Marry My Billionaire Second Husband - Chapter 45

End Badly Either Way
“Perhaps you should attend,” Horace excitedly continued, not realizing how rapidly Amelia’s face had turned pale. “I think I have an invitation here somewhere…”

He dug through the pockets of his coat, and soon enough, he pulled out a small, vanilla-scented envelope, identical to the one Matteo and Ronan had showed her just last night.

“O-Oh no…” Amelia said, laughing awkwardly as she shook her head. “I really shouldn’t.”

What was she going to do when she showed up anyway? It didn’t seem like Horace knew that she was the same Amelia that his granddaughter’s fiancé supposedly was having a romantic affair with, and Amelia wasn’t sure if she should even bring up the matter. Perhaps he hadn’t seen the news yet, since the rumors of her affair were only circulating in the celebrity tabloids.

Forget accompanying this man to the occasional brunch― if Horace Hawthorne found out that Amelia was obstructing the path to his beloved granddaughter’s lifelong happiness, she would be skinned and fed to the dogs by sunrise.

“You seem to be my granddaughter’s age,” Horace commented, still smiling. “If you met her, I think you two might become great friends.”

Amelia highly doubted that. That would be the equivalent of Amelia becoming great friends with Kelsie Friescent, and the last time they met, if it weren’t for Matteo, Kelsie would’ve torn her to shreds.

“I…” Amelia stuttered. Then, her face lit up as she thought of a good argument. “It would be odd for me to attend!” She all but yelled, grateful that they were in a private dining space rather than an open diner. “I am not family, nor a friend of the bride or groom. This would just be strange.”

“Nonsense,” Horace said, waving the matter off. “You can attend as my god-daughter. Emmeline will not care for the guest list― there are too many people invited for her to keep count of who’s coming and who isn’t.”

Before Amelia could argue further, Horace reached forward and all but shoved the invitation into her hands. The silver flecks in the cardstock glittered underneath the restaurant lighting as if taunting Amelia of its brilliance.

“It’s in two weeks,” Horace said. “If you have nothing to wear, you can let my assistant know. We will find you something suitable.”

With that final nail in the coffin, Amelia slumped in her chair. The only way out of this was to fess up and tell Horace the truth but call her a coward, she didn’t dare to.

Now, the only thing Amelia could do was to pocket the invitation with a smile and a nod. Perhaps she could feign illness the day before the party― that way, she wouldn’t have to attend as Horace’s guest or as Matteo’s plus one. Either way, it would be disastrous.

“This is my personal number,” Horace said, pulling out a small business card. “If there’s anything you need, feel free to reach out.” He then gestured to the table once Amelia had taken hold of the business card. “Now come. The food’s getting cold.”

***

“You should go,” Matteo said, barely even lifting his eyes from his laptop screen.

“Go?” Amelia echoed, almost shrieking. “Go where? Go to jail?”

Matteo didn’t respond, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he handled some work out of Amelia’s view.

“I can’t pretend to be the Hawthorne heiress now that Horace Hawthorne knows who I am,” Amelia lamented. “Just attempting to lie will land me in the nearest police station. Not to mention, if I show up and Horace finds out that I lied to him and he had just let the wolf into the sheep’s pen, I would be killed!”

She paced back and forth in the living room, her feet a blur.

“I can’t do that to an old man,” Amelia said. “I feel so awful to have to lie, especially when he was kind enough to invite me to a family event.”

“You’re not invited to a family event,” Matteo said. He finally tore his eyes away from the screen, looking up to meet Amelia’s gaze. “This is a networking event― every event organized by the elite circle is. Hundreds and thousands of people have been invited, including the media.”

“Isn’t that worse?” Amelia said. “My name has been smeared and dragged through the mud all thanks to―”

She stopped herself short when Caleb’s name was about to leave her lips. Just the thought of him left her boiling in rage. All love she bore for him had shriveled and died, and all that was left was fuming anger.

“Caleb Walton,” Matteo finished for her. “I saw the livestream. Or to be exact, Ronan did, and he made sure to repeat it to me word for word.”

Amelia looked unsurely at Matteo. “You don’t believe what he said, do you?”

Matteo raised an eyebrow. “I think I would know if I was having an affair with a married woman,” he said.

“With the news of our engagement and Caleb now revealing my history with him, the media is going to have a field day,” Amelia said with a frustrated groan. “Should we step out to clarify this? It could affect the company if we don’t. Isn’t that why we’re getting engaged in the first place?”

Matteo said nothing, merely looking at Amelia for a split second. He then shrugged and averted his gaze, choosing to shut his laptop close before rising to his feet.

“The media will eventually move on to a different, fresher topic,” Matteo said. “And if they don’t, then perhaps we should give them one.”

“Give them one?” Amelia repeated, tilting her head slightly to one side in confusion. “How?”

“We ought to leak some news to the press,” Matteo calmly said.

He walked forward, stopping only a step away from Amelia. With their height difference, Amelia had to tilt her head up significantly just to meet his gaze.

“We will need to appear in love,” Matteo said. “After all, the rumors are that you’re marrying me for my wealth.”

“Which is something I can never understand,” Amelia grumbled under her breath. “As if a man like you would need to stoop so low as to find a gold-digger to love. You could have any woman in the world if you wanted.”

The corner of Matteo’s lips slightly tilted into a smile, but it quickly disappeared before Amelia could catch it.

“Well then,” he said instead. “Would my lovely fiancée like to join me for a dinner date in the city?”