Page 25 of My Horrible Arranged Marriage (Bancroft Billionaire Brothers #20)

MINA

T wo weeks. Somehow, in just two weeks, the axis of my life had shifted.

It wasn’t dramatic, at least not outwardly.

I wasn’t walking around spinning in circles like some musical heroine, and there hadn’t been a single grand gesture or sweeping declaration.

Just little things—coffee waiting for me in the morning, texts that made me laugh too loud, his hand on the small of my back when we walked into a room together.

The fun. My God. We had so much fun. I felt like a teenager again. But better because I didn’t have to worry about mean girls. I was sure there were mean girls out there talking shit about me, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t matter to me. I had Isaac.

Isaac Bancroft had been around almost every other day.

Sometimes every day. Sometimes all night.

And while I wouldn’t dare say it out loud, not even to myself, something about his presence had rewired something in me.

I felt lighter. Like I could breathe again without worrying about how it looked.

I didn’t feel like I had to constantly explain myself or hold back.

It was hard to constantly pretend to be someone else.

It was exhausting. And of course I stumbled and slipped into who I really was and that was when things got messy.

With Isaac, I didn’t have to pretend or fake anything.

Even now, as I sat at the long marble kitchen island in the Duvall estate, sipping iced tea and tapping my fingers against the cool counter, I felt that quiet hum of happiness in my bones.

It didn’t match the setting—the sterile white of the kitchen, the piles of paperwork in front of me and Tori, or the fact that we were, in theory, working.

Well, she was working and I was just hanging out. For the first time in a while, I was happy to just be . I didn’t feel restless or like I was searching for something. I didn’t need a hobby to satisfy me. Isaac was my hobby.

Tori was hunched over the staff schedule, scribbling red marks across someone’s availability calendar with a hint of frustration. “Why does everyone want to take vacation after I’ve done the schedule?” she muttered, exasperated. “It’s like they want me to lose my mind.”

“Maybe they’re just giving you a challenge,” I offered lazily.

Tori gave me a side-eye. “You’re unusually chipper for someone that is supposed to be nursing a broken heart.”

“My heart is perfectly fine.”

“I know,” she said. “You’re walking around here like Snow White. Do not let the little forest friends you sing into the house poop on my clean floors.”

I burst into laughter. “If any forest friends come in here, I’ll be screaming and running in the opposite direction.”

“You’re seriously Disney princess happy,” she said.

I was chipper. And nothing, not even staff scheduling hell or looming society events, could take it away from me today.

Well. Almost nothing.

The tablet in front of me pinged with a new alert. I had set up Google alerts for my name a long time ago. I should remove it, but I just hadn’t gotten around to doing it. I tapped it without thinking, scanning the headline—and then froze.

“Sampson Blake Breaks Silence on Duvall Party Scandal.”

Tori glanced up just in time to see my expression tighten. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t answer. My eyes skimmed the first paragraph of the article, then the next.

It was from a third-rate entertainment site, one of those gossip rags with a name like Celebrity Wire or Buzz Glitz .

But the photo was real. It was Sampson standing at some café in Tribeca, smiling like he’d just solved world hunger, wearing that same insufferably smug expression he always wore when he thought he was being clever.

Tori leaned over and read it along with me.

According to the article, Sampson had “graciously” spoken to a reporter over coffee, discussing how he “hoped the best” for me, despite the “chaos” that had unfolded at the Duvall summer party.

And then, the kicker. The quote that made my stomach twist even though I told myself I didn’t care:

“I just hope Mina’s safe. You never really know with a guy like that, do you?”

A guy like that .

I set the tablet aside, not slamming it, not tossing it across the room like I might have two weeks ago. Just placed it down like it weighed nothing at all.

Tori watched me. Carefully. Like she expected me to explode.

When I didn’t, she blinked. “That’s it?”

I shrugged.

“Wow,” she said. “Two weeks ago, you would’ve started planning how to burn his Range Rover to the ground.”

“He sold it,” I said absentmindedly. “After the engagement fell apart.”

“Of course he did,” she said dryly. “So, what gives? What’s got you all Zen and unbothered? This is Disney princess vibes again.”

I reached for my drink again, smiling into the glass.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t you dare play coy.”

“I’m not playing anything,” I said innocently.

“You’re glowing.”

“Am I?”

She threw a wadded-up napkin at me. “Stop it.”

I caught it easily, laughing, and tossed it back. “I don’t know. I just feel different. Like I’ve finally found the right pair of shoes. Like I woke up in the right skin for the first time ever. There’s freedom in exposure.”

“Exposure?”

“I’m exposed,” I said with a shrug. “People know who I am. This is me. Deal with it or don’t.”

