Page 300 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 1
"Did you move everything in okay? When I left and you still weren't there I was worried something happened to you."
She laughed. "No, no, I'm good. My stuff is all moved in...just not at your place."
"What do you mean?"
"I just decided that it would be easier to crash at Tyler's place until I find something. I dropped my stuff off there this morning."
"Oh." I felt my heart sink. "I was excited to be roommates with you again."
"I know." She smiled and gave me another hug. "But it was only going to be for a couple days anyway. I'm going to find my own place really fast."
"Are you sure Tyler doesn't mind?"
Melissa laughed. "No, he practically begged me. Isn't that right, Tyler?"
Tyler made a weird face and looked away from us.
Melissa laughed again. "I heard about your new job. It sounds really exciting."
"Geez, he's trying to convince you it's a good idea too? It's not. You know that I'm not taking that job."
"Why not?"
"Because Penny doesn't want to work with me," James said.
I smiled and turned around. "You know that's not it."
"Hmm." He put his hand on the side of my face. "We can talk about that more later. Congratulations, Penny." He leaned down and placed a soft kiss against my lips. I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck.
My dad cleared his throat. I could feel my face turning red.
"Hi, Dad!" I immediately stepped away from James, gave my dad a quick hug, and then gave one to my mom too. "Hi, Mom."
"Congratulations, sweetie," My mom said. "We're so proud of you. And we're so excited about meeting your parents, James. We've been looking forward to it."
"About that." James put his arm around my shoulders and looked down at me. "They had to cancel."
I pressed my lips together.God.I had let myself get my hopes up this time. Who was I kidding? I always got my hopes up. I thought maybe now that I had graduated, though, they might actually want to meet me. So it wasn't my age. It was starting to seem like they had no intention of ever meeting me. I swallowed hard.
James squeezed my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Penny."
"That's fine," my dad said. "Let's go out to lunch anyway. My treat."
I put on a smile. "That sounds perfect."
"We're going to head out," Melissa said.
"You're both welcome to lunch" my mom said.
"I still have a lot to unpack, so I should probably get started. Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor." Melissa gave them each a quick hug.
"You're coming with us tomorrow, right, Melissa?" My mom asked.
"I wouldn't miss it." She winked at me.
It was hard to even think about shopping for a wedding dress right now. James' parents clearly didn't want me to be a part of their family. Every time they canceled plans to finally meet me, James told me not to worry about it. But how could I not worry about it? We were getting married at the end of the month. And at this rate it didn't even seem like his parents were going to come.
"Congrats again, Penny." Tyler smiled at me and then followed Melissa through the crowd.
