by Tina Martin
The Millionaire’s Arranged Marriage
(The Alexanders)
By Tina Martin
Copyright 2014 @ Tina Martin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, photocopying and recording, without prior written consent of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses and products are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events is entirely coincidental.
[Cover image by imagerymajestic freedigitalphotos.net]
Also by Tina Martin:
Accidental Deception, The Accidental Series, Book 1
Accidental Heartbreak, The Accidental Series, Book 2
Accidental Lovers, The Accidental Series, Book 3
What Donovan Wants, The Accidental Series, Book 4
Dying To Love Her
Dying To Love Her 2
Secrets On Lake Drive
Can’t Just Be His Friend
The Baby Daddy Interviews
Just Like New to the Next Man
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to my family and friends for their continued support of my writing career, especially to my sisters, Daisy, Sheila and Latesha; to my husband Matt and my children, Matthew and Mikayla.
As always I extend a very special thank you to my fans and readers for your kind words and reviews. It is much appreciated.
~ * ~
Dear Reader,
In my eleventh novel, The Millionaire’s Arranged Marriage, I introduce you to the Alexanders. There are three brothers: Heshan, Prasad and Dilvan.
Heshan is the oldest brother. He’s single, laid back and relaxed.
Prasad is the mature, responsible one. He’s married with two children.
Dilvan is the youngest brother, the one you will definitely love to hate. A model by profession, he’s the flashy, arrogant type. He loves money and loves to flaunt what money can buy.
Colin and Padma Alexander are their parents. Colin is African-American and his wife, Padma, is of Sri-Lankan descent. Together, with the help of their irresistibly handsome sons, they grew the family business into a multi-million dollar empire.
Tyson Alexander, thirty-two, is Colin’s nephew which would make him the first cousin of Heshan, Prasad and Dilvan.
Beatrice is Dilvan’s housekeeper. She’s an older lady, with an old soul. And she has her own quirky language which you’ll see as you read along.
The story centers around Dilvan Alexander, who at twenty-five years of age is forced to marry Gabrielle Robinson, by his Mother. He’s not attracted to Gabrielle, and does not want her nowhere near him. As retaliation against his Mother’s decision, he decides to make his new bride suffer by abusing her.
But what goes around, comes around. Dilvan Alexander doesn’t know that he’s about to learn a lesson that will stay with him for the rest of his life.
Happy Reading!
The Millionaire’s Arranged Marriage
(The Alexanders)
CHAPTER 1
Dilvan
- - -
Dilvan stepped out of the shower in his ensuite bathroom, standing on the heated marble floors, drying off his smooth, muscular body while conceitedly staring at himself in the mirror. He loved what he saw – washboard abs, blemish-free, caramel skin, and toned thigh and arm muscles – the time he spent maintaining his build was well worth the effort. He shook excess water from his black, curly hair and after throwing on a thick robe, he arrogantly sauntered down the hallway to his wife’s room.
He hadn’t allowed Gabrielle to sleep in his bed. No woman had been good enough for that privilege, especially a wife whom he didn’t want. One in which he had no attraction to, no feelings for – a woman he was forced to marry.
His Mother, Padma Alexander, being of Sri Lankan descent, had chosen Gabrielle to be his wife. Their culture was one of whom believed in arranged marriages and even though they were no longer living in Sri Lanka, but instead in Southern Shores, North Carolina, Padma still wanted her youngest son, Dilvan, to marry a woman of her choosing. According to her, he was too foolish and shallow to choose a decent woman on his own like she had allowed his brother Prasad to do. And with Dilvan’s marriage, there were rules – he couldn’t see any other woman and he had to remain married at least for a year or he’d be cut off from the family fortune.
Dilvan was defiant against the marriage but greed pushed him to reluctantly go along with his Mother’s plan. His millions were running out fast due to his frivolous spending; a yellow Ferrari and a beach house in Belize being among his most recent acquisitions. He’d already owned two other luxury vehicles – a silver Maserati and red Lamborghini, and he lived in a six-bedroom beach house in Southern Shores. So he agreed to the marriage only because he needed a cut of the family money to maintain his lavish lifestyle. Besides, he had a plan of his own when it came to this unwanted marriage to Gabrielle – he’d make her suffer. If he treated her bad enough, maybe she would leave. Six months into their arrangement, she was still around, and he was continuously treating her harshly. The good news was he knew she was almost at her breaking point.
* * *
Dilvan pushed the door open to her room, causing it to squeal at the hinges. The noise, however, didn’t wake her; even the eerie creaking of the wooden floors that accompanied Dilvan’s solid footsteps to her bed hadn’t stirred her. As he stood by her bed, an evil smile touched his lips. She was lying there, sleeping soundly, her kinky hair gathered into a high ponytail, her hairstyle of choice. Her smooth, chocolate skin was a direct contrast to the beige sheets that covered the queen-size bed.
