Billionaire's Accidental Wife novel Chapter 20

Chapter 20 Later that evening, fireworks burst overhead, eager laughter swirled around Chelsea, and an attentive waiter pressed a margarita with freshly crushed mint into her hand. After dinner earlier, she managed to call Jane and Catherine, and they decided to have a girls’ night out, which involved Shawn Richmond driving the car and giving them VIP passes through the most expensive, new, and well-known pub in the city. It had been a wonderful reunion, and the three of them ended up sobbing and hugging and eventually ruining their make-up.

Ah, this was life. After almost another drink, Jane was almost wasted and Catherine called her younger child on the phone, singing a lullaby. God knows what sort of Peppa Pig song it was. She shook her head and smiled at the embarrassed mom. It had been a couple of years, yet Chelsea saw how the couple still looked at each other’s eyes like they were the only ones in the room.

“This is life, right?” Jane grumbled to Chelsea with a grin. She looked beautiful in a knee length dress of shimmery silver gems, while Catherine wore the same sparkling mini-dress accentuated by moonstone clasps at the shoulders and a simple belt that brought out the deep brown of her eyes. “Chelsea, would you believe Shawn wanted to have this fundraiser in a stuffy old ballroom? On a beautiful clear night like tonight?” “It’s a good thing he has Cathy to talk him out of it,” she said with a playful dig at Shawn’s tuxedoed ribs. “I would not have wanted to miss this.”

“I second the motion,” Shawn said, raising his glass as if for a toast while Catherine was still busy talking to her kid on the phone.

Chelsea was excited to see them, and they had already arranged for some time this week to visit the couple’s mansion. Earlier, Catherine asked about her and Dave, but she just gave her a cold shoulder. For now, there was nothing to talk about just yet; for now, she wanted to forget the beautiful bastard.

However, tonight’s dance, banquet, and general-purpose give-us-your-money event were to raise funds for Richmond’s latest favourite charity, a group that bussed children in homeless shelters to the library every day, and watched over them while their parents were out working or looking for jobs. This time, two years ago, the only charity Shawn had been interested in was the society for the relief of young naked bimbos, but Catherine had made him a changed man. These days he actually sought out opportunities to do good without the help of his late grandfather, now on his own without any prompting, and when he encountered a cause that didn’t have a fundraiser-or even one that did but didn’t seem big enough or glamorous enough to raise the necessary awareness or funds-he made one. “So, how much are we getting so far?” Chelsea asked Shawn.

He pulled up some numbers on his phone. “Oh, about nine hundred thousand,” he said off handedly. “But I think we can get up to a million by the end of the night, maybe even to five. Thanks for donating those beautiful pots to the auction table, by the way.”