Chapter 17: The Gala

The Ashcroft ball was held in a ballroom with four chandeliers and four hundred guests.

I came through the doors in a wheelchair, and the nurse pushed me to the edge of the red carpet.

"Here," I said.

She stopped.

I put both hands on the arms of the chair, and Stuart took my elbow.

"Slowly," he said.

"I know."

I stood.

The grey silk fell over my belly, and I felt every eye in the room find it.

The orchestra was still playing the second bar of a waltz.

A woman near the door put her glass down on a tray.

A man laughed once, and stopped.

Then the music faltered, bar by bar, until the violins played to an empty floor.

Four hundred people looked at the woman who was supposed to have invented her own pregnancy.

I walked down the carpet.

I did it one step at a time with my chin up and my hand on Stuart's arm.

Nobody spoke.

A woman in green stood beside a pillar, and I knew her.

She had sat on my left at the dinner and asked me whether I came with the catering company.

Her mouth had come open.

"Good evening," I said to her. "I'm Stuart's wife."

She turned the color of her dress.

"Mrs. Ashcroft, I..."

"Please enjoy the music."

I walked on.

The whispers started behind me and spread across the floor.

*That's her.*

*She's real. Look at her.*

*She faked it. She jumped.*

A man in a tuxedo lifted his phone and filmed me, openly, over a champagne flute.

He was the guest who had sat three seats from Celia at the dinner.

He had posted the cut video.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Billionaire Regretted Losing His Invisible Wife from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.