Page 6 of My Horrible Arranged Marriage (Bancroft Billionaire Brothers #20)

ISAAC

I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this. Sitting across from Mina Duvall — Hectar Duvall’s daughter — like this was a normal thing. Like it wasn’t weird as hell that I’d been more or less ordered to take her out, play nice, see if we “clicked.”

I had a feeling she didn’t know what this whole setup was really all about.

Not the full extent of it. If she did, I doubted she’d be here now, sipping a glittery cocktail and laughing at one of my stories about my family’s legendary holiday disasters.

If she knew her father had staged the scene to get her married off like a pawn on a chessboard, she probably would’ve thrown that drink in my face and walked out without a backward glance.

But she didn’t know. Not yet. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her. That was a shitstorm her father created, and when it exploded, he was the guy that deserved to get covered in the bullshit. I was pushed into this as well. I’m an innocent party. Mostly .

I smiled as I watched Mina take another sip of her drink, thinking about just how surreal this situation was.

I’d been roped into plenty of family schemes before, but this one took the cake.

In a good way. There were worse things. Mina Duvall was beautiful.

She reminded me of one of the dolls my niece liked.

Thick black hair, bone straight with a shine to it that caught the light.

Her skin was very fair, like she had an aversion to the sun.

Her makeup was pretty minimal. She didn’t need it.

Her eyelashes were long and flattered her pretty eyes.

Mina could have any man. I didn’t understand why Hectar was having a hard time marrying her off. Good face. Rocking body. Sassy. If I was actually looking for a girlfriend or God forbid, a wife, I wouldn’t mind it being her.

“What’s that look for?” she asked, catching me staring.

“Just remembering one of the other times my father strong-armed me into something,” I said with a grimace. “I was twelve. Dad decided the Bancroft Construction commercial needed a ‘family touch.’”

“Wait, you were in a commercial?” Mina leaned forward, suddenly interested. “How have I never seen this?”

I groaned. “Consider yourself lucky. It was the most humiliating experience of my pre-teen life.”

“Now I have to know.”

I took a long drink before continuing. “Picture this: skinny twelve-year-old me in a hard hat that kept sliding down over my eyes. I had braces—the full metal kind, not the invisible ones rich kids get now. My hair was this awful bowl cut my mother thought made me look cute and innocent.”

“Oh my gosh.” Mina covered her mouth, but I could see the smile forming.

“Dad wrote the script himself. I had to walk around a construction site pointing at beams and saying, ‘Bancroft builds better because Bancroft builds for families. Like mine!’” I mimicked my childhood voice, high and squeaky.

“That’s terrible,” she said, laughing openly now.

“It gets worse. Dad thought it would be ‘character-building.’ Made me hawk Bancroft Steel like I knew a damn thing about girders. It aired during football season at my school. Took years to live it down.”

She laughed loudly. Heads turned at other tables, but she didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Oh my God. That’s brutal,” she said, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

“Your turn.”

“What?”

“I told you one of my most embarrassing stories, it’s your turn. I know you’ve probably had plenty of incidents of your father pushing you into situations.”

She sighed. “Too many to count.”

“Give me one.”

I was actually curious about her. We lived parallel lives. She understood my world. It was hard to complain about being forced to do things that other people without our means might find exciting and fun. But with a fellow billionaire baby, she got it.

“My mom made me enter this horrible beauty pageant once. I was nine. Had to wear this giant, poofy dress and these shoes that gave me blisters that refused to heal. I had to go to the doctor and wasn’t able to wear shoes for a week.”

I leaned in. “Did you win?”

“I got Miss Congeniality,” she said with a self-deprecating shrug. “Translation: ‘Thanks for showing up, kid.’”

We laughed again, the kind of easy, genuine laughter that I hadn’t expected tonight.

Honestly, I’d thought we’d sit through a painful dinner, exchange polite conversation, and part ways with mutual relief.

But Mina was spirited. Reckless, even. Feisty.

There was a wicked glint in her hazel eyes, like she was just waiting to stir up some trouble.

And damn if it wasn’t contagious.

I found myself relaxing against the chair, thinking about all the ridiculous things my father had pushed me into over the years. There was one memory that still made me cringe.

“You want another embarrassing childhood story?” I asked, signaling the waiter for another round. “I’ve got a doozy.”

Mina leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with interest. “Absolutely.”

“I was fourteen. My dad decided I needed to diversify my extracurriculars for college applications, which was ridiculous because I was barely in high school. He signed me up for this charity talent show without telling me.”

“Oh no,” Mina whispered, already grinning.

“Oh yes. I found out a week before the event when he casually mentioned I needed to prepare a ‘talent.’ The problem was, I didn’t have one. I couldn’t sing, couldn’t dance, couldn’t play an instrument. My only real skill was sweet-talking my way out of trouble.”

“So what did you do?”

“I panicked. My older brother Hudson suggested ventriloquism because he thought it would be hilarious to watch me fail spectacularly. But I was desperate, so I spent the entire week with this creepy dummy my dad rush-ordered from some specialty shop.”

Mina’s shoulders were already shaking with silent laughter.

“The night of the show, I was sweating bullets. All these society kids were doing incredible things – playing violin concertos, performing ballet, singing opera. And then there’s me, stumbling onto the stage with this possessed-looking dummy I named Davey.”

“Please tell me you have video,” Mina said, dabbing at her eyes.

I shook my head. “Thank God, no. I got through about thirty seconds of the routine before Davey’s arm fell off. It just detached and dropped onto the stage with this horrible wooden clunk. The audience went dead silent.”

