Page 85 of The Billionaire's Runaway Bride

I gulp.

Aubrey scowls at the door.

“Lauren!”

“I’m here,” I reply.

The moment has come. I can’t avoid it any longer.

“Wish me luck.”

Aubrey sends me a snarky yeah right smirk. But she opens the door. My dad glowers at her. “Oh, I see you’re the picture of health this time.”

She opens her mouth to sass him, but he cuts her off. “Get out of here. One of the groomsmen is too hungover to stand up. The bachelor party wore him out. You’re eliminated. We don’t need too many bridesmaids and not enough groomsmen.”

She shakes her head, laughing dryly. “Good. Good riddance, Mr. Hendrickson.”

One of the security guards hurries to escort her down the hall, and I sigh as she disappears. I bet I won’t see her for a long, long time. Once I’m married, I’ll drop back in time where I have no privileges at all. So much for the women’s rights movement.

“Let’s go.” My father looks down his nose at me and gestures with his thumb over his shoulder for me to move it. He doesn’t offer me his arm until we reach the venue. I concentrate on not tripping. The heels are too tight, the dress is too heavy and lopsided in its weight. I feel like I’m at the gym again, losing weight to be wedding-ready months ago as I pulled the sled at the boot camp.

Only when we are at the end of the aisle, a long carpet laid out on the grass, does my father thrust his arm up. “Don’t dawdle.”

I swallow, doing my best not to pass out. When I reach for his arm, he snorts, annoyed. He grabs my fingers and forces them all the way over his tux sleeve. “I said, let’s go.”

I try not to lean on him. I know he’d hate it, but it’s harder than I realize to bring one foot up and place it down. Each step is that much closer I get to reaching the man I hate. He’s waiting down there somewhere. I won’t look up and gauge the distance. What difference would it make if I knew it was twenty feet or seventy? The end will remain the same. Jeremy will still be the one I’ll have to meet and face. Prolonging that view helps, somehow. It helps to stave it off.

“You listen to me, girl,” my father says through gritted teeth.

I’m too close to him to miss the tension in his jaw, though he forces out the quiet words as he smiles. Always about appearances. Always holding up the fake concept that he’s a happy, grinning father eager for his only child to be successful in a well-rounded marriage.

“You better behave.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

He stumbles his next step. I’m too defeated to be thrilled that I’ve shocked him with that sarcastic retort. He must be so used to me never speaking up that my reply stunned him.

“Finally. Finally I’m walking you down the aisle.” He clears his throat, nodding and smiling wider at someone we pass. “And you better behave for him. I don’t want to hear any bullshit about you acting up or trying to run away. Once you marry him, he’s the only man in your life, you understand me?”

“Whereas he can sleep around all he wants?”

I don’t know where this bravado is coming from. It won’t do any good. And maybe that’s why I dare to snap at him. I’m not faking a smile. Behind this dumbass veil, no one can see my frown. The blankness on my face.

Perhaps knowing another dictator will be controlling my life makes me strong enough to talk back to my current one.

“It’s different. He’s a man. Men have needs.”

I scoff, wishing I could drop his arm and run.

“He’ll report to me. If I get a single complaint that you’re not doing as he says and behaving, that trust fund will be gone.”

It’s my turn to almost trip. “You can’t.”

“The hell I can’t.”

“My grandparents wrote it up. It’s iron-clad.”

“Money can buy anything, you fool. I’ll bribe whoever I need to if you act up without me and your mother telling you what’s acceptable.”

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