Her Wedding Dress novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Applause

From behind a column Autumn watches Lydia walk the aisle while her own parents and brother sit in the front row, learns from a text and a call that her family took Clifton's money, and hangs up. A tall stranger says he is Clifton's brother and that he came to stop the wedding.

The applause started before Lydia had taken her third step down the aisle.

I heard it from the back of the ballroom, behind a column wrapped in white roses.

I had changed into my backup gown in the powder room, because my clothes were still in the suite.

Nobody looked at me.

Three hundred people were looking at the other bride.

"Is that the Vandermeer girl?" a woman whispered near me.

"I thought the bride was a teacher," her husband said.

"They must have changed the plan. Look how thin she is, poor thing."

Poor thing.

Not me.

Lydia leaned on Clifton's arm with her whole weight.

The pearl comb in her hair shook with each careful step.

And Clifton walked slowly for her.

For the whole year of my engagement he had rushed me through every fitting and every tasting, because he was always late for something.

Now he took one slow step at a time, and the whole hotel waited for him.

In the front row, Clifton's mother sat very straight in a cream suit, with her hands folded and her mouth shut.

Beside her sat Clifton's father, who looked at the ceiling.

Behind them sat my parents.

My father stared at his shoes.

My mother dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

For one stupid second I thought she was crying for me.

Then she smiled at Lydia, and the smile was soft and proud.

Next to her my brother Tyler held up his phone and filmed the procession.

His arm was steady, and he zoomed in on Lydia's face.

My stomach turned over, and the baby kicked.

Tyler knew.

My mother knew.

They had sat in the front row and watched a stranger walk down the aisle in my dress, and not one of them had stood up.

The officiant opened his book. "Friends, we are here to celebrate love."

I almost choked.

A coordinator in a black headset hurried up to me, pale and sweating.

"Mrs. Ashdown," she whispered. "Mr. Ashdown asked if you could wait in the family room until the photographs."

It was the first time all day anyone had called me that.

I read her name tag.

"Did you know?"

She swallowed. "I was told there was a change to the program."

"A change."

"Yes."

Her eyes filled with pity, and I hated it.

Pity is what people hand you when they have no plan to help.

At the front, Lydia raised her face to Clifton.

"Thank you," she said, and she made sure the first three rows could hear. "For the one thing I never thought I'd get."

A woman by the aisle sniffed and reached for a tissue.

Clifton's thumb moved over her knuckles.

It was the same thumb that had once wiped frosting off my lip outside a bakery when we were nineteen.

He had bought me that cake because I said I wanted to try it someday.

"Why wait for someday?" he had said.

I didn't know who that boy was anymore.

My phone buzzed.

It was Tyler, sitting thirty feet away with his phone in his hand.

Where are you? Don't be dramatic. Clifton said he'd pay off my car next month.

I stared at it.

Another text came before I could answer.

You already have the legal part. Let Lydia have the show. Stop making us look bad.

My hands went cold.

Pay off my car?

I typed with one thumb.

What car?

The dots appeared, disappeared, and appeared again.

Then my mother called.

I stepped into the marble hallway before I answered.

"Autumn McAlister, what is wrong with you?"

I closed my eyes.

She didn't say are you all right.

She didn't say did you know.

"Mom."

"Do you have any idea what Clifton has done for this family? Your father's heart bills are paid because of him. Tyler signed for the car. And you want to make a scene over one ceremony?"

One ceremony.

It was my wedding, my name and my place.

"How much money have you taken from him?" I asked.

Nobody said anything.

That was my answer.

"Don't you take that tone," my mother said. "After everything we gave up for you."

"You mean everything I paid for."

"You're our daughter. Helping family is what you do."

"My duty."

"Don't act important because you married money. If Clifton gets angry and cuts us off, are you going to pay what we owe?"

I leaned on the cold wall.

All at once the flat looks Clifton's mother gave me across her table made sense.

I had thought she was cruel.

She was.

But my own family had been handing her the knife.

"What else did you ask him for?" I said.

"Enough. Go back in there. Smile. Take the pictures. Say sorry to Lydia if you have to. A sick woman wanted one happy day. Are you really that selfish?"

Something in me came loose, very gently.

"I lost my wedding today," I said. "And you're worried about Tyler's car."

"You're being dramatic."

That was what they all said when my hurt got inconvenient.

I hung up.

Footsteps stopped beside me.

"Autumn?"

A tall man in a wrinkled suit stood there with a carry-on bag still in his hand.

His eyes were gray, the same gray as Clifton's father's, and nothing like Clifton's.

"I'm Clifton's brother," he said. "I flew in to stop this, and I'm late."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

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