The Billionaire's Unlikely Bride by Helen Cooper

Chapter 1
     
                  I hadn’t planned on staying in New York. I wanted to move to Los Angeles to try and become a screenwriter after I graduated from college. Yet here I was 3 years later, still in New York and no closer to becoming a screenwriter than I was to becoming a super model.
     
                  “Elle, come on. We’re going to be late.” My best friend Brittany walked into my room and jumped on my bed. She looked amazing of course. She always looked amazing. She was beautiful and rich and she never had to want for anything. Her self-confidence was something that I admired though sometimes I wished that she wasn’t always so insistent on having her own way. We had met on the first day at Columbia; we had been assigned to be ro ommates. She the daughter of a b illionaire and me daughter of a farmer from Iowa.
     
                  “I’m feeling tired Brit, I don’t know.” I didn’t really want to go out dancing, I never had the right clothes and I never had enough money. I was also fed up of the looks and the whispers until someone finally said, “She’s Brittany Rosewood’s best friend, they went to Columbia together.” And then it would be okay, or at least I was accepted. Because I was Brittany’s best friend and she was the only child of Elliott Rosewood, one of the richest men in New York and in fact the world.
     
                  “Elle, you promised. You know I want you to meet Peter tonight.” Brittany pleaded with me.
     
                  “Who?” I looked at her confused.
     
                  “Peter Branford,” she sighed. “I told you about him remember?”
     
                  “No, not really,” I think I vaguely remembered her mumbling on about a Peter a few weeks ago when I had been writing a scene in my new play but hadn’t really paid attention to her.
     
                  “Elle, how am I ever going to find you a husband?” Brit sighed again. “Peter Branford, only son of Olivia Branford and heir to the Branford fortune. He’s a billionaire Elle.”
     
                  “Uh, okay.” Her words meant nothing to me. I didn’t care that Peter Branford was by all accounts a billionaire, at least when he inherited. I didn’t really care about money. I was happy just getting by, though I suppose that was easy to say living rent free with Brittany in her penthouse apartment in the Upper West Side. That was part of the reason why I still lived in New York. Brittany’s dad had bought her this apartment when we were sophomores at Columbia and we had both lived here ever since. Her dad had told me that no rent was due because I was such a good friend to Brittany. I knew that he meant because I didn’t do drugs and party all night but I had been happy to accept. It had meant that my student loans were that much smaller and for that I was ever grateful. Now, it meant that I was able to work part-time at a pre-school and spend the rest of my time writing and hoping for my big break.
     
                  “Earth to Elle, earth to Elle.” Brittany was going through my closet.
     
                  “Sorry,” I sighed and stood up. “Okay, let me go take a shower and get ready for this Peter.”
                 
                  “Yay Elle. I’m so excited. I know you two are going to hit it off. He is absolutely gorgeous.”
     
                  “Okies Brit, this I have to see.” I laughed. Brittany was worried that we were going to become old maids at the age of 25 and had been trying desperately to set me up with every eligible man this side of the river. She was dating Mark Bronson, the son of the 2 nd richest man in New York. They’d been dating for about 9 months now and it seemed as if it were getting serious. They looked like Barbie and Ken together. She the cute short blond, with big blue eyes and