Mina covered her mouth. “What did you do?”

“I panicked. Looked at the dummy, looked at the arm, looked at the audience, and then said something about not eating your vegetables. It was a mess.”

She burst out laughing. “No!”

“Oh yes.” I nodded.

“Did the audience laugh?”

“Pity laughs,” I confirmed. “I got a participation trophy and my dad never mentioned talent shows again.”

The waiter arrived with our entrees, some fancy fish for her, steak for me. The conversation flowed easier than I expected. We swapped stories about boarding schools, about the ridiculous expectations of our families, about the pressure of living in gilded cages.

“You know, you’re surprisingly tolerable for someone who once tried to climb a Christmas tree at my dad’s party.”

“Tried? I succeeded. ” I pointed at her. “You’re just mad because you didn’t think I could do it.”

“And you fell into the buffet table.”

“Still climbed it first,” I said, raising my glass.

She clinked hers against mine, smirking. “Touché.”

Mina told me about how her dad enrolled her in tennis lessons she hated, and I shared the agony of being made to play lacrosse when all I wanted was to play football like a normal kid.

It was weird, finding this thread between us.

On the surface, we were so different. I could see the rebellious streak in her, but she hid it well.

Maybe I recognized a fellow rebel. She could put on the polished look, though.

I didn’t do that well at all. I was the guy who flirted with the hostess and made tipsy old ladies blush at weddings.

But deep down? Maybe we weren’t as different as I’d thought.

“You ever feel like you were just born into a script you didn’t write?” she asked.

“All the damn time,” I said.

For a moment, we just looked at each other, a quiet understanding passing between us.

And then that mischievous glint returned to her eyes.

“Dare you to do something,” she said, sitting up straighter.

“Oh, shit.”

“Come on,” she cajoled. “You’re supposed to be the impulsive one.”

“Depends what it is.”

“I dare you to go flirt with that older woman sitting by herself at the corner table,” Mina said, her eyes sparkling with challenge. “The one with the pearls and the martini. I bet you can’t get her number.”

I glanced over at the woman in question. Mid-sixties, expensively dressed, diamond rings flashing as she delicately sipped her drink. Probably someone’s society grandmother.

“That’s it?” I scoffed. “Easy.”

“Prove it,” she said, leaning back with a smirk.

I stood, adjusting my shirt and winked at her. “Watch and learn, princess.”

I sauntered over to the woman’s table, putting on my most charming smile.

She looked up, startled at first, then intrigued as I introduced myself.

I could feel Mina watching, probably expecting me to crash and burn.

Three minutes later, I returned to our table, triumphantly holding a business card between two fingers.

“Margaret Kelly. Widow. Art collector. And apparently looking for a young companion for her gallery opening next weekend,” I said, dropping the card on the table.

Mina’s jaw dropped. “No way.”

“Way,” I said, sliding back into my seat. “My turn.”

“Your turn what?”

“To dare you,” I said, leaning forward with my elbows on the table. “Unless you’re scared.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t. I’m still riding out my last scandal, which is why I’m here.”

I nodded with understanding. I looked at her plate and noticed she seemed to be done.

The woman, Margaret, was eyeballing me. Like really looking at me.

I dropped a wad of cash on the table to cover the bill, shot Mina a grin, and stood up. “Let’s get out of here before I find myself in that woman’s basement, tied to a radiator.”

Her laughter followed me across the restaurant.

We burst out the door, practically tripping over each other, breathless with laughter. We stood there on the sidewalk, catching our breath. Mina’s gaze caught on a glowing nightclub sign down the block. A line of people waited to get inside.

She looked at me. Looked at the club. Back at me.

“C’mon, Bancroft,” she said, grabbing my hand. “Let’s make this night even worse.”

“Worse?”

“Better,” she amended with a wicked smile.

I hesitated. Going to a nightclub wasn’t exactly on the behave and look respectable agenda that this whole charade was supposed to promote.

“Screw it,” I said, letting her pull me along.

She walked right up to the security guy checking IDs. He looked at her and then me, nodded and released the velvet rope.

“Hey!” I heard people in the line protest.

The bouncer waved us through like we were royalty. In a way, we were—New York royalty, at least. I shot the crowd a shameless grin as we bypassed the line, feeling the weight of their jealousy in the dirty looks.

Inside, the club pulsed with energy. Strobing lights painted the crowd in flashes of blue and purple. The bass thrummed so hard I could feel it in my chest. Mina pulled me deeper into the throng of dancing bodies, her hand still in mine.

“Drinks!” she shouted over the music, pointing toward the bar.

I nodded, letting her lead the way. This wasn’t my scene—too trendy, too many selfies being taken, too many people who looked like they were here to be seen rather than to actually have fun. But watching Mina weave through the crowd with an extra bounce in her step, I found myself not caring.

We ordered drinks at the bar, tequila for her, whiskey for me. She threw hers back with a wink and grabbed my hand again.

“Dance floor. Now.”

“Bossy,” I teased.

“Scared?”

“Hell no.”

We pushed into the crowd. She moved like she’d done this before. She was mesmerizing, hips swaying to the beat, arms thrown up in the air. I wasn’t much of a dancer, but she didn’t seem to care. She laughed and spun in circles, dragging me with her, daring me to keep up.

For a guy who was supposed to be polishing his image, I sure wasn’t doing a great job. But looking at her, flushed and smiling and wild under the lights, I couldn’t bring myself to care.