Downgrade My Ride? I'll Upgrade My Groom! novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: My Mother's Dress

I went alone, the way he asked.

Clay drove me as far as his grandmother's gate and parked where he could see my father's front door.

"Ten minutes," he said. "Then I come over the hedge."

"You're thirty years old."

"I came over that hedge at thirty last Christmas to bring you a pie."

"You fell in the hydrangeas."

"And I'd do it again."

My father's house was full of strangers.

A wedding planner with a headset. Two men carrying folding chairs. A florist's assistant with buckets of pale pink roses.

Pink. Bailey's color.

My father's driver was in the front hall, carrying a garment bag up the stairs.

He nodded to me the way he always had, since I was in pigtails.

"Miss Liv."

"Hi."

He didn't quite meet my eyes.

My father was in the living room, standing by the fireplace.

Above the mantel, where my mother's portrait had hung for my whole life, there was a pale rectangle on the wallpaper.

The portrait was leaning against the wall by the door, face in.

"What did you do with Mom?"

"It's being cleaned," he said. "For the wedding. Sit down, Olivia."

I didn't sit.

Through the double doors to the sunroom, I could see a dress form by the windows.

On it was my mother's gown.

Ivory silk, the sleeves, the tiny covered buttons down the back.

A seamstress was kneeling at the hem with pins in her mouth.

Bailey was standing beside it in her slip, holding her arms out while someone measured her waist.

She saw me and smiled.

"Liv! You came."

My whole body went cold, then hot.

"You're altering my mother's dress for her."

"The dress needs to be worn," my father said. "It's been sitting in a closet for thirty years."

"It was going to be worn. By me. On Saturday."

"And you didn't show up."

"Because a van hit my door."

"Then that is a tragedy," he said evenly, "and not a reason to waste a dress."

He took off his glasses and polished them.

"I'll be plain. Niles is willing to forget your behavior. He'd still take you back. But since you insist on this circus with the Eastman boy, here is what I want."

He put his glasses on.

"Annul it. And stand up with Bailey as her maid of honor. In front of everyone. Show this city the Atwoods don't air their linen in hotel ballrooms."

I stared at him.

I waited for him to laugh.

He didn't.

"You want me to hold her flowers," I said.

"I want you to be gracious for once."

"Why do you care what she has?"

Something moved in his face, quick, and was gone.

"She's been loyal to this family," he said.

"She's been loyal to Niles."

"Same thing, now."

Bailey had come to the sunroom doors in her slip.

"I'd love it, Liv," she said. "Really. You could do my hair. You know how Mom's dress is supposed to sit."

"My mom," I said.

She tilted her head.

"Of course. That's what I said."

I walked past her into the sunroom.

The seamstress looked up at me with pins in her mouth.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "You do beautiful work. Please take the pins out."

She looked at my father.

"Leave them," he said.

I started unpinning the hem myself.

My hands were shaking, and I stuck my thumb, and I didn't stop.

The seamstress took the pins out of her own mouth.

Then she knelt down beside me and helped.

"Olivia," my father said. "Put that down."

"She left it to me," I said. "It's in her will. Her dress, her pearls and her portrait. You read it at the lawyer's table and cried."

← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend