The Bargain with the Billionaire

Chapter 26- Bride

“Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you.” – Elsie de Wolfe

Shane’s POV

“He’ll come…

He’ll not come…

He’ll come.”

And it’s the last petal again.

“He’ll not come.”

Oh no. Please do come. He must come. He said he will. He even promised. My hopeful side is telling me these. But my logical side is shouting he’ll definitely not come. We’re not even friends. We’re just neighbors.

My logical side won.

I kicked off my three-inch silver stiletto and put on my wedge sneakers. I doubled check the laces making sure they weren’t loose. I have some running to do. And I have to run very fast. So I figured out, I can’t do that wearing pencil heels so wedge sneakers will be better. I can’t wear my ordinary sneakers because of my height. I’m only five flat and it will be very obvious if I didn’t wear heels right now.

I heard a loud knock on the door just after I hide my wedding shoes. Perfect timing. I checked my bouquet to see if there’s any evidence of fallen out petals from my eeny, meeny, miny, moe a while ago. There’s none. I’m really good at hiding evidences. Not like them.

When I opened the door, I was greeted by my mom who’s wearing her perfect sweet smile. If I’m born yesterday, I may think it’s genuine, but I’m not. I’m hundred percent sure it’s fake.

“You look,” she stared at me from head to foot with her feigned astonishment, “different.”

Right. Not beautiful. Not pretty. Just different.

Actually, I’m already aware of that. From the day I started to learn comprehension, my ears got acquainted with the word ugly. They will always call me that. At first as a child, I thought it’s a fantastic word. But when I grow up and learned the meaning, I started to have questions, which remained unheard and unanswered.

I’m an ugly duckling unlike my sister. She’s smart and I’m stupid. She looks like a model and I look like well me, ugly little thing.

In short, I’m everything she’s not.

She’s perfect in their eyes and I, I’m just the ugly little thing whom they decided to sell like a good in the market. I bet if I have a twin sister, they will sell us buy one take one at the lowest price.

I know my grades aren’t good and I failed many subjects in college, but I’m not that stupid to notice they’re treating me differently.

Sometimes they’re really sweet and acted like perfect parents but that’s only when we’re in public. In confined of our old mansion, in my dark four-cornered room, which served as my hiding place for years, things got nasty. To the point I wasn’t allowed to go out for a week because of some purplish patches on my arms and legs.