Page 63 of My Horrible Arranged Marriage (Bancroft Billionaire Brothers #20)

MINA

I t had been a week, one full week since the almost-wedding. It was strange because it felt like yesterday and yet a year ago at the same time. Things had changed. I had changed.

I never considered myself weak before, but I did feel stronger. More assured of who I was. Maybe it was the baby growing inside me that made me feel like a warrior. It wasn’t just me anymore. There wasn’t an option to be weak.

“Ready?” Tori asked.

I sighed and looked around the room I had called mine for the last week. It had been perfect. It gave me a chance to heal. To get my bearings. But now it was time to face the music. And my father.

I hadn’t gone back to the house. My dad had certainly demanded it of me—and then Tori when I’d ignored him.

But Tori stood strong against him. She kept me fed and distracted and just on the edge of sane.

She didn’t ask questions I didn’t want to answer.

She let me cry when I needed to cry and rage when I needed to rage.

But even she knew I had to eventually go back.

“I’m ready,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

We carried our bags out of the penthouse and headed for her car.

“You okay?” Tori asked as we pulled through the gates of the estate.

I laughed. “Nope.”

“We can turn around and leave,” she offered.

“I’m okay,” I assured her. “Time to face the music.”

She parked out front instead of the usual staff parking. I took a deep breath and climbed out of her little car. I grabbed my bag from the back seat and headed inside with Tori right behind me. The moment I stepped through the front door, I regretted it.

“Mina,” my father said. Security at the gate must have told him we were back. He was walking toward me like he might actually embrace me.

“Don’t,” I said sharply, hand going up like a stop sign. “Please don’t touch me.”

He halted mid-step, hurt flickering behind his eyes. But I didn’t care. Not today. He hurt me first. And second and third. I couldn’t allow him to touch me. Coming back home had left me feeling fragile. I needed time to put up my walls.

“You haven’t come home,” he said gently, as if that weren’t obvious. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“I’ve been exactly where I needed to be.”

His mouth pressed into a tight line. I saw him steel himself, like he thought this was going to be a negotiation.

I knew that look. Whenever we had one of our arguments, he would slide right into negotiation mode.

After hearing and seeing him in the study minutes before I was supposed to walk down the aisle, I didn’t think I could ever deal with one of his negotiations again.

Before, I appreciated the challenge. I liked that he pretended to give me a little of what I wanted while he set boundaries.

But I wasn’t sixteen asking to go on spring break with my friends. I wasn’t bargaining for a new BMW.

“I understand if you’re upset—” Dad started the opening salvo to one of his classic speeches. He came in soft, stated his position, and then I told him my position and the negotiations began. But I was so not interested in the usual games.

“Do you?” My laugh was cold. “Because I don’t think you do, Dad. I don’t think you understand anything.”

“Mina—”

“You want to talk now?” I snapped, crossing my arms. “You suddenly want to talk after orchestrating half my life behind my back? After selling me off like some pawn in one of your business deals?”

His expression hardened. “That is not what happened.”

“No? Then what would you call it?” I took a step forward, my voice rising. “Because from where I’m standing, you and Armand Bancroft decided I was broken and needed fixing, and the best way to do that was to push me into another engagement before the tears from my last breakup were even dry!”

“I was trying to protect you,” he said. “You were spiraling after Sampson. You wouldn’t talk to me. You shut me out. I was doing the only thing I could think of?—”

“No,” I cut him off, pointing a finger at his chest. “You were doing the thing that made you feel better. Not me. Not your daughter. You didn’t ask me what I needed.

You didn’t show up for me when I was crumbling.

You went behind my back. You made decisions for me.

I needed someone to help me through what was a pretty traumatic event. ”

His shoulders sank a little. “You were hurt?—”

“I was hurt,” I spat. “But you didn’t see that. You didn’t want to see that. Because if you had, you would’ve realized what I actually needed from you. Just you. Just my father. Someone to say, ‘I’m here. I’ve got you.’ But instead, you protected him .”

Sampson’s name never left my lips, but it didn’t have to. We both knew.

“I was protecting your reputation,” he said, quieter now.

I laughed again, but it came out bitter. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“No, you didn’t,” he agreed, and for a second, I saw the regret flood his face. “But people talk. And I thought?—”

“You thought letting him walk away unscathed while I quietly disappeared would be the better narrative.” I was shaking, my fingers clenched into fists. “You thought making me look intact was more important than actually making sure I was . You thought my heart was ready for a plug and play.”

He frowned. “What?”

“One dude can just be swapped out for another,” I muttered. “Like I didn’t actually love either of them. Like I’m that shallow. Dad, I’m human! I have feelings. I hurt. I bleed. I’m not a problem to be solved.”

“You’re my daughter!” he finally thundered, his own temper flaring. “I would never treat you like a problem!”

