The Billionaire's Runaway Bride Read Online Free PDF

finally let her hair down.
     
    She’d been in the solarium and the pins had ached. The tension of the morning had probably made things worse, she thought. Thinking she was alone, she pulled the pins out as she sat in the afternoon sunshine, then let her fingers play with the curls as she considered what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She had no money and even the house she’d lived in since she was born was now controlled by a man she’d only met twice before, once at a dinner party she’d attended with her father and again that morning.
     
    Both times had really shocked her. All her life, she’d listened to her father tell her that she was promiscuous. Never in her life had she really looked at a man and had sexual thoughts until Jason Randal had entered her life. The first time, she’d seen him dancing with a woman across the room and her eyes had been drawn to him for the rest of the evening. Despite the fact that he kept catching her watching him, Sophie was unable to stop looking for him through the crowd. When he asked her to dance later that evening, she had been floating on air. He was so tall and muscular and his smile melted her heart, sending butterflies fluttering in her stomach. He had danced with her, holding her small hand in his and made her laugh and feel feminine and amusing.
     
    The dance had ended too soon and Jason had done the gentlemanly thing and brought her back to her father’s side. Edward hadn’t even acknowledged her but had instantly started discussing the latest business deal they were working on together between their companies. She didn’t mind though. It gave her more time to listen to his deep voice that felt like velvet smoothing across her skin. She loved the sound and stared up at him with undisguised fascination.
     
    The second time she’d seen him had been after her father’s funeral. He’d come back to the house along with the rest of the guests and had helped her make sure the reception moved smoothly. Sophie suspected that he thought she would be devastated. But years of being drilled in her hostessing duties had enabled her to move about the room, ensuring that the catering staff had all the glasses filled, the food was constantly replenished and that the coats were removed to the upstairs nicely. It wasn’t until the reception was almost over that he caught her arm and pulled her to the side. “You’re supposed to let others wait on you, Sophie. Not the other way around,” he’d explained. “Are you okay?”
     
    The concern in his eyes flustered her and all she could do was nod her head in response. She tried to move away to check on the kitchen but he held her there, one hand at the small of her back as he pulled her through the rooms, talking with the guests and introducing her to several of her father’s acquaintances. She was too shy that afternoon to talk but for the first time, she felt like she was a part of the party.
     
    Her father’s solicitor read the will immediately after the reception and that was when Sophie’s sense of freedom disappeared. As the bespectacled, stern man read the words of her father, she shrunk more and more into the large leather chair, wishing she could just fade into the woodwork again.
     
    It was humiliating. Everything, all her father’s money and assets were hers but she had to marry in order to use any of it. And even then, the assets would only be transferred to her husband. She would never see any of it. If she didn’t marry within the year, all of it would convert to a charity designated by her father.
     
    She pushed the memories aside and came back to the present, not wanting to remember how gullible she’d been that day. It was too painful. Sophie groaned at her appearance, smoothing down the black, crepe dress. She added a set of pearls to offset some of the blackness but it didn’t help her complexion which looked pale and drawn.
     
    Rubbing her hand over her hair, she considered letting