She Loved the Billionaire Since Childhood — Until Forced to Serve at His Wedding!
Chapter 1
The wedding was supposed to be the happiest day of Amelia Carter’s life.
Instead, she spent it carrying champagne glasses.
At twenty-eight, Amelia stood quietly near the entrance of the Grand Bellamy Hotel in Manhattan, dressed in a black-and-white server’s uniform while hundreds of wealthy guests arrived for the wedding of billionaire Ethan Whitmore.
The irony was almost unbearable.
She had loved Ethan since she was nine years old.
Back then, he wasn’t the billionaire everyone knew.
He was simply the quiet boy next door who used to climb the fence separating their family homes.
Their fathers had been business partners.
Their mothers had been friends.
Amelia remembered Ethan giving her his red bicycle when she fell and scraped her knee.
She remembered him promising, “When we’re older, I’ll take you somewhere beautiful.”
She had believed him.
Then everything changed.
When Amelia was sixteen, Ethan’s father died unexpectedly.
The Whitmore family moved away.
Ethan went to boarding school.
Years passed.
Amelia kept the old photograph of them together inside a drawer.
She never told him how she felt.
She never got the chance.
Ethan returned to New York at twenty-five and transformed his father’s struggling company into a global empire.
By thirty, he was worth billions.
And now he was getting married.
To Victoria Langford.
The daughter of another billionaire family.
Amelia had discovered the wedding announcement three months earlier.
She had cried that night.
Then she had done something she hated admitting even to herself.
She applied for a temporary catering job at the hotel hosting the wedding.
She told herself it was because she needed the money.
But deep down, she wanted to see him one last time.
Now she regretted it.
Because Ethan had just entered the ballroom.
He looked exactly as she remembered.
Only older.
Taller.
More confident.
His black tuxedo fit perfectly.
Cameras followed him.
Guests surrounded him.
Amelia stood behind a silver tray and watched him smile.
Then his eyes suddenly moved across the room.
Their gazes met.
For a second, everything stopped.
Ethan’s smile disappeared.
His eyes widened.
“Amelia?”
Her hand tightened around the tray.
She looked away.
But he was already walking toward her.
“What are you doing here?”
She forced a smile.
“Working.”
His expression changed.
“You work here?”
“Today.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She almost laughed.
“When would I have?”
He didn’t answer.
Then a woman’s voice came from behind him.
“Ethan?”
Victoria approached.
She looked Amelia up and down.
“Do you know her?”
Ethan hesitated.
“She’s…”
Amelia interrupted.
“Just an old friend.”
Victoria smiled politely.
“Of course.”
She slipped her arm through Ethan’s.
“Come on. The photographer needs you.”
Ethan looked at Amelia one last time.
Something in his expression made her heart ache.
Then he walked away.
Amelia lowered her eyes.
She told herself she could survive one evening.
She was wrong.
Because an hour later, Victoria’s mother approached her.
“You.”
Amelia looked up.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You’re being reassigned.”
“Where?”
“The bridal suite.”
Amelia frowned.
“I was assigned to the reception.”
“Not anymore.”
The woman handed her a tray.
“You’ll serve the bride personally.”
Amelia stared at the tray.
Then she heard Victoria laughing from inside the suite.
And she realized something terrifying.
She wasn’t simply attending the wedding of the man she had loved since childhood.
She had been ordered to serve the woman who was about to marry him.
