A Sham Marriage with Unexpected Benefits

“This is just a sham marriage, Young Master.” The man who was meant to be my stepbrother, Eric Orleans, I eloped with him under the cover of night and found myself in a sudden, unplanned wedding. By all rights, the ones standing here now should have been my mother and Eric Orleans’s father. “If you get caught, you’re dead.” That’s what my mother mouthed when she saw me standing at the altar in what should have been her own wedding ceremony. Sorry, mother. But this is all for our family. I can’t let that psycho Stepfather of mine wipe us all out. Snap! Snap! Snap! Camera flashes burst around us. By tomorrow, the headlines will no doubt read something like this, [Eric Orleans elopes with his father’s fiancée’s daughter in a sudden midnight wedding!] [Kisses exchanged at the altar…] It’s indeed scandalous, but in the end, it’s just a sham marriage..