I stared out the wide kitchen window, watching the sunlight filter through the trees in the manicured backyard.

“I think I’m just less intense,” I said slowly. “Not so easily provoked. I know who I am. I don’t care what people think.”

“You’re mellow.”

“Maybe.”

She grinned. “Does this mellowing out have anything to do with the tall, brooding Bancroft brother who’s been attached at your hip?”

My face warmed. “He hasn’t been?—”

“Oh, please. The man is one step away from being your human belt. At this point, he should just live here. Or you should live there. Probably you there. Too many people around here.”

I tried to hold back a laugh. Failed.

“So what if he has been around?” I said. “He’s fun.”

“Fun,” Tori repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, more than fun. He’s—” I cut myself off. “He’s easy to be around.”

Tori stared at me.

I gave her a sheepish smile. “Maybe I’m a little smitten.”

“ A little ?” she echoed. “Mina, you’re wearing one of his T-shirts right now.”

I looked down at my white shirt and burst out laughing. “This isn’t his.”

“Um, it’s a man’s shirt.”

“Fine, maybe it is. But it’s soft, and I like it.”

“You like him ,” she corrected.

I didn’t deny it. And that surprised me more than anything.

Because I did like him. A lot. And not in the way I’d liked Sampson—which, in hindsight, was more about stability and appearances than anything real.

No, this was different. Isaac made me laugh.

He listened. He didn’t try to smooth me out or quiet me down.

He didn’t want anything from me that I wasn’t already giving.

He was honest. Maybe a little reckless. Definitely unpredictable. But I trusted him more than I’d ever trusted anyone else. He knew me without me actually having to tell him anything about me. We were kindred spirits. We understood each other in a way I didn’t think anyone else ever could.

Which terrified me in a quiet, aching way.

“Alright,” Tori said, clapping her hands. “Enough feelings. Let’s go shopping.”

“Shopping?”

“You have a date tonight, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I have a million dresses?—”

“And none of them are the one.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You sound very sure of that.”

“I’ve seen your closet. Trust me. You know you want to go shopping. We haven’t been shopping in weeks. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

I laughed and slid off the stool. “I’m sorry. I’ve been neglecting you. Let’s go.”

Three hours later, we were at a boutique in SoHo that smelled like eucalyptus and lavender. Tori was rifling through a rack of sequined monstrosities while I made a beeline toward something more subtle.

Then I saw it.

A deep sapphire blue dress with thin straps and a low back, cut on the bias so it flowed like liquid when I held it up. It wasn’t flashy or dramatic. It was elegant. Simple. The kind of thing Isaac would notice without saying anything at all.

I tried it on and stepped out of the dressing room.

Tori’s eyes widened. “Okay. Now that’s the one.”

“You think?”

“I think if you don’t wear that tonight, I’ll disown you.”

I turned to the mirror, smoothing the fabric along my hips. My skin looked like ivory against the color.

I didn’t look like the girl who’d been dumped and dragged through the press and pitied at every event for the past three months.

I looked like someone new.

Someone who was finally starting to feel like herself again. A phoenix rising from the ashes. Tori and I moved on to another store and picked up a couple pairs of new shoes.

“Coffee?” Tori asked.

“Absolutely.”

We stopped at our usual coffee shop and got a couple of iced mochas.

We walked down the sidewalk with our bags hanging on our arms and coffees in hand.

I saw a couple of people looking at me. I was used to it.

This area was littered with spoiled socialites.

They would have seen the article and were going to be buzzing about it for a while.

I didn’t care.

Later that evening, I stood in front of my vanity brushing out my hair when my phone buzzed with a message from Isaac.

On my way. No hints about the surprise. Wear the dress.

I laughed. I told him I went shopping but I didn’t tell him I bought a dress. What dress?

The one you bought today. I know you picked it out for me.

I laughed, biting my bottom lip as I set the phone down.

I slipped into the dress, slid on heels, and added a single spritz of perfume behind each ear. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn’t see a girl waiting to impress a date.

I saw a woman who finally understood what she wanted.

And who she wanted.

When Isaac arrived, he was wearing a dark suit with the top buttons of his shirt undone, no tie, and that signature grin that had already ruined me a little bit.

He paused when he saw me.

“Wow,” he said softly.

“Too much?”

“Not even close.”

His eyes swept over me like I was something worth staring at, and then he reached out, lacing our fingers together.

“You ready?” he asked.

I nodded. “More than ready.”

I didn’t care where we were going tonight. He could’ve taken me to a dive bar or a five-star restaurant or on a walk through the park. I just wanted to be with him.