All Chapters of Runaway Bride to his Billionaire Rival : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Scott bought the ring three days before he realized he would not use it tonight.It rested in the inside pocket of his jacket, tucked against his chest, while he moved through the world: meetings, calls, signatures, people who believed decisions were made in boardrooms instead of kitchens, parked cars, and the fleeting, impossible seconds after a woman says no and means it.He had gone into the jeweler's alone. No assistant hovering. No family jeweler offering approval. No speech about legacy. He chose the ring the same way he had started choosing everything connected to Freeda: quietly. Carefully. A clean stone, brilliant without demand, set in a band that belonged to a woman who claimed her own name, her own life. Nothing flashy enough to turn her hand into a headline. Nothing delicate enough to feel like submission. He carried it like a secret he would not betray, even to himself, until the time was right.Now it waited in his jacket as he sat across from a banker who spoke of expa

Randy knew something had shifted before anyone failed him loudly enough to prove it.It was in the morning first.No frantic post from Freeda correcting a lie. No donor calling him to “clear things up.” No soft, carefully worded message from Scott, pretending calm while asking questions he had no right to ask. The city had gone too quiet around the place where he usually found resistance, and Randy had learned long ago that silence was never empty. Silence only meant someone else had moved first.He arrived at the office before eight.Lila was already there, tablet in hand, posture exact, face careful. She started with numbers because numbers were safer than feelings.“Three donors confirmed directly with the James Fund this morning,” she said, steady, precise. “No one copied your office.”Randy set his keys down deliberately. “Names.”She read them.He recognized everyone.Men and women who had taken his calls three weeks ago and thanked him for his patience. People who had preferred

The box arrived before breakfast.Not flowers. Not cream ribbon. Not the kind of expensive apology Randy liked to weaponize. This one was flat, black, and wrapped so neatly it looked less like a gift and more like a decision.Winnie set it on the table with two fingers, arching her eyebrows. “If this thing hisses, I’m throwing it off the balcony.”Kris looked up from the donor sheet she had been marking in red. “No card?”Freeda reached for the envelope taped to the top.There was a card. Thick. White. Short.For the woman who thinks she won.No signature.Freeda turned the card over once. Blank.Scott stood by the stove, coffee halfway to his mouth, his expression unchanged. “Don’t open it if you don’t want to.”Winnie snorted. “That sentence from a man is still shocking every time.”Freeda slid one finger under the seal and lifted the lid.Inside was a photograph in a black frame.Scott in a dark suit. Talia in silver. His hand at the small of her back. Her face tilted toward him wi

Freeda did not flinch when Randy left the café without following them.That alone told her everything.Men like him did not waste their best anger in public once the room stopped cooperating. They went looking for paper. For clauses. For signatures collected under brighter lights and softer lies. Places where they believed a woman had forgotten what she signed, because she had been too busy surviving the man who handed it to her.Marianne saw it too.She closed her folder, eyes flicking to Freeda. “He’s going to reach for old documents.”Freeda’s gaze was steady. “I know.”Scott stood beside her, close enough that she could feel the quiet weight of his presence, not close enough to intervene. “Do you want me in the next room or out of it?”“In the room. Quiet,” she said.He nodded once. That simple gesture, so restrained, made her chest tighten with a recognition she didn’t need to explain.Marianne paid for the untouched coffee with a gesture and led them upstairs. The hotel kept a s

Randy heard the sentence and froze, staring at her through the glass like someone expecting fire and getting ice instead. The night air hung heavy with his presence, but she didn’t move, didn’t give a hint of the agitation his eyes were hunting for.“You’re late.”Freeda’s hand rested on the door handle, steady, immovable. She did not open. The words were lodged in the space between them, precise, cold, deliberate, and entirely hers.Randy’s mouth tightened. “That’s all.”“Yes.”He laughed once, low and brittle, a sound hollowed out from too many practiced smiles. “I come here without a ring, without flowers, without anyone watching. And that’s all you have to say.”Freeda held her gaze, steady and unflinching. “You came after every other version failed. That is not romance. That is timing.”Something sharpened in his face, edges hardening. “You think you know what this is.”“I know enough,” she said.“Then say it,” he said, leaning a fraction closer, the night narrowing around him, e