I Paid for the Wedding, So Who Was Mother of the Bride? novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Crescent

Russell denies everything at home with a kiss on the forehead; Joanna finds a text from L about Friday dinner.

Russell was home before me.

He had changed into a sweater and put a pan of onions on the stove, which meant he had prepared for this.

"Jo," he said, without turning around. "Sit. I'm making the pasta you like."

I put the binder on the kitchen island and stayed on my feet.

"Put the hotel back the way it was," I said.

"The billing?" He stirred the pan. "It's a tax matter. The company writes off events like this. It's cleaner."

"You took my name off my own contract."

"I took the payment off your account. You've spent two hundred thousand dollars on this wedding. I thought you'd be relieved."

"I wanted to be at the head table."

"And you will be." He turned and gave me his gentle smile. "At Table Eleven, with Annette and your clients. Next to the dance floor. It's the best view in the room."

"It's by the kitchen."

"It's by the bar."

He had an answer for everything, and he said each one pleasantly, and that was the part I had stopped seeing years ago.

I put my hands flat on the counter.

"Are you sleeping with Cynthia?"

He laughed.

It was a soft, tired laugh, the one he used when I asked whether he had called his mother.

"Cynthia is a colleague," he said. "Hannah adores her. She's helped more with this wedding than anyone."

"That's not what I asked."

"Jo." He came around the island and kissed my forehead. "You're exhausted. You've carried this whole thing alone for six months. Go and sit down."

He smelled of onions and the cologne I gave him every Christmas.

I stood still until he stepped back.

"Why does Hannah think I knew about Cynthia?" I said.

"Because it's easier for her to believe it." He lifted the pan off the heat. "She's nervous, Jo. Nervous brides decide odd things. I told her you were fine with it so she'd stop worrying. That's all."

"Fine with what?"

"With Cynthia being part of the day."

"She said you told her in May."

"Did she? Then she's mixing up dates." He took two plates down from the shelf. "Let it go until after the wedding. I'm begging you."

He never begged.

"One more thing," I said. "Cynthia brought me a flat white today. She said Hannah told her my order."

"They talk, Jo. They've talked about flowers for weeks."

"Hannah has never mentioned her to me. Not once."

"Because you'd have turned it into this," he said, and he said it with gentle, quiet pity.

I took my plate upstairs and ate none of it.

At nine his shower started.

I came back down for water, and his phone lay face up on the kitchen island beside the binder.

It lit up while I stood there.

L: Does she know yet?

I didn't touch it.

It lit up again.

L: I'm not waiting past tomorrow. Tell her or I will.

A third message came in before the screen dimmed.

L: Friday dinner at mine. Cedric's parents are coming. Hannah wants you there. Don't be late.

Hannah wants you there.

I picked up my own phone and photographed the screen before it went dark.

My hand wasn't steady, but the picture came out clear.

Upstairs the shower stopped.

I put his phone back exactly where it had been, with its face toward the ceiling.

Then I took the binder to the study and found the paper folder where I kept the venue emails.

On top of the folder sat the guest list for the family dinner I had planned to host here on Friday, the one I'd drawn up in July.

It had twenty-two names.

Mine was the first, and it had been struck through in a pen I didn't own.

Above the page, in neat blue ink, someone had written: Moved to Cynthia's. Hostess: L. Wickham.

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