The Runaway Bride Is Marrying His Billionaire Boss novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Pearls

Delaney takes her mother's pearls back from Shelby, learns Marlene is selling the lake house on Monday, and finds her father's old quote calling her a thief on the Ledger's front page.

"Take them off," I said.

Shelby's hand went to her throat.

"These are mine. Mom gave them to me."

"They were my mother's. She wore them on her wedding day, and she was buried without them because Marlene said they should stay in the family."

"They did stay in the family."

"Take them off, Shelby."

Brett came up behind her in the hall.

His right hand was wrapped in white gauze to the wrist, and he had changed out of his bloody shirt.

"What are you doing at our house at midnight?"

"Your house?" I said. "I came to sleep in my mother's."

"The door is locked."

I tried my key in the lock.

It went in a quarter of the way and stopped.

"We changed the locks in March," Shelby said. "Mom said you'd never be back, so what was the point of keeping your key?"

I took the key out and held it in my fist.

"Then give me the pearls and I'll go."

"No."

I stepped over the threshold, and Brett put his good hand flat on my shoulder.

"You don't walk in here."

"Take your hand off me."

"This is private property."

I looked at his hand until he moved it.

Then I reached around Shelby's neck with both hands and found the clasp.

She slapped at my arms.

The clasp was the same one my mother had fumbled with in the mirror the morning she wore them.

It opened.

The pearls came off in my hands, cool and heavy, and Shelby gasped.

"You can't just take them!"

"I just did."

"I'm calling the police."

"Call them. Tell them a woman took her dead mother's necklace off the neck of her stepsister. I'll wait."

Shelby's mouth shook.

She did not reach for the phone.

Brett rubbed his bandaged hand and gave a short laugh.

"You think you've won something. The house isn't yours. Marlene holds it in trust, and your father agreed to it years ago."

"My mother left this house to me."

"Your mother left it to Marlene to manage. It's in the paperwork." He leaned on the doorframe, pleased with himself again. "And on Monday, Marlene's selling it. The closing is at ten at the title office. A developer wants the lakefront."

I felt the pearls bite my palm.

"Monday."

"Two days after your little wedding."

"You and Shelby live here."

"We rent it from Marlene, for almost nothing. After Monday we move into the new place on the hill." He smiled. "You came back to pick a fight with the wrong people."

"You're married to the right one," I said. "Congratulations."

His smile slipped.

Behind me, a car door shut.

Laurence walked up the drive with his hands in his coat pockets.

He did not hurry.

"I said call me if there was trouble," he said.

"There isn't any trouble."

"There's a man with a bandaged hand glaring at you." He stopped at the bottom step. "I don't count that as no trouble."

"Mr. Hartwell," Brett said. "You followed her."

"I drove past. It's a small town, and the road goes this way." Laurence looked at the gauze. "How many stitches?"

"Six."

"Good. That means you'll be at the wedding with a straight face." Laurence's voice stayed pleasant. "Brett, I'd like you to understand something. I don't care where you live or who you married. I care that tonight you put your hand on my fiancée."

"I didn't."

"I watched you do it from the road."

Brett swallowed.

"It won't happen again, sir."

"No," Laurence said. "It won't."

He held out his arm to me.

I went down the steps with the pearls in my fist, and I did not look back at Shelby.

At the car, Laurence opened my door.

"My rental is still in the drive," I said.

"I'll have it brought to the inn in the morning."

He drove in silence for a minute along the dark lake road.

"They changed the locks in March," I said. "My mother painted that house herself. Every window."

"I know."

"You don't."

"No," he said. "I don't. But I'd like to."

I did not answer him.

The pearls were warm now from my hand.

"Monday," I said. "There's a sale on Monday."

"We'll have it looked at."

"It's my mother's house."

"Then we'll find out what that means in a courtroom."

"There won't be a courtroom. Marlene holds the deed. Sheldon agreed to it."

"Then there's something in the paperwork that hasn't been read by the right person."

His phone buzzed in the cup holder.

He glanced at it, then handed it to me without a word.

It was a notification from the Cedar Landing Ledger.

The headline was posted at 11:52 that night.

RUNAWAY BRIDE RETURNS TO CEDAR LANDING, CRASHES FATHER'S PARTY.

Under it was a clip from the ballroom, with my father's red face and Brett's bleeding hand.

Under the clip was a quote that the paper had run seven years ago and had pulled out of its archive tonight.

Sheldon Whalley, owner of Whalley Dairy Distributing, told the Ledger: "My daughter stole forty thousand dollars from her own wedding fund and left the town to pay for it."

I had never taken a penny.

I read the line three times.

Laurence took the phone back and put it face down on the seat.

"Delaney."

"I never stole anything," I said.

"I know."

"You don't know that."

He kept his eyes on the road.

"I'd like you to tell me, then."

The first drops of rain hit the windshield.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

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