My Groom Chose His Mistress, Not Knowing I Was the CEO novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Unsigned

At city hall Iris refuses to sign in front of the whole Brantley family and walks into the Dunhill tower.

On Monday at ten, the whole Brantley family waited for me on the steps of city hall.

Carter stood in front in a navy suit.

Margaret stood beside him with her hands folded over her purse, and Lydia hung on his arm in a cream dress and a pair of sunglasses.

Behind them were two photographers and a lawyer with a leather folder.

Carter had called the press.

I understood that the moment I saw the cameras.

He wanted a picture of the sulking bride coming back to him on the steps, with his family smiling at her.

I walked up in the gray blazer I wear to parent-teacher night.

Jack stayed two steps behind me, carrying my bag.

"There she is," Margaret said warmly, and kissed the air beside my cheek. "We were all so worried."

"I'm sure."

"Lydia wants to apologize."

Lydia took her sunglasses off.

Her eyes were red and puffy, and she hadn't slept either.

"I'm so sorry, Iris," she said. "I shouldn't have come that night. My panic attacks make me do stupid things."

"Do they make you wear his shirt?"

Margaret's smile didn't move.

"Let's not do this on the steps, dear."

"Then where?"

The lawyer opened his folder.

"Miss Bannon, the license only needs your signature. We have a pen."

He held out a black pen.

Everyone looked at me.

Two photographers raised their cameras, and a small crowd of people on their lunch break had stopped on the sidewalk to watch.

I took the pen.

Carter exhaled and put a hand on my back.

I took the license out of the folder and read the line where my name was supposed to go.

Iris Dunhill Bannon.

He had asked me twice to spell it.

I held the paper out to the lawyer, and then I clicked the pen shut and put it in his breast pocket.

"No," I said.

Carter's hand dropped.

"Iris."

"I'm not signing."

I said it loud enough for the cameras.

"Two nights ago, my husband carried me to our bed and then walked another woman into the guest room. I listened to it until one in the morning. I'm not signing a license for that."

The crowd went silent.

A woman on the sidewalk said, "Oh my God," and held up her phone.

Lydia's face went white.

"That's not what happened," she said. "I was having a panic attack. Carter was only helping me."

"For an hour?"

"He's the only one who can calm me down."

"Then marry him," I said. "I mean it. You can have the license too."

Carter caught my elbow.

His fingers pressed hard, and the smile had gone completely.

"You are embarrassing me in front of cameras."

"You called the cameras."

"Let go of her," Jack said.

He hadn't raised his voice, and he hadn't moved, but he was suddenly right beside me.

Carter looked at him.

"Who is this?"

"My driver," I said.

Jack didn't flinch.

Carter let go of my elbow and wiped his palm on his trouser leg.

"You think you can walk away from this?" he said very softly, so the cameras couldn't pick it up. "You're a teacher, Iris. What are you going to do, put me on a poster?"

Margaret stepped between us.

She put one hand on Carter's chest and turned to me with the same warm face she had worn on our wedding day.

"Miss Bannon is upset," she said to the crowd. "A bride has a right to her nerves. Carter, take Lydia to the car."

Then she lowered her voice for me alone.

"Two o'clock this afternoon is a very important meeting for my family. Nothing that happened this weekend is more important than that. I would hate for anyone to do something she couldn't undo."

She smiled.

"Be good, Miss Bannon."

"Or what?"

"Or nothing at all, dear. I just like the people I'm fond of to be sensible."

She patted my arm and walked down the steps to her car.

The photographers followed her with their lenses and then swung back to me.

I didn't answer a single question.

I walked down to the curb.

Jack opened the back door of the black car I had told him to bring, and I got in.

"Driver," he said, flatly, from the front seat.

"You were standing very close for a driver."

"Where to, ma'am?"

"Dunhill Tower. Forty-fourth floor."

He pulled out into traffic.

I took a small card from the inside pocket of my blazer, white with a silver edge and nothing printed on it but a number.

I had carried it for two years and used it twice.

When we reached the tower, I walked straight through the lobby, past the guards, and up to the private elevator that no one had ever seen me use.

I held the card against the black glass panel.

The doors opened.

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