Wedding Day: My Fiancé Put Another Woman in My Wedding Car novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Wrong Groom

Nathaniel stands up in the front pew and marries Claire in front of three hundred guests, until Tiffany stands in the back and says she is pregnant.

Nobody in the church breathed loud enough for me to hear it.

Preston's smile stayed where it was.

"Claire," he said softly. "Sit down. We'll talk after."

"No."

"You're upset. I understand." He reached for my hand. "Not here."

I stepped back out of his reach.

"Last night at nine-forty," I said, turning to the pews, "I went to the house Preston and I bought, and I found my fiancé in my bed with another woman."

A murmur ran down the left side of the church, and then the right.

"He told me he'd texted me himself, so I wouldn't hear it from someone else at the church." I kept my voice level. "Then he told me to relax, because after the wedding he would keep her somewhere else."

Margaret's heels clicked up the side aisle.

"That is enough," she said, low and sharp. "Claire, we will discuss this at the house."

"You told me this morning that today is not the day for feelings," I said. "I'm not here for feelings."

I looked at the back of the church.

Jo was already standing in her pew with her phone held up.

"Jo."

"On it," she said.

The church had a screen beside the altar, where a slideshow of Preston and me was meant to play before the vows.

Jo's cable was in her purse.

She jogged down the side aisle in her bridesmaid dress and plugged it into the little box beside the organ.

The slideshow vanished, and a bedroom appeared.

A walnut bed.

A man's bare back.

A woman's red-gold hair under a robe.

Preston's own voice filled the church.

"Relax. The wedding I promised you is still happening. I'll keep Tiff somewhere else once we're married."

Three hundred people looked at the screen, and then at Preston.

Preston looked at the screen too, and for the first time all week his face went slack.

"Turn it off," Margaret said.

Nobody moved.

"Turn that off!"

Jo let it play until the cigarette.

Then she pulled the cable.

The church was so quiet I could hear the candles.

"That's the man I was going to marry," I said. "I'm not going to."

I said it plainly, one sentence, to the three hundred faces.

Then I looked at the front pew.

He was already on his feet.

Nathaniel Aldridge was tall, with dark hair going gray at the temples and a pale scar that cut through his left eyebrow.

He wore a black suit and no flower.

His gray eyes were on me and nobody else.

He walked up the center of the church without hurrying.

Preston saw him and found his voice.

"Uncle Nate? This is a private family matter."

"It stopped being private when you put her in a car with your girlfriend," Nathaniel said.

His voice was quiet and carried to the doors.

He stopped on the lowest step and held out his hand to me, palm up.

"Claire Danner," he said. "Three weeks ago I asked you a question. Last night you answered."

I could feel the whole church leaning in.

"Yes," I said. "I answered."

I put my hand in his.

His palm was warm and dry and absolutely steady.

"Nathaniel," Margaret said. "Sit down."

"No, Margaret."

"You are embarrassing this family."

"The family did that last night." He did not look at her. "I'm fixing it."

The officiant stared at his book, and then at the two men.

"I'm not sure," he began, "that the license allows..."

"The license can be sorted by noon," Nathaniel said. "The vows are for the people who came to hear them. Will you marry us?"

The officiant looked at Margaret.

Margaret stood rigid in the aisle, with her mouth open.

He looked at me, and I nodded.

"Then," the officiant said, and cleared his throat. "Dearly beloved. Again."

Preston came at us.

He took three fast steps up the altar, and his hand shot out to grab my arm.

Nathaniel caught his wrist without turning his head.

He held it in the air, quite gently, and said in a low voice only the front rows could hear, "Not her. Never her."

Preston's face went white and red in patches.

"She's mine," he hissed. "We were going to be married."

"You had a wedding," Nathaniel said. "You made your choice about the car."

He let go.

Preston stumbled backward into the flowers.

My father had stopped at the front pew with his hand on his heart.

I looked over at him.

He gave me a very small nod.

Then he sat down and took out his handkerchief.

Nathaniel turned to me.

"Claire Danner," the officiant said, in an unsteady voice. "Do you take this man..."

"I do."

"Nathaniel Aldridge, do you take..."

"I do."

"By the power vested in me by..." The officiant paused. "By the family and the church, I pronounce you husband and wife."

Nathaniel looked down at me.

For a heartbeat he waited.

I rose on my toes and kissed him myself.

His mouth was warm and certain.

His hand came up under my jaw, and he kissed me back with a restraint that made my knees go loose.

It lasted longer than a church should allow.

When he lifted his head, the guests had started to talk, a rising roar of it.

"Mrs. Aldridge," Nathaniel murmured against my hair.

Somebody in the pews had begun, absurdly, to clap.

Then a woman's voice cut across the noise.

"Wait."

Tiffany Lund stood in the second pew, with one hand on her stomach and the other gripping the wood.

She was pale and shaking.

Every head turned to look at her.

"I need to say something," she said. "Before this goes any further."

Preston started toward her, saying her name.

She spoke over him, in a clear, high voice.

"I'm eleven weeks pregnant," Tiffany said. "And the baby is Preston's."

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