After His Betrayal, I Became the Woman He Couldn't Afford novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Surprise
At her engagement party, Brooks plays an edited video that makes Sylvie look like a gold digger. She takes off the ring, and a stranger from table nine hands her a card.
My engagement party was an hour old when Brooks tapped a fork against his glass and said he had a surprise.
Two hundred guests turned toward him in the ballroom of the Kingsbury Harbor Hotel.
My father stood by the bar in the suit he had bought for tonight, smiling at me.
Two years ago a business partner had emptied my father's company accounts, and Dad had spent every night since rebuilding it.
Tonight was the first time in two years he looked rested.
Brooks's oldest friend stood by the stage with a laptop bag on her shoulder and gave me a thumbs up.
She had offered to run the slideshow.
"This is for Sylvie," Brooks said. "So everyone knows how real this is."
I smiled at him.
I had no reason not to.
The big screen behind the band lit up, and my own face filled it.
My voice came out of the speakers, loud and sharp.
"Your side of the schedule is blank, Brooks. Mine lists every dollar my father has left."
I knew that night.
We had fought about the prenup in his kitchen in September, and I never knew he was recording.
On the screen, my hands cut through the air and my mouth twisted.
Slow, ugly music played underneath, and white letters crawled across the bottom: FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Every word Brooks had said that night was gone.
So was the part where I asked him, calmly, to just let my lawyer read it.
So was his answer: "Mine is being provided."
The picture froze on my face, mid-shout.
Then his voice played over it, cold and slow.
"You don't get to question me, Sylvie."
"Remember what you were before I picked you up."
"Take me away, and what do you have left?"
The ballroom went quiet.
Then the whispering started, all around me.
"Her father's company was dead last year," a woman said near the cake.
A man laughed into his drink.
My father had stopped smiling.
I looked for Brooks.
He stood in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets, calm, watching me take it.
Sierra Tremaine reached me first, with two glasses of wine.
"Hey," she said, and put one in my hand. "Don't take it personally."
"He just wanted everyone to see that you'd never leave him for the money. It's sweet, in a very Brooks way."
She squeezed my fingers.
"Go breathe upstairs. I'll cover for you."
I thanked her.
Her laptop bag was still on her shoulder, though the slideshow had been loaded onto the hotel system that afternoon.
I did not think about that until later.
I went up the back stairs to the family office on the mezzanine, shut the door, and called Brooks.
He answered from the ballroom, over the noise of guests leaving.
"It was a loyalty test," he said, before I had spoken. "You kept fighting me on the prenup. I had to know if you loved me or the Kingsbury name."
"You recorded me in secret, and then you showed it to two hundred people."
"Don't be dramatic." His voice had gone short. "Sierra cut it down. She wanted to liven things up."
My phone buzzed against my ear.
Sierra had just posted a story.
The photo showed her and Brooks side by side at the desk in this very room, her laptop open between them.
Brooks was turned toward her, smiling.
On the laptop screen sat an editing window, and the project name at the top read: Nell_final_v6.
Six versions.
It had not been a joke someone thought up tonight.
Her caption said: A little loyalty test! Real love isn't scared of anything. Brooks is always right.
He had known the whole time.
My hands went cold, and the shaking stopped.
"The wedding is on hold," I said.
The line went silent.
"Say that again."
"I'm done, Brooks. I'm not marrying you."
I heard a woman's voice come close to his phone, quick and soft.
"She's just upset. Her family only just got back on their feet, and she knows it. She wants you to chase her. Give her till morning, she'll be crying for a hug."
Brooks let out a short breath.
He sounded relaxed again.
"Sylvie, you don't make jokes like that. It's childish."
"I'll give you the night to cool down."
He hung up.
I stood in the office, looking at the desk where they had made me into someone else.
So I took off the ring.
I set it on the blotter next to the stapler and walked out.
On the stairs my phone buzzed again.
It was my father.
Brooks's father just pulled me aside. He says if tonight falls apart, the guarantee on our credit line goes with it. Sylvie, what did you do?
I typed back with my thumbs shaking: Nothing wrong. Meet me at the car.
Then I crossed the lobby with my chin up, past guests who stared and phones that were already raised.
At the valet stand a man in a charcoal suit stepped out of the dark.
I had seen him at table nine, alone, with his hands in his lap.
He had been the only person in the room who did not clap when the video ended.
"Ms. Tarrant," he said. "Rafe Stanton."
He held out a card.
"Tomorrow a Kingsbury lawyer will put a paper in front of you. Don't sign it."
"Call me first."
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