BridePrice.com

By Eve Morton

Krystal has always felt like an outsider. As the only adopted child in her family, she longs for some kind of connection to another person. When Gita moves next door, Krystal is immediately smitten. The self-declared "Desi girl extraordinaire" provides Krystal with an insight into another culture and the possibility for love.

Over ten years later, when Krystal finds out that Gita is about to be married in an arranged ceremony with a man, Krystal knows she has to stop the wedding. Gita never wanted to be married like this and Krystal never got to apologize for the fight that tore them apart. Krystal drags her best friend Brianna on her quest to save Gita, but soon starts to wonder if breaking up a wedding is what she really wants to do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Sep 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685505752

Book preview

BridePrice.com

By Eve Morton

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2023 Eve Morton

ISBN 9781685505752

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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BridePrice.com

By Eve Morton

Are you ready?

Krystal closed the folder containing her half-translated Hindu scripture she was working on for her PhD dissertation. She turned from her desk to see her roommate, Brianna Wu, come into their shared two-bedroom apartment. Brianna held an overflowing box of props from the local theatre, one that she shimmied to one side of her hip as she made her way through the apartment and into the living room. It was at that moment when Krystal saw the DVD copies of the Star Wars films sticking out of the box, next to wigs and fake weapons.

Oh shit, Krystal said.

Brianna dropped the box on the couch and doubled back down the hallway to stand in front of Krystal’s doorway. Brianna’s pin-straight black hair framed her round face and made her sudden vexation seem lesser. Krystal knew, from living with her the last four years, though, that Brianna was a force to be reckoned with. Especially when Star Wars was involved. Brianna folded her arms over her chest and huffed.

Don’t tell me you forgot about this! It’s right there on the calendar. May The Fourth!

But that’s Monday. Right now, it’s barely May and you know me. I forgot to factor in February because it’s a short month when we were budgeting this year. Of course I still think it’s April right now. Krystal ran her fingers over the mouse-pad of her computer, waking it up. She compared her tentative schedule online with her hand-written folder full of notes on the Vedas. Her Hindu scripture was only half completed, and if this really was May first, that meant she had very little time to complete all she needed. Only Friday, then the weekend.

All that time slipped away if she was watching Star Wars with Brianna.

You promised, Brianna said. "Back in December when we saw the most recent Star Wars at the movies. Come on, Krys. I watch your insane movies all the time."

Hey. Bollywood is not insane.

"Right. But a nine hour film is insane. The least you can do is watch three movies with me that aren’t even nine hours. Well, four movies now. I promise I won’t make you watch the prequels."

At least there’s that. Krystal opened her school email account. Sure enough, her supervisor had emailed her to let her know she needed to have the Vedas completed, along with her accompanying analysis by next Wednesday. Ugh.

Doc Brown again? Brianna asked. She walked into Krystal’s bedroom without asking and flopped down on her single bed. The bed was pressed up against the wall and covered with pillows, so it was close enough to a couch. Krystal’s desk was adjacent the bed and also acted as her nightstand.

Don’t call him Doc Brown. Makes it sound like I’m studying time travel.

Brianna mimicked a line from the Back to the Future films, which were yet another one of her favourites. She and Krystal both attended the local university for their graduate degrees, but in far different departments. While Krystal was in Modern Languages studying Sanskrit and Hindi translation and Cultural History of India, while Brianna was across the campus in the Arts department, studying cultural theory and film. She also volunteered at the local theatre, putting on community plays and usually manning the costume department. In spite of putting on some of the best plays of the last fifty years, and writing academic papers on the best films of the past decade (with a speciality in the silent era), Brianna’s actual favourite films were the ones that usually had a dozen sequels, cheap dialogue, and huge fandoms.

Like Star Wars. But at least, Krystal noted, Brianna had enough taste to avoid the Jar Jar Binks nightmare.

So Professor Brown is gonna be on your case, Brianna said, relating back to Krystal’s first of many dilemmas of the night. You do realize that everyone single graduate student is late for stuff, right?

Yeah, but I shouldn’t be.

Why not? Every single professor is also late. I had one prof say it was basically hypocritical of him to ask for deadlines for essays because he never got an article into a journal on time.

So what did you do?

I handed it in a month later. No penalties. Brianna beamed. "I needed the time too, because you know, The Hobbit had come out and