Dilvan turned up his nose. He couldn’t stand the woman, but since his Mother made it clear that he couldn’t touch another woman, he’d made Tuesday and Thursday nights his conjugal visit nights to her bedroom. Today, he snuck into her room Tuesday morning instead of waiting until night, standing over her bed like a dark rain cloud, aroused and watching her.
In one quick motion, he grabbed two handfuls of the bed covers and stripped it off of her, tossing them to the floor.
Gabrielle shrieked, gathered herself into a ball and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Did I ask you to speak?” he grunted angrily, then wrapped his large hands around her ankles, snatching her skinny legs to stretch them out on the bed. Climbing on top of her, he pried her legs open and forced himself inside of her, taking her the same way he did twice a week, usually at night so he wouldn’t have to see her face. It would be dark and he’d be sure not to turn on the lights.
Since deciding to make his visit today a morning one, he threw a pillow over her head while he thrust forcefully inside of her. He listened as she whimpered, but he was so against this bogus marriage and so annoyed with her presence in his home that he was calloused towards feeling. Dilvan was a selfish man in general, part of the reason why Padma chose him, out of her other sons, to find a bride. But if his Mother thought she’d break him, she had another thought coming.
Dilvan pumped into her harder, and she cried even louder.
“Please stop,” she said, tearfully.
“Shut up! You should be used to this by now,” he told her, locking his hands tight around her wrists like handcuffs. Then he’d grunted and threw his head back in pleasure, his eyes closed tight.
“Ahh, mmm,” he growled, withdrawing from her body. He stood up, picked up the bed covers from the floor and after tossing them at her face, he snarled, “Clean yourself up and get ready for breakfast.”
Dilvan headed back down the hallway to his bedroom, walking tall with an opened robe, a true ty
rannical king of his castle. His six-bedroom beach abode was his throne. He ruled his empire and this dreadful woman that his Mother had matched him with would not be his queen. Six more months of seeing her disgusting face and he would be able to freely choose his own bride; preferably a hot bikini model he’d been admiring for quite some time. Her name was Isabella Torres. She was beautiful, Brazilian, with the same light complexion as him. She had a head full of long, silky black hair, adorable eyes and a tight, fit body.
The last time he saw her was on a beach in Emerald Isle where he’d been modeling a new line of men’s swimwear. Isabella had been slathered in suntan lotion, glistening under the sunlight, wearing a two-piece, American flag bikini that was so skimpy, she might as well had on nothing. Her pretty toes were covered in grains of sand as her voluminous hair swayed in the ocean breeze. That’s the woman he wanted. Gabrielle needed to disappear.
CHAPTER 2
Gabrielle
- - -
I wipe tears from my eyes and force myself to get out of bed. This house, though decorated with elegance as it sits in a prime beach location, is a torture chamber for me. Many times, I’ve wanted to escape – to get away from this place for good and never see Dilvan Alexander again, but I stayed for two reasons.
Reason one – his Mother. Padma is like a Mother to me. She’s the one who saw my profile on the arranged marriage website and had contacted my Father initially, seeking interest in having me as a bride for Dilvan. We’d talked for months over the phone before I finally met her in person at a small café in Nags Head. She was beautiful with light Indian skin, smooth black hair that extended down to her waist and a petite frame that fit her short stature. She was kind and spoke with intelligence. She told me how lovely I was and that I’d make the perfect wife for her youngest son, Dilvan, who was twenty-five years old. I was elated then, because if Dilvan was anything like her, I knew I’d be happy. However, he turned out to be the complete opposite.
The second reason I stayed is because my family needed the money. We, my Father and two sisters, though living in the United States were dirt poor. At twenty-one, I was the oldest of my siblings. My younger sisters were fourteen and sixteen. Our Mother abandoned us for life in the streets when we were little girls, and our Father, who’d hadn’t had much education, struggled to support us.
All our lives, we lived in dilapidated houses – ones that looked as if they were abandoned or could be ruled uninhabitable by the city. We had no plumbing, no bathroom, no sink to wash our hands and no shower to wash our bodies. We had to pour water in a pail to take our baths. There was an out-house for a toilet and an outside water pump for drinking water. One would think that this type of housing wouldn’t exist in the United States, but it does. There was no American dream for us. Our living arrangements were more like a nightmare.
That’s why my Father signed me up on the arranged marriage website. He saw the amount of money people were offering for suitable marriage mates for their adult children. Padma paid my Father one-hundred thousand dollars for me to marry Dilvan. Before my Father took the money, he asked me if I wanted to go through with it. I agreed, because I needed my Father and my sisters to have a better life. I wanted them to feel normal – to know what it was like to actually have running water and a bathroom.
Father had taken the money and purchased a nice three-bedroom house in Greenville, North Carolina, bought my sisters some decent clothes and had gotten caught up on all the bills. He was so happy to get back on track with life that he was motivated to look for a job again, finding low-wage work in road construction.
While I was happy that my family was no longer struggling and somewhat living a middle-class lifestyle, I was suffering at the hands of a heartless tyrant who found some way to humiliate me every single day.
