Page 73 of The Billionaire's Runaway Bride

I hate it here, and I always have. When I ran from the wedding, I did so to escape marrying the asshole who “delivers” me like I’m a package. Knowing I wouldn’t have to come back to this place was a bonus to running away. Too bad it didn’t stick.

“Hmm.” It’s not my father who comes to the enormous foyer. The sound of heels clacking on the marble precedes my mother’s entrance. She crosses her arms over her dress and peers at me with disgust. “What is that?” she demands haughtily, flicking her hand at me.

“Found her dressed in rags,” Jeremy tells her. “I had to buy her this coat at the airport and hope no one saw.”

Her lips curl in disgust and she looks away. “It’s hideous.”

Don’t react. Don’t listen to her. I fall back to the mantras I used to rely on when I was a child. It’s hard not to feel like I am a kid, dragged in to be punished. Or a dog, a stray Jeremy found that needs to be cleaned up and groomed.

“Where is your gown?” she asks me when she feels she can tolerate the sight of me in her house. I’m her daughter, her only child, but this is how she views me. As a burden she can’t stand.

I tip my chin up, daring to be honest. “I threw it away in the garbage.”

“You did what?” she screeches.

Jeremy mutters and walks off, leaving me there while he no doubt seeks a drink from one of my father’s bars in the residence.

“Burned it too.”

We didn’t. I wanted to one night when we had a campfire, but Marian worried about the pollution of the smoke as the non-organic “crap” toasted.

“You ungrateful little bitch!” She glowers at me as she snaps her fingers. A butler shows up, and she orders him. “Take her to the guest suite.”

I’m no guest though. The butler must be new. She replaces them constantly because none of them can do the impossible of reading her mind and just knowing what she wants. The older man starts down the hall toward the fancier wing of the mansion.

“She means the other ones,” I tell him. I haven’t been good enough to stay in the upper floor suites for over a year now.

The butler catches himself from raising his brows in surprise then heads the other way, toward the simple serving quarters near the back of the house, away from the areas where they entertain.

I’m not a guest, but a prisoner, because once I enter the room and the butler exits, I hear the lock click into place. The sound is loud and final.

There’s no going back now.

I stare unseeing at the room. Now that I’m here, actually locked into a bland space of a living quarters, it sinks in how desperate my situation has become. I can’t sneak out. I can’t try anything. And as the depression of missing Caleb hits me hard, I fall to the bed and cry quietly, praying my mistake will be salvageable.

Days pass. Time blurs as I remain like a prisoner in this room. All I have of the happiness and peace I found at the Goldfinch are the memories I replay in my mind. Those and my phone. I scroll through the pictures I took of the Goldfinch. I snapped them to share on the social media accounts I made, and every time I see Marian or Caleb in the background, I fall into despair.

Just hold on. For a little longer…

When my mother had clothes and food delivered, I see the sorrow and regret on the butler’s face. He won’t last. My parents prefer invisible servants, not people with emotions who are capable of sympathy. But he needs this paycheck, this job, or otherwise, he wouldn’t be here. I can’t ask him to break me out, and running away wouldn’t help anyone, not this time. I have to see this through.

I’m lost, and save for the texts I dare to send to Aubrey, I flounder in this wretched isolation. I can’t risk a call. It almost feels like paranoia, but I’m afraid of a listening device in this room. I wouldn’t put it past my parents.

Aubrey: You don’t have to do this.

Lauren: I do. It’s the only way I can see this ending.

Aubrey: Marrying that asshole? NO!

I shake my head. She won’t get it. She’s missing the big picture. If I marry him, it’s done. But I don’t have to stay married to him. I can make the sacrifice of marrying him to be able to get out of it later.

Lauren: I won’t let him go after Caleb.

Lauren: I don’t want to even think about him going after Marian.

Aubrey: Caleb isn’t some weak idiot. If Jeremy tries to go after him I bet he’ll crush him.

Lauren: Not with this.

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