He Cheated on Our Wedding Night, I Canceled His Fortune novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Gift Brunch

Annie plays the clip for sixty Kell guests and hands back every gift. Constance says Ray never told her what the note was for.

The Kells held their gift brunch at eleven on Sunday, and I was there at ten past.

Constance had planned it for a month.

Sixty guests sat at long tables in the Kell dining hall with mimosas and a slideshow of our wedding photos looping on the wall.

Boone carried the first stack of gift boxes in behind me.

Two ranch hands carried the rest.

By the time I reached the head table, the sideboard was covered in silver paper and ribbon.

Austin stood up so fast his chair tipped.

He had put on a pressed blue shirt and washed his face, and he looked tired and handsome and sorry.

"Annie," he said. "Thank God. I was going to come out to the ranch after."

"I know," I said. "That's why I came here."

The room went quiet by tables.

A woman near the back said, "Is that the bride?"

I put my bag on the table and took out a set of cables.

Boone had shown me where the slideshow laptop sat on the sideboard.

I unplugged the laptop running the Kell wedding photos and plugged in Boone's phone.

"Annie," Constance said from her seat. She did not stand.

She was in a cream blouse and her pearls, and she smiled at me.

"Honey, we can talk privately."

"We can't," I said. "You invited everyone."

I pressed play.

The photos vanished, and the big wall went to grainy black and white.

It was the hallway outside my bridal suite.

At 9:12 p.m., Constance Kell walked into frame.

She took the brass key off the hook.

She looked both ways down the hall.

Brooke Ansley came up behind her with a garment bag.

Constance unlocked the door and handed Brooke the key.

Brooke went in.

The door closed.

Nobody in the dining hall said a word.

A fork tapped a plate somewhere and stopped.

"There's a second clip," I said.

I pressed it.

At ten o'clock Austin walked down the hall in his tuxedo, knocked once and was let in.

The timestamp in the corner of the screen did not move for ninety minutes.

"That is the bridal suite," Austin's aunt said, out loud.

"That's my room," I said. "At my family's ranch, on my wedding night."

I paused the clip.

"Brooke never comes out on this clip. When I opened that door, she walked out of my bathroom in his robe with wet hair. Austin told me she'd had a panic attack."

Austin took a step toward me.

"That clip is cut," he said. "You can't tell what that is, Annie. That could be anyone."

"It has a clock on it," Boone said from the door.

Austin turned.

"Stay out of this, ranch hand."

"He's not in it," I said. "You are."

I put the engagement ring on the head table, right on top of his plate.

"I cancelled the registration," I said. "There is no marriage. There never was one on paper."

A murmur went round the room.

"I'm returning the gifts," I said. "Every one of them. If your name is on a card, it's on that sideboard."

"Annie!" Mr. Kell said. "Annie, sit down."

"No sir."

I looked down the long table.

"Mrs. Kell," I said. "Did you give Brooke the key?"

Constance did not look at me.

She looked at her husband, then at the room, and I watched her choose.

"I gave a frightened girl a quiet place to lie down," she said. "She was ill. She had been ill for days. Someone ought to be kind to her."

"On my wedding night."

"I did not know where else she could go."

"You knew where she could go," I said. "The lodge had eleven empty rooms."

Austin's father put his hand over his eyes.

At the back of the room a man in a black suit stood up, put his napkin on the table and said, "Constance, what did you do?"

I did not know him.

I found out later he was Mr. Kell's brother, and the biggest depositor in the bank that held the Kell loan.

"Please sit down," Constance said.

"I'm leaving," the man said.

A second guest got up.

A woman by the window picked up her purse.

Austin went around the table and took my arm.

"You're humiliating my family."

"You humiliated me in my bed," I said.

I did not raise my voice.

"Your mother handed her the key. You walked up the stairs at ten. You were married to me at four."

"Annie."

"Let go of my arm."

He let go.

Boone was beside me then, and his hand was not on me.

It was just there, behind my elbow, in case I needed to lean.

I did not lean.

"This is Mrs. Kell's gift," I said, and picked up a silver box from the sideboard.

I put it on Constance's plate.

"This is your brother-in-law's. This is your cousin's."

I handed them out one by one.

Every person I handed a box to took it.

Not one of them looked at Austin.

When the sideboard was empty, Constance finally stood.

Her pearls were still perfect.

Her mouth was pressed thin, and her voice was low enough that only I could hear it.

"You are very proud of yourself, Annie."

"Yes."

"You think you know what this is about."

I waited.

"Ask your father," she said, "what the note was really for."

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