Yesterday, for instance, I made the mistake of making brief eye contact with him at dinner. As punishment, he set my plate on the floor and made me eat there – without utensils.
That’s one of his rules – I can never make eye contact with him under any circumstances. He said only pretty women could look at him and according to him, I looked like a creature.
Another one of his rules was that I could never call him by his name and was to address him as ‘My Lord’ instead. As if he deserved such a title...
Coming from a very humble background, I don’t mind being the type of woman who catered to the needs of her husband, but Dilvan wasn’t husband material. He didn’t treat me right, but to make it seem as if we were blissfully in love in front of his Mother, he’d speak to me in a respectful tone whenever she was around.
Padma was supposed to be joining us for breakfast this morning, which is probably the reason why Dilvan forced himself on me. It was a warning for me to behave when his Mother had arrived and I heard him loud and clear.
* * *
I dried off my body and found a yellow maxi dress that fit the length of my five-foot seven frame. Taking down my kinky hair, I brushed it, applied some pomade and pulled my strands back into a ponytail. I’ve never liked or worn makeup so after making sure I looked decent enough to join Dilvan in the dining room, I headed downstairs, feeling sore and sick. All I could think about is the torture I’d have to endure the rest of the day as I tried to predict what he would do next to degrade me. And since he had sex with me this morning, did that mean I was free and clear tonight? I could only hope...
I slowly walked to the dining room and sat across from him at the twelve-chair dinette – a sleek, wooden dining room table with a centered, crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling above it. When I sat down, I angled my face towards the table. God forbid I make eye contact with Dilvan, or shall I say, “My Lord”. Had I made that mistake, he’d probably throw his hot coffee in my face.
Without looking up at him, I can feel the heat of his eyes burning my flesh, so much so that I began to perspire. I’m having a sudden hot flash and I feel like fanning, but I’m afraid to move.
“You just had to wear a yellow dress, didn’t you? Makes you look even darker.”
I don’t respond because how am I supposed to reply to blatant disrespect? Yes, I am a chocolate-toned woman but Dilvan’s Father is also African-American and is a lot darker than I am. The only reason Dilvan’s not dark-skinned is because his Mother is of a different race.
“You don’t hear me talking to you, girl?” he asks, then slaps the table with an open hand.
I almost jump out of the chair when I hear the loud bang of his hand against the table, because though Dilvan has never hit me, a slap to my face can’t be too far off. Many times in relationships, verbal and mental abuse usually precedes physical abuse. I do consider the way he forces himself on me physical abuse, but he’s never slapped me or bawled a fist to punch me. He did, however, push me up against a wall once.
Trembling, I finally respond, “Yes, I hear you. Would you like me to change into an outfit that doesn’t make me look so dark, My Lord?”
“Nah...what’s the point? Either way, you’ll still look hideous,” he says, then chuckles loudly.
I don’t know how a good-looking man like Dilvan can be so evil. Sometimes, I watch him when he doesn’t know I’m lurking around the corner, and from the glimpses I get, I can plainly see that the man is gorgeous. He has three-inch strands of luxurious, curly black hair that he keeps edged up. The bone structure of his face is like a work of art, and I can’t be one-hundred percent sure since I haven’t looked at him for longer than two seconds, but I think his eyes might be gray. He doesn’t have a mustache above his smooth lips, but he does have a little hair on his chin. Being a model, he keeps his body in shape by working out in his in-house gym. He also makes it priority to get regular facials, manicures and pedicures. Looks are important to him and that’s how I know I’m not the type of woman he wants. I don’t look the part. I’m not a supermodel. In my quiet moments, I wonder if that’s why he treats me the way he does – simply because he doesn’t like the way I look.
I’m not a bad-looking woman – I just don’t do things other women do to enhance their looks. I haven’t had a perm in my hair in ten years, not because I didn’t want one, but because my Father couldn’t afford to keep buying relaxers every four weeks, so I learned to love my natural hair at an early age. I embraced it, even though it made me appear differently from straight-haired women. My skin is a rich chocolate brown color. According to Dilvan, that’s what made me so ugly.
Another reason I think he dislikes me is because he knows I come from a poor family and that his Mother paid my Father one-hundred thousand dollars for me. Was he angry about the money, or at the fact that he felt he was so good-looking, he didn’t need his Mother buying a woman for him?
The Alexanders were millionaires. Dilvan’s parents Colin and Padma owned a tea exporting company, big business in Sri Lanka that they established when they lived there many years ago while the boys were young. When the children were older, they joined the family business, left the country for the United States and chose to live in the outer banks of North Carolina because it reminded them of their home in Sri Lanka.
Dilvan, however, worked just a few hours a week with the business, choosing to be a model instead of diving head first into his parent’s company as his brothers had done. He modeled swimwear but was mostly recognized for the work he did modeling underwear for Hanes and jeans for Calvin Klein ads, landing him on billboards and in numerous magazines.
