Found A Homeless Billionaire Husband for Christmas – Episode 04
Carl’s fury found a new target the moment Simon stopped him. “Don’t ever touch me again,” he snapped. Victoria watched him recoil from the man who had intervened to protect her.
He called Simon a filthy hobo and spoke of diseases. Her cousin added her disgust, treating his presence as the offense rather than the threat that had brought him into the argument. Neither seemed capable of shame.
“What is this bum doing here?” The contempt filled the space around them. Victoria was still struggling with the end of her engagement, and now they were insulting the only person who had helped her.
The pair declared that she and Simon belonged together. It was meant to diminish her further. Yet standing beside him felt safer than anything she had just endured beside the man she had planned to marry.
Carl and her cousin decided not to waste any more time with them. They might catch something, they sneered. Their departure finally ended the barrage, but it did nothing to repair what they had left behind.
“Are you okay?” Simon turned to Victoria. His concern was simple and direct, a question about her rather than another judgment of what she deserved.
She could not find a convincing answer. Tears had already overtaken her, and she hated that Carl had left her crying. Only a little earlier, she had been reassuring her family about their wedding.
“You shouldn’t be crying over that idiot,” Simon said. “He’s not worth it.” There was no suggestion that she should have worked harder to keep Carl, no attempt to excuse what he had done.
“You’re right. He’s not worth it.” She knew that now. Knowing did not make the consequences any easier to face. Carl could walk away from the wedding; she still had to go home.
Her mother and grandmother had planned everything. They had spent their entire life savings on the celebration. As Victoria told Simon, the financial reality crowded in beside the shock of betrayal.
There was the money, and then there was Grandma. A wedding was the wish her family had been trying to make possible while there was still time. Victoria could not bear to be the person who took it away.
“I can’t go back and tell them it’s off.” She pictured their excitement giving way to disappointment and worry. She would have to describe not only a canceled wedding but the humiliating reason behind it.
“I can’t. I can’t do that.” Repeating the words did not produce another option. She had been abandoned, yet she was the one left responsible for delivering the news.
“What do I do?” She looked at Simon without expecting him to know. He had already done more than anyone else. She was not sure there was anything more a person could do.
He hesitated, then lowered himself to one knee. The gesture interrupted her tears with astonishment. Victoria stared down at him, unable to fit what she was seeing into the day she had just survived.
“I think you should marry me.” Simon spoke steadily. For a moment the words seemed impossible, belonging to some conversation other than the one they were having.
“What?” He explained that it could be temporary. That way, her grandmother could still see her walk down the aisle. The wedding did not have to disappear simply because Carl had.
“You would do that for me?” Victoria asked. Simon remained before her, offering help she had not imagined asking anyone to give. “I would do anything for you, Victoria.”