My Billionaire Suitor Sent Me Extravagant Roses—I Sent Them Back

Part 2

The very next afternoon, I wandered the familiar aisles of a quiet downtown bookstore, seeking sanctuary from my mother’s continuous horrified lectures about my ruined future.

I trailed my fingers along the leather spines, trying desperately to lose myself in the comforting smell of old paper and ink.

I had successfully discouraged a man who would only have disappointed me eventually.

The hollow ache beneath my ribs was definitely relief rather than regret.

A low, warm voice suddenly spoke from right behind me, carrying barely contained amusement.

Greg Harrison stepped into the narrow aisle, the afternoon light illuminating the genuine smile that transformed his usually austere features.

He held out a worn, leather-bound book with gold lettering that made my breath catch in my throat.

He had tracked down a first edition of Seneca’s letters, the exact text I had been reading on the terrace.

Taking the book from his hands, our fingers brushed, and neither of us pretended it was an accident.

I opened the cover to find a handwritten inscription dedicating the volume to a woman who demanded substance over empty beauty.

I asked him quietly why he was pursuing a woman who had given him every reason to walk away.

He looked at me with raw honesty and admitted I was the first person in a decade who had made him feel like trying.

Three evenings later, I stood at the edge of a high-society musical in a soft green gown, my heart beating with an erratic rhythm that had nothing to do with the pianist’s performance.

I felt the weight of his gaze finding me across the crowded room with an accuracy that suggested he had been searching for nothing else.

He crossed directly toward me without pausing to acknowledge the dozens of more suitable women turning hopefully in his direction.

He asked me to dance, ignoring the scandalized gasps rippling through the elite crowd.

I placed my hand in his and allowed him to lead me onto the floor while the room erupted in barely concealed astonishment.

I heard the venomous hiss of Heather Crawford declaring to her companions that she simply could not understand what he found so amusing about his little charity project.

The cruel words struck me like a physical blow.

Greg’s hand tightened at my waist as his expression hardened into a cold fury.

He leaned close and fiercely promised me that I was not a charity project or a joke, begging me to trust him.

I wanted to believe him more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life.

My fragile hope shattered completely at a garden party the following weekend.

I was pouring a glass of lemonade when Heather’s voice carried across the manicured lawn with the precision of a sharpened blade.

She loudly announced to her sycophants that the gentlemen at their exclusive club had a standing wager about how long Greg could maintain his pretense of interest in a penniless spinster.

The surrounding guests gasped, watching me with a mixture of pity and cruel amusement.

Heather smiled with poisonous sweetness, praising my touching delusion in believing a billionaire could ever genuinely want a woman like me.

My hands trembled so violently that lemonade sloshed over the rim of my glass.

Before the first tear could escape, I turned and fled through the garden maze, my vision blurring with absolute devastation.

As Heather’s cruel laughter echoed across the manicured lawn, I realized Greg wasn’t saving me at all—was I just the punchline to a sickening joke?