it. "OK," I mumbled. "Well, what do you want from me? Need help going over the contract with me or-"

But je scoffed.

"The issue is," he continued, "Elara is too young to get married. But you, on the other hand-"

Neriah's POV

"But what about me , on the other hand?" My voice was harsher than I wanted it to be, I asked. "Say it plainly."

Darius put his hands on top of his desk. "You will replace Elara, because she is too young to marry.

I did laugh for a second. It wasn't funny - I didn't think there was anything funny about this - but I didn't know what else to say.

"No," I said as soon as I found the words to say. "Absolutely not."

"Neriah-"

I cut him short, "I'm not marrying someone I don't know to save your business. I don't even know this man, I've never met this man. You're asking me to give up my life because your business is failing? And your daughter is too young to marry?"

Darius' voice grew louder, "It's not simply my business. "It's the future of this family."

"This family? What family?" I shot back.

Next to me, Elara sneered, uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "Oh, please, don't make it sound like you are somehow sacrificing so much, Neriah, you've never done anything for this family, the least you could do is help when we need you."

I turned around and saw her. "Help you? My name is not on the fucking paper."

"And now it's up to you to fix," she said simply as if that would be enough.

"One more word... and you'll be next for the doctor's to fix." I hissed, my hands clenched into dust.

Darius slammed his hand down on the desk saying, "Enough! He glared at me, his face turning dark. "You have done nothing for this family, Neriah. You've done nothing at all. This is your opportunity to be useful."

My chest froze.My chest became cold and still. "Useful," I said softly.

"Yes."

I told her "You have never treated me like family. Not once. My mother was the only one here who cared if I lived or died, and the day she died, you stopped pretending I was even here. And now you want me to do something for the family! Family?"

"That's not true-"

"Yes," I said, my trembling voice not out of fear but rage, "it is true. You don't use that word – family – now after all these years just because it's convenient for you. Just because you need something from me."

Darius's face was furiously contorted. He jumped off his chair-fast-it almost fell back-before I knew what was happening, his palm hit my cheek hard.

I had my head knocked on my side by its force. I felt something warm in my mouth, blood.

Silence fell over the room. Even Elara didn't say anything.

I straightened slowly, and spat the blood on the study's floor as I looked at my father.

"I am not getting married to him." I said coldly, then turned around and walked out.

I didn't run. I made myself walk, even though every part of me wanted to bolt. I climbed the stairs, went straight to my room, and locked the door behind me before finally letting myself shake.

It didn't take long before I heard him.

"Neriah." It was Darius's voice, firm and controlled, that came through the door. "Open this door."

I said nothing. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, pressing a tissue to my cut lip, looking at the wood grain of the door as if it would provide me with some answers.

"Neriah, you are playing with fire" He knocked harder. "Open the door."

I stayed silent.

"You can just say no to this?" he shouted. "This is my family and I rule it. You will do as I say!"

I didn't even respond. His footsteps went back down the hallway, however.

After that, I sat for a long time, just staring at nothing with my mind spinning through all of what has just happened. I recalled the email I had sent to the NGO. I considered the two months that Dr. Whitfield had given me. I considered the life I would be forced to live if I ever accepted that marriage.

I couldn't stay. No more sleeping on his porch.

Out of my closet, I took a bag and packed fast, putting together my changes of clothes, medical records, and the little cash I had in my pocket. I didn't have a plan other than escaping, even though I had no destination. I knew I had to be anywhere else than here.

I only got as far as the bottom of the stairs.

Before I got to the door, two of my father's guards came into my way. I wanted to get away from them but one got hold of my arm.

I twisted against his hold, "Let go of me.Let go of me," I said, twisting against his hold.

They didn't pull me too far. I was placed down a narrow flight of stairs into the basement where they left me alone in the low light of the basement with my bag in my hand.

After what seemed like forever, Darius came down to meet me. I held my breath for more yelling, perhaps another slap.

Rather, he remained tranquil and composed.

Unnervingly calm.

He pointed to a chair close to the wall, "Sit."

I didn't move. "I don't want to sit anywhere, let me go."

He didn't argue. He just walked up to me and deposited a little bag on the table next to me and then walked away and looked at me expectantly.

I frowned and stretched out my hand and opened it. In there were rows of medicine bottles, a case of syringes, all of which I knew.

My treatment.

"Why do you need to have this? I whispered.

Again he said, "Sit down, Neriah," and I did, slowly, not looking up at him, my eyes never taking my eyes off the bag.

Darius moved the other chair over and sat down across from me. "Since you were a child, you knew that your condition could take your life before you turned twenty-one, that was made clear to your mother, to me.

"Tell me something I don't know." I snapped at him.

"Then you're also aware that without proper treatment, you won't make it much further," he said. "I want you alive, Neriah. I want you alive and in good health to finish this marriage."

"So," I said, "this is what it's all about. You suddenly care about my health all because you need me?"

"Look , I'm not going to lie," he said. "I will pay for your treatment - everything, anything, as long as you agree to getting married."

My mind raced and I stared at him. The e-mail to the NGO seemed to be both small and unsure in comparison to what he was giving me, something he was guaranteeing me, immediate and unlimited, and proof of it was sitting right in front of me in a bag on the table.

"You're giving me a chance to live, so you can control my life?" I mumbled.

"Im giving you the opportunity to live, Darius corrected. "Time spent after that is a matter for you."

