The Wrong Billionaire
Author
Dani Collins
Reads
17.5K
Chapters
14
To save her business, Eden Bellamy must marry. When her perfect-on-paper marriage of convenience ends in humiliation, the jilted Eden flees…with best man Remy Sylvain! But this altar swap might only add fuel to the fire, given that unforgettable kiss they once shared… Their families' rivalry makes Remy completely off-limits and Eden always puts her family first. Until it's impossible for her to bury their red-hot attraction any longer…and, for once, the innocent is tempted to do something just for herself. Would claiming her wedding night with Remy be so very wrong?
PROLOGUE
IT WAS SUPPOSED to be the happiest day of her life, but Eden Bellamy wasn’t happy.
She should be. Her groom was a reliable, steady man, exactly like her father. Their marriage would save her father’s company. She’d been stressing over how she would do that since Oscar Bellamy’s death a year ago. She ought to be thrilled to her pedicured toes that she was finally resolving things.
She pretended she was happy. She plastered a smile on her face as her mother dabbed the corners of her eyes and wished Eden’s father was here.
“Me, too, Mama. Go take your seat.” I want this over with.
Her mother hurried away. Eden’s heart seemed to follow, stretching out after her the way a child’s might when their mother left them at preschool for the first time. Wait. Don’t leave me. Save me.
The wedding planner secured the microphone to the sweetheart neckline of her gown and tried to lower Eden’s veil. She stopped her.
“I need to see the stairs.”
Nerves already had her so unsteady, she feared she would tumble down them. Micah wouldn’t let that happen, of course.
Her half brother was standing in as father of the bride. He wore his habitual stoic expression as he stood at the open doors to the terrace watching Quinn, Eden’s maid of honor, coax the bridal party into their positions. She urged the flower girl to take the hand of Eden’s adolescent cousin as they moved to the top of the stairs for the procession down to the lawn.
“Ready?” The wedding planner finished fussing.
“Is it working?” Eden asked, into the microphone, and heard her own voice come through the speakers outside.
With a pleased smile, the planner melted away. Seconds later, the music paused. The murmuring of the crowd went silent.
Eden’s stomach curdled. A dire sense that she was making a colossal mistake condensed around her like a noxious fugue.
He doesn’t want you, she silently screamed at herself, exactly as she had while lying awake last night. As she had every night, in fact, for months. For years.
She tried to recount all the reasons why marrying Hunter Waverly made sense, but her thoughts insistently drifted to that other man, the one who barely acknowledged she existed. The one standing beside Hunter right now.
How could seeing him be the only thing about this day that she looked forward to? She would stand near Remy Sylvain while she spoke her vows to another man and he wouldn’t care.
Micah held out a crooked arm.
Tears pressed behind her eyes as she came forward to tuck her hand inside his elbow.
Outside, the lyrical notes of the harp invited her to step over the threshold into her new life. Her heart began to pound so forcefully, the microphone might have picked it up. There was a rushing sound in her ears. Her feet tried to glue themselves to the floor.
I can’t do this, she thought with abject panic.
“You!” a man’s angry voice shouted down below.
It was followed by a plaintive tone from a woman. “Daddy, no! Please!”
“What the hell?” Micah muttered. He strode to the edge of the terrace.
Eden followed and peered down at the hundreds of assembled guests, all facing the pergola where Hunter was standing with his groomsmen and the wedding officiant.
A gray-haired man in rumpled clothes shook his finger at Hunter while his daughter, presumably, tugged his arm, begging him to leave. She held a baby, one new enough that she was protecting its neck as she cuddled it against her shoulder. The senior shook her off and continued berating Hunter.
“Dad!” the woman cried. “He didn’t know, okay? I never told him!”
After a stunned pause and a charged exchange between father and daughter, Hunter’s voice boomed through the speakers.
“Is it true?”
Eden’s brain finally caught up and crashed into what was happening. That old man was claiming the woman’s baby was Hunter’s! Her knees nearly gave out.
Hunter tore off his microphone and handed it to an usher.
That’s when she realized Remy was looking up at her.
He was wearing the same morning suit as the rest of the groom’s party, but he wore it so much better. His white shirt and burgundy vest with swirls of gold were positively regal on his muscled torso.
If a man was capable of being elegant and beautiful while maintaining every shred of masculinity, that’s what Remy managed to do. Always. His hair had been freshly cut into a midfade, his strong jaw shaved clean. His tall, muscled frame was powerful and unmoving, while his demeanor was more remote and contained than ever.
He wasn’t shocked by what was going on, though. That’s what struck her like a slap. He was watching to see how she reacted.
Had he arranged this? Had Micah been right? Was Remy willing to ruin her wedding? Her life?
Beside her, Micah muttered a string of curses. “I’ll kill him. This time, I really will.”
Down in the pergola, Remy nudged Hunter. Hunter moved his gaze up to her. So did the woman. Hunter’s grim expression hardened with culpability.
The farcical energy crackled for two or three seconds longer, long enough for Eden’s heart to twist and wrench inside her chest. Humiliation crept like poison from the pit of her stomach to ache in her cheeks.
The woman with the baby looked equally mortified. Her expression crumpled and she hurried away.
Eden’s numb fingers released her bouquet. It fell off the ledge of the terrace. She dragged her gaze from Remy’s unreadable expression and swept herself back into the honeymoon suite of the vineyard’s guesthouse.
