Bound By Contract: My Disabled Husband

Eleanor Hayes's fingers dug into the fabric of her dress, the knuckles turning white.

"Eleanor, I don't have time to waste on this." Her stepmother Brenda's voice was sharp, a whip cracking in the sterile air of the hospital corridor. "Your sister Stella has a weak heart. She can't handle the stress. You have to take her place in this marriage."

Brenda Hayes, a woman who had married into wealth and never let anyone forget it, looked at Eleanor as if she were a piece of unsatisfactory merchandise.

Eleanor lifted her head. Her sea-blue eyes, threaded with red, were hollow. "Why should I? It's the Carlisle family. All of New York knows Julian Carlisle was paralyzed in that car crash a year ago. They say he's cruel."

A cold laugh escaped Brenda's lips. "Because you are also a Hayes daughter, and right now, the family business needs the Carlisle's money. It's your duty."

The door to the VIP room at the end of the hall swung open. Eleanor's father, Richard Hayes, stepped out, his face etched with a weariness that didn't quite mask his iron-clad authority.

He was the patriarch of a declining empire, Hayes Industries, and he carried that weight with a stoop in his shoulders.

He didn't even look at Eleanor. "The doctor said Stella can't have any more emotional disturbances," he said to Brenda.

Only then did his gaze shift to his eldest daughter. There was no fatherly warmth in it, only a cold command. "The matter is settled. The Carlisle family will send someone to pick you up tomorrow."

Eleanor's heart plunged, a stone dropping into an icy abyss. She felt like an item, priced and sold.

She tried one last, desperate plea. "Dad, you can't do this to me. Jett..."

At the mention of Jett Curtis's name, a delicate cough echoed from the room.

Stella Hayes, dressed in a patient's gown, emerged, leaning on a nurse. Her face was pale, but her eyes, when they met Eleanor's, were filled with triumphant gloating. She was the picture of fragile victory.

"Sis, don't blame Dad," Stella said, her voice soft as she tucked her arm into Richard's. "Jett loves me now. We're in love. Can't you just be happy for us?"

Jett, Eleanor's fiancé-no, ex-fiancé-followed them out of the room. His handsome face was a mask of awkwardness, but his body betrayed him. He instinctively moved to stand beside Stella.

He was the ambitious son of a new-money family, and his choice was clear.

"Eleanor, I'm sorry," Jett mumbled, avoiding her wounded gaze. "You can't force feelings."

That apology was so hypocritical. Her family, her fiancé-the entire world had turned its back on her.

Suddenly, Stella's eyes sharpened, like a predator spotting prey. She pointed a slender finger at Eleanor's neck, her voice a high-pitched, fake gasp. "Oh! Sis, what is that on your neck?"

Every eye in the corridor snapped to Eleanor. A faint, purplish mark bloomed on her skin, just below her ear-a remnant of last night's frantic, terrifying haze.

Eleanor's hand flew to her neck, a wave of heat flooding her cheeks. The humiliation was a physical force, threatening to suffocate her.

She remembered last night. Drugged. A strange man whose face was a blur in the darkness of a hotel room. She had convinced herself it was just a nightmare.

"Sis," Stella said, blinking with feigned innocence, "although you and Jett have broken up, you shouldn't be so careless with yourself. If the Carlisles find out, what will happen to the Hayes family's reputation?"

Richard's expression changed instantly, shifting from coldness to pure disgust as he looked at Eleanor.

Brenda seized the opportunity, her tone becoming even more vicious. "You shameless thing! Now you have no choice. You will marry him, whether you want to or not!"

The whispers of nearby nurses and patients felt like needles pricking her skin.

Eleanor's mind went blank. She was on a cliff's edge with nowhere to go. She looked at the faces of her so-called family, suddenly ugly and foreign.

Stella nestled against Jett, flashing him a smug smile. A clear declaration of her complete victory.

Richard waved a dismissive hand, as if shooing away a fly. "That's enough. Stop making a scene. Go home and get ready."

He turned, supporting Stella, and together with Brenda and Jett, they escorted the "victor" back into the room.

Eleanor was left alone in the hallway.

The fluorescent lights hummed, casting a pale, unforgiving glow. She leaned against the cold wall, her legs giving way as she slid to the floor.

She hugged her knees, burying her face against them. A choked sob escaped her lips, small and desolate in the empty corridor.

She had lost everything. And now she had to carry this shame and marry a monster.

But in that suffocating darkness, a single thought took root, wild and fierce.

She had to survive. She had to find out who that man was last night. And she would make every single person who hurt her pay.