Downgrade My Ride? I'll Upgrade My Groom! novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Other Bride

We came early.

At half past twelve the ballroom of the Kenward Grand was all pink roses and gold chairs and nobody in them.

Sydney was at a side table near the service doors in her white chef's coat, setting the last tier on a cake.

Four tiers. Pale pink sugar roses climbing up one side.

At the top, under a glass dome, stood a single little sugar bride in a white satin gown.

Just the one.

"Syd," I said. "Where's the groom?"

Sydney didn't look up from the roses.

"I asked her that on the phone," she said. "She said, 'He doesn't go on it.' So I didn't put him on it." She stepped back and wiped her hands. "Babe, I've made two hundred wedding cakes. I've never had a bride say that."

Clay looked at the little bride for a long moment.

"Huh," he said.

At one forty, I was standing on the front steps of the Grand when a black SUV pulled up to the curb.

It was the app kind.

The driver didn't get out.

The back door opened, and Bailey climbed out by herself with her train bundled in both arms.

A doorman ran down the steps too late to help.

She stood on the sidewalk in her white satin and looked up at me.

"You came," she said.

"You said please."

"I wanted one person to see me get out of it." She looked back at the SUV as it drove away. "It smells like pine air freshener."

"And old coffee."

"And old coffee."

She came up the steps.

At the top she stopped beside me.

"Is the recording still on your phone?"

"Yes."

"Keep it close," she said.

Then she went inside to find our father.

By two o'clock there were three hundred people in the ballroom.

Half of them had been in this room three Saturdays ago.

The girl from social was in the fourth row with her phone up.

This time I didn't mind.

Clay and I sat on the left, second row.

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