Page 17 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

I looked out at the pretty street I’d wandered down before I’d found the cafe, its sidewalks lined with big old trees, grassy green verges, and historic brick buildings. I inhaled a deep breath. “Yes, I do know what I’ve done. I chose myself, that’s what.”

He scoffed. “You’re coming home. Immediately.”

“No.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no.”

“Do you not understand what is at stake? This isn’t a joke, Maggie. It’s not a game. It’s our family. Our legacy. Our reputation.”

I sighed. “I know what’s at stake.”

“Then act like it.”

“I’m not ready.”

“You will never be ready if you keep behaving like a child.”

I winced. That was the first thing he’d said that’d actually hurt, but it was mostly because I knew it was true. I was acting like a child who was hiding from her parents because she didn’t want to do her homework.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know that. It was that I also didn’t know what else to do. “I’m still not coming home, Daddy. Not yet.”

“You will come home or I swear to God, I will cut you off completely.”

“I will come when I’m ready, but not a second before. You’ve made your point and I will take it into consideration. Goodbye, Daddy.”

“Maggie—”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and hung up on him, knowing there would be hell to pay for that once I got home, too, but at this point, I was elbow deep in so much shit that I was likely never getting out of it anyway.

After I slipped the phone back into my bag, I reached for my coffee and took a sip, reopening the book I’d found in my grandfather’s study. The pages were filled with pressed flowers, some carefully labeled in his handwriting while others had dates, locations, or little notes about where he’d found them.

Every page I turned brought another smile to my lips, my fingers running over the indentations in the pages where he’d lovingly recorded information about each flower he’d taken the time to press. He’d always been eclectic, strange but noble.

He’d collected odd things and read obscure books, sometimes disappearing for days without anyone knowing where he’d gone. I knew now, though. He’d been here, in this beautiful, historic town I was starting to learn had been his sanctuary.

Like me, he’d had his passions. He’d simply learned to hide them. Unlike me, however, he’d been the patriarch of our family and he’d had enough money to build secret places for the parts of himself nobody else was allowed to see.

My cash, on the other hand, was running out fast after buying a plane ticket, a bus ticket, the phone, some clothes, food, and now, this coffee. As I sat here, right at this very minute, my dad was undoubtedly putting a hold on my credit cards and flagging my bank account, so this was it.

Any money with my name attached to it would be entirely inaccessible within the next few minutes. If it wasn’t already.

I was officially boxed in, but so be it. My answer was no. To everything.

Money had been controlling me since birth. I refused to let it control my future too. While I didn’t know yet how to manage for the moment, I would get there. Until then, I simply had to be careful with the food, provisions, and cash I had at my disposal.

I picked my coffee back up and drained the last drop, knowing this would be the last cup of coffee I would have for a while that’d been made by someone else, and then I closed the book and stood. Determination surged through me as I walked back to the cottage, keeping my head down just in case.

Perhaps I didn’t know how to survive without my family’s money just yet, but if even monkeys could learn how to play musical instruments, I could learn new tricks too. The road under my feet became narrower, then dustier, then the houses and asphalt disappeared entirely, signaling that I was getting close to the place I now called home.

When I reached the privacy gate at the end of the driveway, however, there were fresh tire tracks in the dirt. A few sets of them, actually. Like someone had driven in, then out, then in again.

My first thought was that Marcus had found me, but I hadn’t even finished thinking it yet when I realized it probably wasn’t him. Marcus would’ve at least called first. He wasn’t really one for surprises. As the heir to the proverbial throne, he tended to err on the side of preparation. If he tried to call when he was already on his way and hadn’t gotten hold of me for whatever reason, he would’ve followed up the call with a text.

Possibly a lawyer.

Suddenly feeling a little more apprehensive about those tracks, I pushed the gate open quietly and crept up the drive, noticing a car I didn’t recognize in the driveway once the cottage appeared through the trees.