My Fake Bankrupt Husband Is A Tycoon

The heavy glass door of the diner refuses to budge.

My palms slide against the grease-stained metal. My lungs burn. I need air. I need the freezing Philadelphia winter, but the diner is a suffocating trap of fried bacon and cheap bleach.

Before I can throw my weight against the door again, thick fingers dig into my bicep. The nails pierce through my thin sweater, scraping my skin.

"Where do you think you're going, Grace?"

My mother's voice is a jagged blade. Doris yanks me backward with a force that makes my neck snap. She shoves me into the cracked vinyl booth. The springs groan under my weight.

Across the table, Clarnce leans forward. The stench of his cheap cologne hits the back of my throat, thick and nauseating. He smiles, revealing a row of yellowed teeth.

"Don't be shy, Gracie," Clarnce says.

He reaches across the sticky table. His thick, calloused hand clamps over my jaw. His fingers press into my cheeks, hard enough to grind my teeth against the inside of my mouth. A whimper tears from my throat.

"Let go of me," I choke out, my voice trembling. "I am not marrying a man with two domestic violence charges."

Doris slams her hand on the table. The salt shaker rattles. She digs into her oversized purse and pulls out a ring. The diamond is small, cloudy, and set in cheap, tarnished metal. She shoves it across the table.

"You will put this on, and you will go to City Hall with your cousin right now," Doris hisses, her face turning a mottled red. "Do you know how much money he gave me? You ungrateful little bitch."

People in the surrounding booths are staring. I can feel their eyes crawling over my skin. Doris notices the audience and immediately changes her tune. She throws her hands in the air and lets out a loud, theatrical wail.

"My own daughter!" she cries out to the diner. "Leaving her poor mother to starve! Refusing to help her family!"

The walls of the diner close in on me. My heart hammers against my ribs so violently I think it might crack my sternum. I grip the strap of my canvas bag until my knuckles turn white. I can't breathe. I can't marry him. I will die if I marry him.

A waitress approaches our booth, carrying a tray with two mugs of scalding black coffee. She looks nervous, her eyes darting between Clarnce's grip on my face and my mother's fake tears.

This is it.

I jerk my body to the side, pretending to struggle against Clarnce's hold. As I twist, I slam my elbow hard into the edge of the waitress's tray.

The tray tips. The mugs slide.

Scalding black coffee cascades directly into Clarnce's lap.

He unleashes a sound that is half-scream, half-roar. His hand flies off my face as he jumps up, knocking his knees against the table. The booth shakes. Doris shrieks, grabbing a handful of cheap