He Ditched Our Wedding, I Married His Wealthy Uncle novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Offer

I laughed in his face.

It came out loud enough that the feed store owner looked up from the register.

"You're single, you're broke by your birthday, and you want me to divorce the best man I know."

"I want you to be practical." Dylan picked up a fly spray and read the label. "Ram's lawyers can end a marriage faster than a clerk's office started one."

"No."

"Think about the old man, Jodes. Think about Mabel in a trailer." He put the can back. "Tell me by tonight. Rehearsal's tomorrow in Rye. Kyla needs it for the finale."

He walked out with the bell ringing behind him.

I loaded twenty bags of grain by myself and didn't feel one of them.

I told Clyde first.

He was on the tractor seat in the barn, cleaning a hoof knife.

He heard me out without stopping.

"So you say yes," he said, "and you don't mean it."

"I say yes so I can stand in their garden. Kyla's laptop goes everywhere she does. The cameraman says the bank file's on it."

Clyde wiped the blade on his knee.

"You tell the hotel man yet?"

"You're first. You said."

"Huh," said Clyde. "Then go tell him second, before he hears it from a drone."

Ramsey was splitting kindling behind the farmhouse.

I told him.

He put the axe down very carefully on the block.

"No."

"I wasn't asking."

"Jo, he left you standing in that garden for two hours."

"I know. I was there."

"And you want to put on a dress and walk back into it with him at the arch and Kyla filming."

"I want the file. I want the land. Then I want to watch his face."

"I'll find another way."

"There isn't one. You can't bid. You can't buy. You can't fix this one with a check, Ramsey."

He flinched.

I'd meant him to.

I called Dylan right there by the woodpile, with Ramsey listening.

"Yes," I said. "One rehearsal. You withdraw the bid in writing before I say a single vow."

Dylan whooped so loud I held the phone away.

"Eleven o'clock. Mom's sending something white."

At eight that night a black town car came up the drive.

The same man in the same blue tie got out with a long white box.

Duchess trumpeted at him from the barn.

He left the box on the gate and drove off without asking for a signature.

There was a card on top in Darlene's square handwriting.

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