My Marriage Was Their Bet novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Toast

The nine women took their places in the front row and sat down in their red gowns.

Not one of them looked at Bancroft.

They looked at me.

"Daphne," Bancroft said, softly, into the microphone he no longer owned. "You're confused. Let me get you some water."

"I'm not confused."

I reached out and took the silver frame out of his hand.

He let me, because three hundred people were watching, and he did not yet know how to stop me.

I held it to the light.

"This is the napkin my husband wanted to read to you," I said. "I'll read it myself."

My voice carried to the back of the room.

"It says: Daphne stays ten years. MacKinnon's half against mine."

A murmur went through the ballroom.

"Nine men signed it as witnesses. Three of them are partners in this firm. Two are sitting at table four."

I turned to the front row.

"Ten years ago, on the night I was married, my husband bet his friends that I would never leave."

"He bet them I was too loyal. He bet them he could do anything to me and I would stay."

"That's enough," Bancroft said.

I put my hand out toward the red gowns.

"These women. Nine of them. Bancroft thought he had invited an audience."

"He didn't. He invited witnesses."

"And on the tenth anniversary came the tenth, who was made to wear my wedding dress."

"She's here too," I said. "Kitty. Stand up."

At the side of the room, in a borrowed suit, Kitty stood.

She was crying and grinning.

Bancroft laughed, high and bright, at the lectern.

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