They Made Me the Knight, But I Became My Own Princess novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Wrong Sister

Mitch Keaton calls Molly to his tailor's shop, where Sadie wears his grandmother's ring, and when Molly tells the truth her mother slaps her in front of everyone.

I read the line again.

Longstanding mental instability.

"I've never seen a psychiatrist in my life," I said.

"I believe you," Mr. Pierce said. "The court won't take my word for it. The hearing is next Tuesday."

"And if I lose?"

"Your father votes your forty percent for as long as the judge allows. Possibly for good."

A group of freshmen walked past us, laughing about a midterm.

I folded Grandpa's letter along its old creases.

"Why now? He's had my shares for four years."

"Because as of yesterday, he doesn't," Mr. Pierce said. "Something is coming up that he needs your votes for. I don't know what yet."

My phone buzzed in my bag.

Unknown number.

I almost let it go.

"Is this Molly Granger?"

A man's voice. Low, clipped.

"Yes."

"This is Mitch Keaton."

I stood up so fast the folder slid off Mr. Pierce's knee.

"There's a woman in my tailor's shop," he said. "She says she's my fiancée. She's wearing my grandmother's ring. It doesn't fit her."

In the background I heard Sadie's laugh. The bright one she used on waiters.

"My grandfather's contract has one name in it," Mitch said. "It isn't hers. Can you explain this to me? In person?"

"Where are you?"

"Lorne and Sons. Oak Street."

"Twenty minutes."

I was there in fifteen.

Lorne and Sons was dark wood and brass rails and a smell of wool and cedar.

Two tailors with pins in their mouths stopped working when the bell rang.

Sadie was on the velvet sofa in the middle of the shop.

She had her legs crossed and a flute of the shop's champagne in her hand.

The sapphire caught the light every time she moved.

A tall man stood at the three-way mirror in shirtsleeves, half a suit chalked on him.

Dark hair. A hard jaw. Tired eyes that didn't miss anything.

He turned around and looked at me for a long moment.

"You're Molly."

"I'm Molly."

Sadie set her glass down so hard it chimed.

"What are you doing here? You said you had school."

"He called me."

Sadie was already up and at his elbow, sliding her hand around his arm.

"Mitch, she's confused. My parents explained all of it to your family. Molly and I switched. She wanted to."

Mitch looked at her hand on his sleeve.

He didn't move it. He just looked at it until she took it back herself.

"Your father told my father something like that," he said to me. "He said you begged to get out. He said there was somebody else."

"There's nobody else."

"Did you ask to get out?"

The tailors had stopped even pretending to pin.

I thought of Grandpa's hand in the hospital. Arthur's boy is a good one.

"No," I said. "They gave you away at my birthday dinner. With a card game."

Sadie laughed, high and bright.

"She's joking. She's always been a little strange. Mom says she makes things up when she's stressed."

"I brought the cards," I said.

I took the four princess cards from my bag and held them out, notched corners up.

Mitch took them.

He ran his thumb along each corner, one after another.

His face didn't change.

But his eyes did.

"Take off the ring," he said to Sadie.

"Mitch."

"It's my grandmother's. Take it off."

Her chin went up, and her eyes flooded on cue.

"I can't believe you'd humiliate me like this. In public. In front of her."

The bell over the door jangled.

Mom walked in with her sunglasses on her head and three shopping bags on one arm.

She took in Sadie crying, Mitch holding the cards, and me.

"Molly. What have you done now?"

"She told him," Sadie sobbed. "She's trying to ruin everything."

Mom set her bags down on the carpet very neatly.

She walked straight across the shop, past both tailors, past the mirror.

She stopped in front of me.

Then she slapped me across the face.

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