“What do you call pushing me toward a man I barely knew, a man whose family you clearly have some kind of deal with? What do you call not even asking me if I was ready, if I was okay?”

Tori stepped forward, placing a gentle hand on my arm. “Mina, maybe we should?—”

“No,” I said, shrugging her off, though I appreciated the gesture. “He needs to hear this. He needs to understand the wreckage he’s left in his wake.”

My father’s face was a mask of frustration and something that looked suspiciously like pain. “I wanted you to be happy, Mina. I thought Isaac… I thought he could make you happy.”

“You thought about everything except what I actually wanted. What I needed.” I looked him straight in the eye. “You didn’t protect me, Dad. You sacrificed me.”

He didn’t answer. Not immediately. The silence between us was too thick, too weighted with years of unspoken things.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said.

I closed my eyes, breathing out hard through my nose. “It’s too late for that.”

“I know,” he said. “But I am.”

I nodded, staring at the floor, at the expensive marble beneath my feet. I’d grown up walking on this floor without ever really paying attention. “I loved Isaac,” I said quietly, voice cracking. “I really loved him. And now I don’t even know if any of it was real.”

“It was,” he insisted. “I’ve never seen a man so in love.”

I looked up at him, searching for the lie. “How can you possibly know that?”

“Because he told me. And I might be old, but I’m not that old. I know the look of a man in love. And believe it or not, I wasn’t always old. I used to look at your mother like that.”

My brow furrowed. “And you expect me to believe it?”

“He didn’t want to keep going with it once he realized he was falling for you. He came to me. Said it wasn’t right. That you deserved better. He wanted out.”

“And you didn’t let him.”

He hesitated. “Armand and I convinced him to stay.”

My stomach turned. “Why?”

He didn’t answer right away. I could see the words forming on his tongue, the debate in his eyes.

“What else aren’t you telling me?” I asked, my voice low.

“He was going to be offered a seat at the firm. Armand was going to be funding the nonprofit. They needed the money to expand. Isaac wanted to work with them but he’s been a bit adrift .

Armand convinced the others to let Isaac work at the foundation.

Isaac wanted it. We told him it would all work out. ”

“So if I don’t marry him, he doesn’t get the job?” I asked.

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you meant.”

“Mina—”

“No.” I stepped back like he’d hit me. “Don’t.”

“Mina, the boy loves you,” Dad said.

I shook my head. I couldn’t help but feel it was all too transactional. I thought I believed him, but now I was second-guessing myself. Clearly, I wasn’t a great judge of character. What if I had gotten it wrong? Again.

My heart thundered in my ears.

“I need space,” I said abruptly. “I need air. I have to get out of here. I cannot be here.”

“You just got here?—”

“I’m not staying.”

His face fell. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going away for a few weeks,” I told him. “I need to clear my head. Somewhere with sand and water and no one pretending to know what’s best for me.”

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, exhaled through his nose. “Will you be safe?”

“I’ll be with Tori,” I said. “And yes, you’ll be paying for it. And she’ll be taking her paid vacation.”

He gave a weak chuckle. “Of course.”

“And you can’t call me. I want to be alone.”

“Mina—”

“I’m serious, Dad. I don’t want calls. I don’t want check-ins. I’ll come back when I’m ready.”

“I understand.”

“I hope you do.” I stared at him. “I really hope this conversation meant something to you. Because it meant everything to me.”

He nodded. “Be safe, Mina.”

I turned away from him before the tears could come, forcing myself not to crumble as I headed upstairs. Tori followed me up.

“Um, sweetie?” she asked with a sweet tone.

“Yes.”

“We’re going on vacation?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah.”

She laughed. “Good to know.”

“I can’t be here, Tori.”

She took a deep breath. “I do have a lot of vacation time built up.”

I smiled. “Then pack your bags.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. Hot. Tropical. I’ll see what tickets are available.”

“Well, shoot. Sandy beach, here we come!”

I packed what I needed quickly, not letting myself linger in the house. Clothes, toiletries, vitamins, sunscreen. A couple books. A worn hoodie of Isaac’s I hadn’t realized I still had, which I threw in before I could think twice.

Tori met me at the car twenty minutes later. She had changed into a sundress and was wearing sunglasses. She didn’t say anything, just took one look at my face and grabbed my bag from me.

“You okay?” she asked as we loaded the trunk.

“No,” I admitted. “But I’m going to be.”

“Where to, boss?”

“Airport. I booked the tickets. We’re going to Jamaica.”

Tori whistled. “Damn. We’re really doing this, huh?”

“We’re really doing this.”

I settled into the passenger seat and felt a sense of relief at the thought of getting out of here. As we pulled out of the driveway, I glanced back at the house I’d grown up in. I loved the Duvall estate but now it felt like a prison.