Chapter 4: In Front of Everyone

Three hundred heads turned.

The music had stopped, and the only sound in the ballroom was my heels on the floor.

Gavin looked up from one knee, and the smile slid off his face.

"Joanna," he said, much too quietly.

"Who is that?" Veronica asked, still holding up her hand to the light.

"Nobody." He stood fast. "Someone I know slightly. She's unwell."

I stopped at the foot of the stage.

"I'm your wife," I said.

My voice shook, and I made it louder.

"My name is Joanna Hargrove, and I've been Gavin's wife for three years."

A woman near the front gasped.

"Security," Gavin said, turning to the room with his arms open. "I'm so sorry, everyone. She has been following me for months."

"Following you," I said.

"She sends me messages. She comes to my building." He gave the crowd his grieving, patient face. "I never wanted to embarrass her."

Veronica stared at me.

Then she began to laugh.

"A stalker. At your grandmother's party. Gavin, honestly."

Two men in dark suits started down the aisle toward me.

I took my phone out of my clutch.

"I have our marriage certificate," I said. "I have the card in your glovebox. And I have the pictures."

Gavin's eyes flicked to the stage, to the large white screen behind the orchestra where the birthday slideshow had been running.

"That's enough," he said. "Take her out."

"Stop."

The word came from the side of the room.

Bennett walked across the floor with the tablet in one hand and he did not hurry.

The two security men looked at him and stopped.

"Nobody touches her," he said. "Put her phone on the screen."

"Bennett." Gavin's voice cracked. "You don't know what she's..."

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