The Wife He Never Knew I Became novel · Chapter 16 of 32
Chapter 16: Mrs. Rutherford
Nobody in the ballroom moved.
A waiter at the foot of the platform stood frozen with two bowls of soup.
Margaret looked at Holden.
Then she looked at me, sitting in the chair she'd had a swan folded for.
Her lips parted, and nothing came out.
At the end of the head table, the board member who'd said "Margaret, for God's sake" on Monday put his glass down very slowly.
"His adviser," he said to nobody. "Christ. His adviser."
Vanessa's phone was still up, still filming.
Her hand had started to shake.
"That's not possible," she said. "He'd have said. Somebody would have known."
"Two people knew," Holden said. "Now there are two hundred."
Margaret recovered first. She always did.
She lifted her chin and smiled at me with her whole face, the way she had on my first wedding day.
"My dear," she said. "Why on earth didn't you tell me?"
The room was so quiet I could hear the kitchen doors swinging at the back.
"All these years," Margaret said, and put her hand on her heart again. "We were family once. We can be family again. Whatever misunderstandings there were, surely tonight..."
She reached out to touch my shoulder.
I lifted my left hand off the tablecloth, and she stopped.
The bangle slid down my wrist into the light.
"You gave me my mother's bracelet," I said.
I said it clearly, so the tables below could hear.
Margaret's hand stayed in the air.
"Where are the rest of her things, Mrs. Zhang?" I said. "Her letters?"
Margaret's eyes flicked to the ballroom, to all the faces.
"I have no idea what you mean," she said.
"You do."
The board member's wife put her fingers over her mouth.
"Then you sent it to Mrs. Rutherford to buy her," I said. "You spelled my name wrong in the letter."
Keep reading free with an account. Start The Wife He Never Knew I Became from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →
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