My Groom Chose Her Again, So I Married My Billionaire Boss novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Nobody Leaves

Trevor storms the reception, Joanna answers him in front of everyone, and Desmond says she has no idea what she is.

Nobody in the ballroom moved, and Trevor walked down the aisle toward us anyway.

Whitney trailed behind him in a cream dress, with her mascara running and one hand on his sleeve.

"Joanna," Trevor said. "What did you just do?"

"I got married."

"To him? To your old boss?" He laughed, loud enough for the back rows. "This isn't a wedding. This is a tantrum."

"You walked out of ours."

"For ten minutes!"

"For forty," Bea said from behind me. "I timed it. I have the guests as witnesses."

Two hundred people were pretending not to listen, and every one of them was listening.

Whitney stepped forward and pressed her fingers to her lips.

"Joanna, I'm so sorry," she said. "I never wanted to ruin your day. I just couldn't be alone out there."

She looked small and frightened, and her voice sounded sincere.

I almost felt sorry for her.

Then I remembered the wine, spilled exactly down the front of my dress.

"Whitney," I said. "You brought a full glass into a room where I was putting on a white dress."

"It was an accident."

"It always is."

Her eyes filled again, and Trevor put his arm around her.

"That's enough," he said to me. "She's grieving, Jo. You're making a scene in front of everyone."

"You made the scene. I just stayed in it."

Elias stepped up beside me and said nothing at all.

He didn't have to.

Trevor looked at the hand on my back, and then at the ring on my finger.

It was a plain gold band his lawyer had bought at a jeweler on the way over.

"You've been planning this," Trevor said slowly.

"I called him this afternoon," I said. "From a ballroom you left me in."

"I don't believe you."

"You don't have to. Two hundred people were here for the whole thing."

Behind him, an older man in a gray suit, one of Trevor's uncles, put his drink down and walked out.

A woman in the third row picked up her purse and followed.

Trevor saw it too.

His face changed from angry to scared.

"Dad," he said, turning. "Dad, tell her this is invalid."

Desmond Langston had crossed the aisle without a sound.

He was fifty-eight, silver at the temples, with the stillest face in the room.

He looked at the license, then at me, and then at Elias.

"A same-day license," he said. "Signed by a judge I had to dinner twice. Mr. Stannard, you do enjoy theater."

"I enjoy paperwork," Elias said. "Mine are always filed."

"This marriage won't survive the week."

"Then it will be the shortest week of your life, Desmond."

The two of them stared at each other without blinking.

I had known Elias three years, and I had never seen him look at anyone like this.

It wasn't anger.

It was something old and patient, and it frightened me more than anger would have.

His lawyer leaned in and passed Elias a phone.

On the screen was a stamped record from the county clerk with both our names and today's date.

"Filed at 3:51," the lawyer said. "Recorded. Valid."

Trevor read it over his father's shoulder, and the blood left his face.

"You can't do this," he said to me. "We were going to be married."

"You were going to be married. I was going to be waiting."

I took off the engagement ring, which I had worn on my other hand all afternoon, because I had not been able to bring myself to take it off.

I dropped it into his open palm.

It made a small sound against his watch.

"Keep it," I said. "Give it to Whitney. She's the one you keep running to."

Whitney's mouth went tight for half a second.

Then she covered it with her hands, and she began to cry again.

Bea nudged my elbow.

"Did you see her face?" she whispered. "When Trevor looked away, she was smiling."

I had seen it.

I just hadn't wanted to see it.

Elias took my hand and turned me gently away from them.

"Come," he said. "The reception is ours now."

"We're having the reception?"

"Your guests paid for the cake. I intend to eat it."

I laughed before I could stop myself, and it startled everyone, including me.

The quartet, who had been told nothing, started the first song again from the top.

Elias led me onto the floor.

His hand sat flat and warm at my waist, and he did not hold me any tighter than the music asked.

Over his shoulder I watched Desmond take Trevor and Whitney aside near the doors.

Desmond said something short to his son.

Then he walked straight across the empty dance floor and stopped beside me.

He didn't speak to Elias.

He spoke to me, quietly, so the music covered it.

"You married him without knowing what you are, Mrs. Stannard," he said. "I wonder if he's told you yet."

"Told me what?"

Elias's hand went still on my back.

"Desmond," he said.

"Oh," Desmond said, and smiled for the first time all day. "He hasn't."

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