Unwillingly His – Gilded Decadence Read Online Zoe Blake, Alta Hensley

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Billionaire, Dark, Forbidden Tags Authors: ,
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Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
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“I’m sorry, do I…”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I think we’ve only met a few times. I’m Emma Zeigler. My brother is…”

“Of course. Your brother was going to marry Charlotte. We met at the engagement party.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It was Emma, but she looked so different. At the engagement party, she had been dressed in a stunning gown, her face was perfection, and even her gorgeous hair was done in a complicated updo. She was absolutely radiant, and I remembered being so jealous.

This girl got to live the fairy tale fantasies that I’d had as a child. She was a wealthy, stunning woman with a fantastic accent, and she had a title.

“That’s right,” she said again, her now worn smile not reaching her tired eyes.

“Would you like to join me?” I asked, not forgetting all of my manners.

“Uh...” She looked around for a moment and looked like she was going to say no, then changed her mind at the last moment. “Well, maybe for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” I smiled and signaled for the waiter. “How have you been?”

“Well, I suppose you have heard the gossip about my situation and family?”

“No, actually, I hadn’t. I’m sorry I’ve been kind of out of the loop lately.”

“Oh, that’s right. I am so sorry I heard about your parents. That must have been absolutely awful.” She reached over and laid her hand on mine in a moment of true sympathy that felt genuine, and I appreciated the connection.

After the accident, when I woke up in the hospital, the room was full of flowers and condolences, but with the exception of Charlotte and Amelia, I hadn’t heard from any of my friends. I guess it proved who my real friends were.

Emma looked down at the papers that I was holding and gave me a sad smile. “I suppose your circumstances have changed like mine have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your job hunt. That’s actually what I’m doing here as well, applying for a waitress position.”

“A waitress?”

“After Charlotte and my brother’s engagement broke, a lot of information came out of the woodwork about my brother. It seems my family owed several creditors, and they were counting on Charlotte’s money to pay them off. When that clearly wasn’t going to happen, they called in the debts. My brother has run off somewhere to avoid prosecution, leaving me and my mother completely destitute. They even stripped our titles.”

“So you’re looking at waitressing?”

“I was an aristocrat. I was born and bred to be an aristocrat. The only career I was prepared for was being a wife to another aristocrat. I have no skills, no experience, and nothing but my willingness to learn. Unfortunately, five years of experience supervising event planners and choosing themes for parties does not constitute a successful resume. So I’m having to do... what do Americans call it? Pull myself up by my bootstraps?”

I couldn’t help but giggle a bit. “That is what we call it, at least, I think. Have you found any good leads?” I asked, looking at my stack of papers, which so far had been full of jobs I wasn’t qualified for, entry-level positions that required degrees that I didn’t have, and positions doing exactly what Emma was trying to do—waiting tables.

I was delusional to think that that would cover rent anywhere in the city.

“Nothing,” Emma said, leaning her head back. “I have had to sell the few possessions that Mother and I still had, all of them going to different consignment stores across the city. More than once, I was accused of stealing my own family heirlooms.” She rolled her eyes. “But that has given me enough to put Mother and me up in a small apartment, but the money is running out quickly, so I need to get more coming in immediately.”

I felt for her.

Worse than that, talking to Emma was making me realize exactly how much of an uphill battle I had before me.

I had no safety net anymore. If I tried to leave Lucian and stand on my own feet, I would crash and burn.

I had no real-world skills. I literally had no idea how to boil water, let alone hold down a job. My mother had always bragged about the “career” that I had when I was twenty, but that was just being a social media influencer.

Truth be told, I didn’t even work at that. I didn’t make a lot of money, and I had no real talent or even the business to monetize it properly. I just banked on the fact that I was pretty and rich.

I was no longer rich, so why would anybody want to listen to what I had to say?

How long until I had to sell my own clothes? Would I even be able to sell my own clothes, or would Lucian keep all of that, as well as the rest of my family’s estate and inheritance?


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