They Mocked My Curves, So I Married the Billionaire Bartender novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Bartender Takes the Mic
At the gala Roz's brother is about to announce her engagement to Spencer, who mocks her body. The bartender takes the microphone, calls her his fiancée, and she walks across the ballroom and says yes. He is Jasper Rhodes.
My brother picked a charity gala to announce my engagement, because four hundred people would watch.
He wanted me humiliated in front of the whole city, and he had a card in his pocket to do it.
I knew because my adopted sister had warned me twenty minutes earlier.
She found me in the coat room, fixing the zipper on my green dress.
"Let me," she said, and she tugged it the last inch over my hip.
Our parents took her in when she was nine, and she has been Dad's favorite ever since.
I used to be fine with that.
"Our brother is going to make a speech about your engagement," Camille said softly. "Dad already agreed. I'm so sorry, Roz."
She twisted a small sapphire ring on her right hand while she said it.
I had never seen that ring before.
"What speech?" I asked.
"He said you'd be grateful. The man Dad picked for you chose the dress color, you know. He said green hides a little, and you need hiding."
I looked at myself in the mirror.
I am twenty-seven years old and a size eighteen, and I had loved this dress until she said that.
"Thank you for telling me," I said.
Camille squeezed my hand and left.
I walked into the ballroom with my chin up.
Spencer Langdon stood by the champagne tower with his father's business partners around him.
He is thirty-four, he has a square jaw and a steady tan, and my father had been calling him my future husband for a month.
He saw me and laughed out loud.
"There she is. Rosalind, darling, go easy on the canapés tonight. I'd hate to pay for a second dress."
The men around him laughed too.
Nobody had ever asked me whether I wanted to marry him.
My father stood ten feet away, holding a glass of scotch, and he looked at the ceiling.
I turned and walked to the bar at the far end of the room, because it was the only place no one was standing.
The bartender was already pouring.
He set a glass of sparkling water with two limes on a napkin in front of me.
That is exactly how I drink at parties. I had never ordered at this bar before.
"Rough night?" he asked.
He was tall, with dark hair, a white shirt rolled to the elbow and a black apron. He looked about thirty-three.
He did not look at my dress or my hips.
He looked at my face.
"My brother is about to announce my engagement to a man I can't stand," I said. "Four hundred guests. Then I'm supposed to smile."
"Do you want to marry him?"
"No."
"Then don't," he said.
Across the room, the music stopped.
Grayson walked up the steps to the stage with a champagne flute in one hand and a white card in the other.
He is thirty-one, he looks like our father, and he has hated me since the magazine put my photo on its cover instead of Camille's.
I never asked for that cover.
"Friends," Grayson said into the microphone. "Tonight is a special night for the Abbott family."
Heads turned toward me.
Spencer started walking to the stage, grinning.
My father finally looked at me, and there was nothing in his face.
My hands went cold on the napkin.
"Stand up," the bartender said quietly.
"What?"
"You said you didn't want to marry him. Stand up, Rosalind."
I don't know why I did.
I picked up my glass and stood.
The bartender came around the bar, took off his apron, and folded it over the rail.
Then he walked straight across the ballroom toward the stage.
The host of the evening was a woman with a headset who saw him coming and handed him her spare microphone without a word.
Grayson was still in the middle of his sentence.
"...a young woman who has always been, let's say, a lot to handle, and tonight my father is proud to..."
The bartender stepped onto the stage beside him.
"Excuse me," he said.
His voice filled the room.
Grayson turned, annoyed.
"Staff, wait your turn."
"Everyone here wants to know who Rosalind Abbott is marrying," the bartender said, looking out at the crowd. "I can save you the suspense."
He pointed at the bar.
"Her fiancé is the man who just poured her a drink."
Four hundred faces turned.
Spencer stopped halfway up the steps with his mouth open.
My father's glass hit the floor.
Grayson hissed, "This is a joke, she doesn't even know you."
The bartender didn't take his eyes off me.
He held out his hand across the whole room, and I understood he was waiting for my answer.
Camille stood by the stage steps with her hand over her mouth.
I had a choice.
I could shake my head, go quiet, let Grayson finish and let Spencer put his hand on my back.
Or I could walk.
So I walked.
I crossed the entire ballroom in my green dress, with my chin up, past my father, past Spencer, and I took the bartender's hand.
"Yes," I said into his microphone, in front of everyone. "I'm marrying him."
The room went loud.
Grayson lunged for the mic.
The bartender stepped easily out of his reach.
"Thank you all for coming to my foundation's gala," he said. "I'm Jasper Rhodes. I'll be marrying Rosalind next week."
Spencer went white.
And my father stared at the man holding my hand, and his face went gray, because he knew exactly who Jasper Rhodes was.
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