Four Hundred Guests Watched Him Cheat, So I Took Everything He Had novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Eighteen Chairs
There was a basket by the garden gate, and every guest put their phone in it.
Hoyt's father stood guard over it in a borrowed suit, with a clipboard he did not need.
"Eighteen guests," he said to each arrival. "Eighteen phones. Take a ticket."
It was the last Saturday of October, and the back garden at Linden Road was gold.
My mother had hung paper lanterns in the maple.
The long table stood under it, set for eighteen, with white cloths and jam-jar candles.
I stood at the kitchen window in a plain ivory dress, nothing like the twelve pounds of silk from my first wedding day. I had bought it off a rack on Tuesday.
It weighed less than two pounds.
The twelve-pound gown hung in a garment bag in the hall closet, and I had no plans to look at it again.
"You look like yourself," Ellen said behind me.
She wore deep green, and she had pinned a small gold ring to her lapel, my father's ring on a safety pin.
"That's all I wanted," I said.
"It's all I wanted too."
She put a veil in my hands.
It was a short one, plain tulle, with a comb.
"Not that one," I said. "I don't want the cathedral veil."
"This isn't the cathedral veil. It's mine. I wore it to marry your father."
I looked at her, and then I let her slide the comb into my hair.
In the garden the quartet started, three friends of the planner and a cello.
I looked out through the glass at the eighteen chairs.
The nurse from the fourth floor sat in the front row, in a hat.
Keep reading free with an account. Start Four Hundred Guests Watched Him Cheat, So I Took Everything He Had from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend