Redhead On The Run (RedHeads #1) - Rebecca Royce Page 0,1
money before she’d gotten pregnant with Kit and forced Bill to marry her, lest they have a scandal on their hands. The woman, who had been his—gasp—secretary before that, had become the filter on who and what was acceptable ever since. She might want to forget her less than auspicious stride into wealth and privilege, but the internet had a long memory and Wikipedia had been my friend when I needed information about her.
Any second now, she was going to launch into her latest speech. The Allards always did this, always did that. I was sick to death of listening to it. Kit assured me the pontificating would end after the wedding—the last thing she would get to dictate. The Allards always got married in Paris, France. This time, it was going to be in Palais Royale followed by a reception on the rooftop of the Hotel Raphael. All of it just small enough that neither family could invite everyone they knew. That was how we kept it exclusive. I’d been to neither place, hadn’t even let myself google them to see what they looked like, and paid little attention when we’d marched in here two hours ago to start the process of making me look acceptable. What was the difference? None of this would have been the wedding I would have chosen.
Kit was my choice. I loved him.
I swallowed. Fuck me. Didn’t I? I loved him. I did. Right?
I’d met him when I was seventeen but hadn’t dated him until I turned twenty, two years ago. That was after a drunken night at a club where he’d confessed to me that he was in love with me. And Kit was gorgeous. Tall, dark haired, with green eyes that a girl could get lost in. I used to, all the time. He could be truly wonderful.
At his heart, Kit was an artist. He painted. Not that he could talk about that very much. Allards weren’t painters. No, they were lawyers and business people who didn’t particularly go to offices but still had titles and the look of respectability. His father was drunk every day from about two o’clock on after playing golf, badly, every morning. And Kit was going to be exactly the same way after he finished getting his MBA that he would do nothing with.
My body went cold.
“Time to get you in your dress.” Laura clapped her hands together and grinned at me. For all that she disapproved of me, she equally loved the idea of me being her daughter-in-law. They’d never had more attention to her so-called charities as she had the last months since Kit put the ring on my finger.
My own truth, what I should have known already, hit me hard like someone had taken a bat and struck me over the head with it. I. Wasn’t. In. Love. With. Christopher “Kit” Allard. Not even a little bit. I couldn’t even stand him.
And he pretty much hated me, too.
I laughed, covering my mouth, and all eyes were suddenly focused on me.
“That’s funny?” Laura looked from me to my sisters as though they could explain my outburst. How would they do that when I couldn’t even speak the words myself?
Hope walked over to me. She and Bridget wore matching up-dos today, which was so strange looking because they’d never let themselves be styled remotely the same, not since they’d had a say in what the nannies laid out for us to wear. I’d liked it, dressing like them. I’d liked it a lot longer than either of them had.
Why was that?
I blinked as Hope took my hand. “Babe? You okay?”
Bridget watched me from two steps behind Hope. That wasn’t surprising. Hope was always the first to rush into any situation, while Bridget hung back, observing. If I was involved in whatever was happening, I stayed even further behind Bridget because I never had anything to offer to a situation that was of any value. Hope was kind, talented, smart, and Bridget was all of those things with the added bonus of a compulsive drive for success that matched my father’s and then some.
And then there was me. Sweet, quiet, good for the family’s image, Layla.
Who was going to marry a guy who hated her—who she equally disdained—because that was the best thing for the family right now. I could contribute nothing else of value to anyone except giving away my body and soul to keep our quarterly numbers up.