The Runaway Bride Is Marrying His Billionaire Boss novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Invitations
At her father's sixtieth birthday Delaney hands out wedding invitations, her ex breaks a glass in his hand, her father orders her to sit down, and the groom walks in.
I walked into my father's sixtieth birthday party carrying a leather folder of cream envelopes.
Two hundred guests sat under the chandeliers of his country club.
Not one of them had seen me in seven years.
I started at the nearest table and laid an invitation on every plate.
A woman in a green dress read hers twice and put her hand over her mouth.
A man slid his invitation back across the table to me without opening it.
Seven years ago I walked out of the bridal suite upstairs an hour before my own wedding.
I left the dress on the floor and the ring by the sink, and I drove through the night to the city.
Since then the whole town had decided what sort of woman does that.
Phones came up across the room as I moved between the tables.
The card said: Delaney Whalley and Laurence Hartwell invite you to their wedding. Saturday, seven days from tonight, four o'clock, Heron Point Country Club.
At the bar, Brett Lanning took a card from the man beside him.
Brett was the groom I had left waiting.
He read the name once.
His hand closed around his glass, and the glass broke.
Blood ran down his fingers and dripped onto the white tablecloth.
The band stopped playing.
My stepsister Shelby, who had married Brett a year after I left, put down her fork and stared at me.
My stepmother, Marlene, reached me first.
She wore her pearls and had her hair done, and she took both my hands in hers.
"Delaney, sweetheart. You came home."
She turned and snapped her fingers at a waiter. "A clean towel for Brett. Now."
Then she looked back at me and her voice dropped.
"You must be worn out from the drive. Let me get you a plate, and we'll talk about it later."
She had not asked who the groom was.
She did not even glance at the card.
"What day is it?" she asked. "The wedding. What day?"
"Saturday. A week from tonight."
Marlene nodded slowly and let go of my hands.
I took it for nerves, and I kept moving.
My father stood up at the head table with his napkin still in his fist.
Sheldon Whalley had built the biggest dairy distributor in the county, and he never raised his voice in public.
He hissed it across three tables.
"Sit down, Delaney. You're humiliating this family."
"I'm handing out invitations, Dad."
"You ran out on a good man in front of this whole town. You will not ruin my birthday too."
Someone near the door laughed.
Someone else said, loudly enough for me to hear, "She's got some nerve."
Brett pushed the waiter's towel away and walked toward me with his hand dripping.
"Laurence Hartwell," he said. "You're marrying Laurence Hartwell."
"Yes."
"He's my boss." His voice cracked. "He signs my paychecks. You expect me to believe that?"
"Believe whatever you like. You're invited."
"You're lying."
"The card has his name on it, Brett. I didn't write the card to impress you."
Shelby came up and gripped his good arm.
She looked at me with her whole face tight.
"You left him," she said. "You left him standing at the front of this ballroom with two hundred people watching, and now you want to dance on it?"
"I want you both there at four o'clock on Saturday," I said. "Front row."
"You are insane."
"Take him to the kitchen, Shelby. He's bleeding on my father's cake."
She did not move.
My father came around the table, and every head in the room turned with him.
"Security," he said. "Get my daughter out of here."
Two men in dark jackets started toward me from the doors.
I looked at the room.
Two hundred people had their phones raised.
My father's face was red, and Brett was bleeding, and Shelby was shaking.
Marlene stood a few steps behind them, very still, watching the doors.
I had spent seven years sitting down when people told me to.
So I did not sit.
"Nobody has to carry me out," I said. "I came to give out these envelopes, and I have eleven left."
I walked to my father and put one in his hand.
"Happy birthday, Dad."
He dropped it on the floor.
I picked it up and put it in his jacket pocket.
The two security men reached me and each took an arm.
That was the moment the ballroom doors swung open behind them.
A tall man in a charcoal suit walked in without hurrying, and the room went silent from the back to the front.
Brett turned, and the color left his face.
"Mr. Hartwell," he whispered. "Sir."
Laurence Hartwell looked at the two men holding my arms.
"Let go of my fiancée," he said.
They let go.
Then he looked around the room slowly, and he said to all of them, "Who told her to sit down?"
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend