The Runaway Bride's Secret Billionaire Protector

Sunlight sliced through the blinds, hitting Francesca directly in the eyes.

She groaned, shielding her face with her arm. Her body felt like one giant bruise. Her ankle throbbed in rhythm with her headache.

She blinked her eyes open.

A man was standing by the window. Back to her. Shirtless.

Francesca froze.

His back was a landscape of muscle and... scars.

Not just scratches. Deep, jagged lines that ran from his shoulder blade down to his ribs. Burn marks? Shrapnel?

She gasped.

The man turned around slowly. He was buttoning a flannel shirt.

It was the driver. Cooper.

He looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Morning, Sunshine."

Francesca pulled the sheet tighter. Her heart was hammering. The scars... the rumors about Cooper Ortega being burned...

No. Stop it. This guy drives a Ford and charges for gas. He's just a guy who's been in a few scraps. Maybe a veteran.

"Your back," she blurted out.

Cooper paused on a button. He glanced over his shoulder, unbothered. "Industrial accident. Oil rig fire, three years ago."

"Oh." Relief flooded her chest. It wasn't him. It was just a working man's tragedy.

He finished buttoning the shirt. He looked... rough. Handsome, in a dangerous, unpolished way. Dark stubble on his jaw. Eyes that were too intelligent for a simple driver.

"We..." Francesca hesitated. Her memory of the night before was spotty. She remembered the car. The heat. Being carried. "Did we...?"

Cooper leaned against the windowsill, crossing his arms. A smirk played on his lips. "Did we what?"

"You know." She felt her face burning. "Sleep together."

Cooper laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound. "You were unconscious and drooling blood on my passenger seat. Not exactly my type of romance."

Francesca let out a breath. "Okay. Good."

"Though you were pretty clingy when I carried you in," he added, enjoying the flush rising on her neck.

"I was drugged," she defended weakly.

"Sure." He walked over to the bedside table. "Here."

He tossed a cracked smartphone onto the mattress.

"It's an old Android I had in the glovebox. Screen is spiderwebbed, but it works."

She picked it up. "My SIM card?"

"Trash," Cooper said, his voice hardening slightly. "Using your old SIM is like sending up a flare. I put a new pre-paid card in there. Untraceable."

Francesca looked at him, surprised by his foresight. "Thank you."

"Add it to the bill," he said. "Phone cost me twenty bucks."

Francesca rolled her eyes. This man was obsessed with money. It was annoying, but strangely grounding.

"I need to go," she said. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The room spun, but she gritted her teeth.

"You have a concussion," Cooper noted.

"I have a life to salvage." She stood up, swaying.

She was still in the hospital gown. "I can't go out in this."

Cooper sighed. He reached into a plastic bag on the floor and tossed her a pair of grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt. "Lost and found."

Francesca went into the tiny bathroom to change. The clothes smelled of detergent and stale tobacco. They swallowed her frame.

When she came out, Cooper was waiting by the door.

"I need to borrow twenty dollars," she said, staring at her bare feet.

Cooper raised an eyebrow. "You already owe me four-seventy."

"For a taxi," she said. "I can't walk home like this. I'll pay you back. Double. I swear."

He stared at her for a long moment. His eyes seemed to x-ray her soul. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled twenty.

"Don't make me regret this," he said, handing it over with a reluctance that felt performative.

"I get it." She snatched the bill.

"I can drive you," he offered.

"No." She stepped back. "I don't want you involved. My family... they're complicated."

"Complicated," Cooper repeated flatly.

"Dangerous," she corrected.

She walked past him, limping slightly. At the door, she turned back. "I will pay you back, Cooper. Every cent."

"I'm counting on it."

She left.

Cooper waited until he heard the outer door close.

The side door of the room opened. Benjamen stepped out, holding a tablet.

"That was painful to watch," Benjamen said. "You? Worried about twenty bucks?"

Cooper sat on the edge of the bed, picking up the piece of paper where she had written her IOU. Francesca Leonard. Her handwriting was elegant, shaky.

"She needs to believe I'm nobody," Cooper said. "If she thinks I have power, she'll run. She's terrified of the name Ortega."

"She's going back to the lion's den," Benjamen noted.

"I know." Cooper's eyes darkened. "Trace that burner phone. I want to hear every word she says. And get eyes on the Leonard estate."

"What about the wedding?"

"The wedding is off," Cooper said. He crumpled the IOU in his fist. "But the war is just starting. Find out who gave her that champagne. And find out about this 'Lance' guy."

Francesca sat in the back of the taxi, watching the city roll by.

She turned on the cracked Android.

It buzzed instantly. Fifty-seven missed calls forwarded from her old number via cloud sync.

Forty from her father. Ten from Janeen. Seven from Dollie.

Zero from Lance.

She opened her texts.

Dollie: You selfish bitch. You ruined everything.

Dad: Get back here. Now. Or don't bother coming back at all.

Janeen: We know you didn't leave the city, Francesca. Don't test me.

She closed her eyes. The nausea was back.

The taxi slowed, turning into the opulent gates of the Leonard estate.

"Here," she told the driver, handing him Cooper's twenty. "Keep the change."

She got out. The gates were closed.

She pressed the intercom button.

"It's me," she said.

Static. Then, the housekeeper, Mrs. Higgins. Her voice sounded strained. "Miss Francesca... Mr. Leonard said... he said you have to wait."

"Wait? Wait for what?"

"For him to decide if you're allowed in."

Francesca stood in the driveway. The sun beat down on her concussion. She was wearing a stranger's sweatpants, standing outside the home she grew up in, begging for entry.

Across the street, parked under the shade of a large oak tree, a black Ford sedan sat silently.

Cooper watched her through the windshield. He saw her shoulders slump. He saw the humiliation radiating off her.

He tapped the steering wheel.

"Benjamen," he said into his headset. "Short the Leonard stock. Now. Crash it."