Page 55 of My Horrible Arranged Marriage (Bancroft Billionaire Brothers #20)

MINA

I didn’t feel my feet hitting the pavement. I didn’t feel the wind ripping at the skirts of my billowing dress. I didn’t feel anything, not really. My heart had been burned away.

In my father’s office, I had experienced pain unlike I had ever felt before. Finding out Sampson had cheated on me hurt, but I had always suspected he was trash in the back of my mind. Yes, I had been hurt, but it was nothing like what I felt now.

White hot rage. White hot betrayal. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t cry. Was it possible to be numb and in excruciating pain at the same time?

A part of my mind was trying to tell me I didn’t hear what I thought but Isaac only reaffirmed what he told me the first time. Our fathers set us up. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t really a big deal.

It was the details of the bargain, marriage, a child, and then he could move on. How could Isaac have agreed to something so cold and calculated? Like I was a business asset to be traded. The man I loved would never do that. But maybe that man had never existed in the first place.

I couldn’t stop running, even though I wasn’t sure where I was headed.

I barely noticed the gravel digging into my bare feet.

I just kept running down the long gravel drive of the estate, wedding gown dragging behind me.

Let it be shredded to tatters. My veil fell off and I didn’t bother retrieving it.

My heart was shattered. It barely remembered how to beat.

Behind me, someone called my name. I didn’t stop.

I didn’t want to stop.

I wanted to keep running until the dress tore off my body and the ache in my chest collapsed in on itself.

I had no idea where I was going. We were miles from civilization.

My phone was in my room. I don’t even have fucking shoes on.

And I’m in a wedding dress. I’m the proverbial runaway bride.

I just wish I would have taken a minute to grab my damn phone.

“Mina!” Tori’s voice finally reached me. Footsteps thudded behind me. “Wait up, dammit! I can’t run in heels. I can barely walk in these things!”

I made it halfway down the hill before my legs betrayed me, wobbling beneath the weight of emotion and too much tulle. I reached for the nearest tree trunk, braced myself, sucked in a breath that didn’t help.

Tori appeared a second later, seething with fury.

“What the actual hell ?” she spat, her cheeks flushed, hair wild.

She was mad at me? “I couldn’t be there. I’m sorry.”

She looked confused. “No. Not you, honey. Never you. Them. Those pompous assholes. A contract? A freaking contract ? Who does that?”

I shook my head, unable to speak. My throat burned. My eyes blurred. Everything inside me felt like it was being twisted and pulled and pinched.

“I’m gonna kill him,” she hissed. “And your father? Oh, hell no . I’m going full scorched earth on that man. I don’t care if he’s the king of oil or real estate or whatever. I will burn his kingdom down with a Bic lighter and a bottle of hairspray.”

She was livid and she had every right to be. I loved that she was furious on my behalf. It was sweet. I realized Tori was the only person I could trust.

“I can’t…” I croaked. “Tori, I can’t do this right now. My chest. My heart. I can’t breathe.” I grabbed a fistful of the gown that was now choking the life out of me. “Tori,” I sobbed.

Her expression softened. “Oh, babe,” she whispered. “I’m sorry everybody sucks.”

I shook my head again. “I loved him,” I said.

The tears came, quiet but unstoppable.

Tori stepped closer. She wrapped her arms around me, careful not to crush the dress but not too careful either. I buried my face in her shoulder. I let out a sound I didn’t recognize—a sob or maybe a scream muffled by her bare skin.

Tori held on to me. She squeezed me and let me ruin her dress. Her hands rubbed up and down my back. We stood like that for a long time.

Finally, she pulled back and smoothed the hair from my damp cheeks. “My car’s parked in the staff lot. We can go. Right now. Anywhere you want to go.”

“I don’t have my purse. Or phone. I don’t even know where my shoes are.”

“I’ve got it,” she said.

“Where will we go?” I asked. “My dad will look for me at your place. We can’t go there.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she said. “Let’s just get to my car before they come after you. I don’t think I’m interested in coming face to face with those assholes. I’m pretty sure I might end up in prison if I have to look at them.”

I smiled through the pain. “Thanks for being such a good friend.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m not sure if murder is being a good friend.”

“It’s the best kind of friend,” I said. “The hide-the-body kind of friend.”

“Oh, sweetie, I would never leave a body behind. Now, can you walk?”

“I think so.”

“I picked up your shoes,” she said and held them up.

“You’re not exactly the prince,” I muttered. I put one hand on her shoulder to support myself while I slid on one, then the other. “But I’ll take it.”

She laughed. “Thanks.”

“Cinderella.”

“I know,” she said. “In this case, we don’t need the prince chasing you down. Not yet. Come on, my car isn’t far.”

We trudged the rest of the way down the drive.

I could hear the music drifting down the driveway.

I couldn’t believe I was out here, ruining my dress when I was supposed to be standing in front of a couple hundred people reciting my vows to love Isaac for the rest of my life.

I couldn’t believe it was happening again.

I was a two-time almost-bride. This time I had come dangerously close to sealing my own fate.

