They Mocked My Curves, So I Married the Billionaire Bartender novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Say It to a Judge

Spencer and Grayson ambush Roz at her building and Spencer grabs her wrist and mocks her hips in front of the neighbors. She slaps him, Jasper arrives and threatens Spencer's lease, and her father cuts her off from every account. Jasper says: now you owe them nothing.

I woke up in a stranger's guest room, and my first thought was that I had married nobody yet.

My second thought was my studio.

My jewelry bench, my sketchbooks and my cat were all in my own apartment over the old hardware store on Third Avenue, and I wanted them.

Jasper was at the kitchen island with coffee when I came out in a pink sweater from the closet.

It fit perfectly.

"I'm going home for my things," I said. "Alone."

"Take the driver."

"I'll take a cab."

He looked at me for a moment and nodded.

"Call me if anyone is there."

"Who would be there?"

He didn't answer, and that was an answer.

I took a cab.

Spencer Langdon was standing on my sidewalk in a camel coat with his hands in his pockets.

Grayson was leaning on the wall beside him.

My doorman, a retired man who has watched over my building for nine years, was holding the lobby door and looking at his shoes.

"Rosalind," Spencer said. "We need to talk."

"No, we don't."

I walked past him, and he caught my wrist.

His fingers closed hard.

"Let go."

"Last night you made me look like a fool in front of four hundred people," Spencer said. "Do you know who I am?"

"A man who told my father I'd need hiding."

His smile tightened.

"Rosalind. Look at yourself. I was doing you a favor. You think a man like that wants someone with your hips? He wants a story. A fat girl and a billionaire. Cute for a month."

A woman walking a dog slowed down to watch.

Grayson laughed.

"He's right, Roz. Don't be stupid. Come home. Dad will fix it."

My wrist hurt.

My face burned, and then it stopped burning.

Something cold came up in its place.

I stopped pulling.

I stepped closer to Spencer, close enough to see the shave under his jaw.

"Let go of my wrist," I said.

He did, and he smirked.

I slapped him across the face with my open hand.

It cracked off the building.

The woman with the dog gasped out loud.

Spencer's head turned and stayed turned.

"You hit me," he said.

"Yes."

"I'll sue you."

"Go ahead," I said. "Say what you said about my hips in a courtroom. Say it again to a judge. I'll sit there and listen."

The doorman had lifted his head.

He was looking straight at me, and he was smiling a little.

Grayson took a step toward me.

"You little..."

"Grayson," a voice said behind him. "Stop walking."

Jasper stood at the curb with the black car idling behind him.

He had put on a charcoal jacket and no tie.

He looked at Spencer's cheek, which was turning red in the shape of my hand, and then he looked at me.

"Are you hurt?"

"My wrist."

He took it gently in both hands and turned it over.

Four pale marks were rising on the skin.

Jasper looked at them for a long time.

When he looked up, his face had not changed, but his voice had gone very low.

"Mr. Langdon. You put your hand on my wife."

"She's not your wife yet," Spencer said. "And you're a bartender who got lucky..."

"I own the building you keep your office in," Jasper said. "I'd stop talking."

Spencer stopped.

"I'll have the lease on your desk by noon," Jasper said. "Go home."

Spencer's eyes flicked toward Grayson, and Grayson would not look back.

They left.

The doorman held the lobby door and said, "Good morning, Miss Abbott," as though nothing had happened.

I started to laugh, and I had to hold the doorframe.

Jasper did not laugh.

He kept hold of my wrist in one warm hand and ran his thumb once across the marks.

My skin prickled all the way up my arm.

I told myself it was shock.

Upstairs my cat met me in the hall and shouted at me.

I packed in twenty minutes: sketchbooks, pliers, the silver I'd been saving for a commission, the cat in her carrier.

Jasper carried the heavy box and did not say a word.

On the street my phone buzzed.

I looked at the screen and sat down on the stoop.

It was a text from my bank.

Your account has been closed at the request of the primary holder.

My father had opened it when I was sixteen and he had never taken my name off it.

Everything I owned in it was gone, and so was my studio rent for the next three months.

A second text came from my father's lawyer.

You are no longer a beneficiary of the Abbott family trust. Return all family property.

I read it twice and held the phone out to Jasper.

He read it.

Then he did something I had not expected.

He nodded slowly, almost pleased.

"Good," he said. "Now you owe them nothing."

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