Page 45 of Reluctantly His

And all for what?

My father’s love? His acceptance? To finally have him no longer look at me as the child who ruined his life? To have him be proud of me?

What a fool I was.

Blinking back tears, knowing I was only torturing myself, I surveyed the sea of faces, searching for him.

He wasn’t there.

My heart fell.

“Ah, here she is now,” my father announced to our guests as I walked down the intricate curved stairway. “You have to excuse her lateness,” he continued with a sharp edge to his voice. “Bridal nerves.”

I plastered a pleasant smile on my lips, playing my part in this new farce of a life I’d chosen.

My father had asked me to time my grand entrance, orchestrating it so my new fiancé and his mother would be standing in the entrance hall with the perfect view of me coming down the stairs in my Oscar de la Renta hollyhocks threadwork tulle gown.

I hated it. Hated that it screamed innocent virgin and whore at the same time.

The perfect packaging for selling off an heiress for the low, low price of a British title.

Don’t worry, groom.

Your bride will be a virgin at the altar and a whore in the bedroom… the perfect wife.

My Cadolle nude satin corset was so tight, I could barely breathe.

My ribs ached, but it supposedly was worth the sacrifice for a silhouette that was practically sinful.

I lifted the diaphanous folds of tulle so I didn’t trip down the stairs as I descended. The underskirt was a micro mini but covered with yards and yards of soft, delicate tulle with stitched flowers so the outline of my legs was concealed yet visible.

It probably cost a fortune, but it made me feel so cheap.

My father had even asked that I wear my hair loose in waves to give me the appearance of youth and vitality.

As if at twenty-four, I was already past my expiration date.

Still, this was what was expected of me, so I put on the show that my father deemed necessary. I made my way down the stairs, stopped next to my father, and greeted our guests.

“Please excuse my tardiness,” I said, playing off my father’s earlier words. “It’s not a habit, I assure you.” I smiled politely, meeting my soon-to-be mother-in-law’s eyes and casting them back on the floor.

“Yes, well I’m not sure if I believe that. I hear many American girls are less than punctual,” sniffed Baroness Zeigler.

The older woman, maybe in her late seventies, wore a modest black cocktail dress that was the epitome of ageless and refined. Her silver hair was twisted into a chic chignon at the nape of her neck to show off her stunning earrings that an untrained eye would assume were diamonds, but I knew they were glass.

They didn’t sparkle right.

Her lips twisted in disappointment as she looked me over, and the longer she looked down her nose at me, assessing me, finding my every flaw, the more I wanted to turn and run screaming back to my bedroom.

Mary Astrid waved her hand over my form. “Don’t worry. I’m sure that’s something you can train out of her with enough time.”

Train out of me?

As if I were some show pony lacking discipline?

And what the hell was Mary Astrid doing here anyway? Had Lucy and Amelia seen her?

I pressed my lips together and forced a smile before my gaze moved to the man standing next to her.

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