Tori’s car sat tucked behind a row of delivery trucks and vans. She opened the passenger door and helped me inside, then peeled off her heels, got behind the wheel, and fired up the engine.

“So glad I leave a spare in here,” she muttered.

She drove down the hill toward the back gate reserved for service people. Neither of us said a word. My head rested against the window. I tried not to think about Isaac’s face. His voice. The way he’d looked at me when he proposed.

Lies.

All of it had been bullshit. I felt like a damn fool. I accepted his stupid bullshit excuse after the article came out. Why hadn’t I pushed more? Asked more questions. I let myself get caught up and now I was paying a huge price. My heart hurt. My soul felt shattered.

When we reached the security gate, the poor kid working the booth looked like he’d seen a ghost. He stepped out in his uniform polo, squinting at the car.

“Miss Duvall?” he asked, puzzled. “Are you, uh… I mean, the wedding is the other way?—”

“Open the damn gate,” Tori barked, already halfway out the driver’s side window. “She’s not marrying anyone today, Chad , so unless you want me to ram through this gate, you’ll open it.”

He blinked. “I just—uh…”

“ Button. ” Tori’s tone brooked no argument.

The gate buzzed and groaned open. Tori gunned it like we were fleeing a heist.

“Remind me to apologize to Chad later,” she muttered, her hands white-knuckled on the wheel. “He’s trying his best.”

I would have laughed if I wasn’t crying. Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of a drive-thru burger place. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m starving. I thought we’d be feasting and you know me. I can’t do drama on an empty stomach. And you need to eat.”

“I can’t,” I muttered.

“You need to. You know what happens. If you don’t eat, you get an upset stomach. The little bean doesn’t like being in there all alone. He wants food.”

I rolled my eyes. “He or she isn’t alone. There’s a bladder that’s suddenly full to keep him company.”

Tori ordered two combo meals with fries and chocolate milkshakes, then parked at the edge of the lot. The engine ticked as it cooled. I knew what she was doing. She was distracting me. Buying us a little time to figure out what we were going to do next. I supposed it was as good a plan as any.

I took the drink but barely touched the food. She watched me pick at a fry, then offered me ketchup. She was trying so hard not to push.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I finally said.

“I know,” she muttered. “Assholes. Total assholes.”

“I keep trying to make it make sense,” I said. “He played me.”

“They all did.”

I blinked down at the uneaten burger in my lap. “I thought it would be the happiest day of our lives. I thought it was the perfect beginning.”

Tori reached for my hand and squeezed.

“I don’t think it started as real,” I said. “But I think it became real for him.”

“That doesn’t excuse anything,” she said firmly. “You’re not some pity prize . And love doesn’t mean crap if it’s built on lies.”

I nodded slowly. I knew she was right. I wanted to be that clear about it. But I kept seeing his eyes when he told me he loved me. The way his hands had trembled when he held mine.

“I can’t go home,” I finally said.

She tapped the steering wheel. “Okay. We’ll figure something else out. Airbnb. Hotel. Secluded yurt in the mountains. We’ll find you a hideout.”

I turned toward her, feeling new tears spring to my eyes. These were tears of a different sort. Relief. Love.

“You’re amazing,” I said. “I don’t deserve you.”

“You don’t not deserve me. I’m your best friend. This is what best friends are for.”

I didn’t cry then, but only because I had no more tears left.

“I can’t think straight,” I admitted. “Everything is noise.”

“Then let me think for you. I’ll book us something quiet and cozy. You can wear pajamas and cry into throw pillows while I download every rom-com known to man.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Do you want to call your dad?”

I curled my lip in disgust. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Good. I already blocked him. Preemptively.”

My chest ached. “Tori?”

“Yeah?”

“What if I never feel normal again?”

She turned toward me, eyes softening. “Then we build you a new normal. One that’s yours. Not theirs.”

I looked down at the bag in my lap. The burger sat there, cold and untouched.

“I loved him,” I said again, the words barely a whisper.

“I know.”

I closed my eyes when a wave of nausea rolled over me. “Oh no,” I muttered.

I opened the car door, ready to make a mad dash into the restaurant to use the bathroom. I barely made it three steps before I threw up on the pavement. All of the hurt and betrayal came up in violent heaves. My knees buckled, and I would’ve collapsed if Tori hadn’t rushed out and caught me.

She held my hair, rubbed my back, whispered soft things while the world spun around me. I gasped for air, my body shaking with adrenaline and grief.

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “Let it out.”

Another wave hit. I gripped her forearm like it was a life raft.

When it passed, I straightened slowly and took the napkin she handed me. I was too dazed to care how undignified I looked. I didn’t have any dignity left. I was a runaway bride puking her guts out in the parking lot of a burger joint.

Tori guided me back into the car.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she said.

I looked at her, eyes glassy. “How can you be so sure?”

She smiled wider, gentler. “Because I said so. And I don’t lie to you.”

I leaned back into the seat, closed my eyes, and let her drive. I didn’t care where we went. I just wanted to go somewhere far away.