I scanned at the bag of pills and back at him. I wanted to say no, I wanted to spit in his face like I did upstairs. But the two months Dr. Whitfield had given me resonated in my mind, and under the anger was something more primitive, something that had been with me all my life - the basic, desperate desire to live.

"Let's help one another," Darius said, watching me intently. "I have your treatment secured, you marry Cassian in Elara's place, that's all this requires. Easy peasy."

My jaw clenched tight, my hands gripping the strap of my bag, I said nothing.

Darius shifted his gaze to mine as he leaned slightly over.

"Would you help me help you?"

Neriah's pov

I was seated in front of the mirror, looking at a stranger.

The wedding gown was excellent. I could hardly see the woman in the reflection, she seemed so calm. Composed. A sharp contrast to the always bleeding, bloodstained neriah.

I looked over to the little bag of medicine on the dresser next to me. I touched the edge of it, just to remind myself of its reality.

"It's for you," I whispered to myself. "Not for him, not for this family, for you."

I said it in my mind like a promise, because I had to have something to cling onto.

The door was opened and Darius walked into the room without knocking, holding a folder in his hand. He placed the vows and the papers that will be required to be signed on the dresser next to me, "The vows and the documents you'll need to keep once you're married. Don't lose them."

"I wouldn't," I said without looking him in the eye.

He straightened his white suit jacket, and then his eyes fell to his sleeve. He rubbed at a small dark stain near the cuff, and frowned.

He cursed, "Damn it!"

He stripped off the jacket, tossing it over the back of a chair as he looked for something to wipe it with. While he was stretching the fabric taut a small foil packet dropped from the inside pocket onto the carpet. He didn't notice.

"Hurry up here," he said, looking at his watch. "In twenty minutes we will be on our way. I need to change this suit." Then he turnedto leave, thinking about his stain.

The second he jest, I bent and retrieved the packet. Empty, foil cut open on one side and no pills inside. I turned it over in my hand, searching for a label.

I took my cellphone out, and took a pic of it, send it to an AI, I needed answers.

It took a while to load the results. I scanned them and my stomach clenched with each word. Confusion. Impaired awareness. Memory gaps. Higher doses: Hallucinations. It was not something you'd take on a whim; it was the type of medicine that people would use when they wanted to change a person's mind.

"What is father up to now?" I mumbled.

The door opened up again before I could think any more.

Now Darius was wearing a new jacket, he said, "Let's go. The car's waiting."

I didn't really know what I was doing when I put the packet in my clutch, I think there was something in my brain that told me to keep it, and I followed him out.

---

There was a silence in the car, only the sound of the engine. I looked out the window, my hands clasped tightly in my lap.

"Will he be angry?" I asked eventually. "When he realizes that I am not Elara?

Darius neither looked at me nor did he give me a reaction. "It's none of your business, I got it sorted out."

"It's not an answer," I replied, unsatisfied.

"That's the only one you'll get," he said. "Stop worrying about things that don't concern you and focus on getting through today."

I shut my mouth and didn't say a word more.

I looked at the little waiting room when we got to the courthouse, thinking he'll be here, Cassian, the man I'm going to marry, I've never seen his face. The room was almost devoid of other people other than a clerk behind the desk and a handful of witnesses.

"Where's the groom?" I said to Darius.

The clerk flipped through a folder, "He's already signed. All we need is your signature and we're done.l

"He's not here?"I asked what I didn't understand further.

Darius said simply, "just sign it."

I scanned the papers before me, then my father's face, trying to find some comfort. He didn't say a single thing, merely stood there, his face inscrutable.

I had no other option! I took up the pen and signed my name at the spot where the clerk marked, my hand shaking a little.

"That's all, I am married to a guy I never met."

Afterwards, Darius took me to a hotel room, the one set up for the wedding night. I was standing in the doorway, looking into the room and feeling uneasy in my stomach.

"Why must I remain here when he's not even here?" I asked.

"He'll be here," Darius said. "This was the deal, Neriah, you agreed to this. Remember what I'm getting for you."

The reminder hit the bullseye.

"He is likely very tired due to the day," Darius added. "He will not bother you tonight, just get some sleep. And don't do anything stupid."

I went in grudgingly and the door shut.

The suite was elegant, beautiful and quite new to me. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, waiting, with my clutch still beside me, clutched in my hand while still holding the empty medication packet I couldn't get rid of.

Time passed slowly. I can still see myself sitting there looking at the door, worrying about all the anxious thoughts in my head about who I was supposed to be in the room with.

But, at some point during the wait, everything started to get fuzzy.

My mind began to wander, like smoke I couldn't see. I can recall at that moment, I felt heavy and strange, my vision blurred with the edges swimming around.

I don't remember how long was elapsed after that.

The next clear moment I will have is when I wake up on the bed, stark naked, with a foggy head, and my body unresponsive to my commands. Cassian was beside me, and was heavily drunk; his eyes only partly open, and he was muttering to himself.

He reached toward me, his hands around my waist, but he didn't look, he whispered "Elara. Come here."

I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I was trying really hard to figure out what had happened in between sitting at the edge of the bed and this moment, but I couldn't find anything.

On that night I didn't drink a drop of alcohol.

Then, out of the fog that was my mind, I recalled what I had in my clutch: an empty foil packet. These are the search results on my phone. Confusion. Memory gaps. Impaired awareness.

The bits of the puzzle fit in together in a sickeningly clear manner.

"I was drugged by Darius....but how?"