Four Hundred Guests Watched Him Cheat, So I Took Everything He Had novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Live
Margo catches Blair and Porter in her dressing room while four hundred guests watch on the ballroom screen. She gives a speech, walks out, and gets two texts: her mother's and her stepfather's.
At 2:40 on my wedding day, I stood in the hall outside my dressing room and heard my stepsister gasp my fiancé's name.
Four hundred guests were seated in the ballroom downstairs.
My mother was watching on a tablet in her hospital bed, because I had rented a camera so she could.
At 2:31 she had texted me: Go back up and get your veil. Now.
I had left it on the vanity.
I pushed the door open.
Blair sat on the vanity with her red maid-of-honor dress shoved up around her hips.
Porter had both hands in her hair.
On the tripod by the window, the camera's red light blinked at the three of us.
I had been with this man for six years.
He had never once touched me like that.
"Margo," Porter said.
He jumped back and straightened his tie.
"It's not what it looks like."
"Say it again," I said, very quietly. "Louder. Say it to the camera."
Blair did not flinch.
She slid off the vanity, smoothed her skirt, and smiled at me the way she had since we were both twelve and her father married my mother.
"Don't be dramatic," she said. "He was never going to stay yours."
Under our feet, four hundred phones began to buzz at once.
I could hear it through the floor, a hum that grew and grew.
"The ballroom screen," I said.
Porter's face went white. "What?"
"The camera. My mother wanted the guests to watch the bride get ready. So at 2:30 I had it put on the twelve-foot screen."
My voice was calm, and that frightened me more than shouting would have.
"It has been running since noon, for my mother. For the last ten minutes, it has been running for everyone."
Porter looked at the red light.
That was when his face fell apart.
Not when I caught him. When four hundred people did.
I picked up the veil from the floor by the vanity leg.
I did not put it on.
I walked out of the room and down the grand curving staircase in twelve pounds of ivory silk, the dress my mother had sold her wedding ring to buy.
The string quartet stopped in the middle of a bar as I came down.
The wedding planner held my bouquet out in front of her with both hands and did not know where to put it.
Every face in the ballroom was turned toward the screen, and then toward me.
My stepfather, Harlan, stood at the foot of the stairs in his gray suit.
He looked at his daughter's smeared lipstick as she came down behind me.
Then he looked at me.
"Margo," he said, and took off his jacket to put around my shoulders. "Sweetheart, let's not make a scene. Let me handle the room."
Four hundred people had just watched the scene.
I let the jacket slide off my arm, because I had something to say first.
I stepped around him and climbed onto the small riser where I was supposed to say my vows.
I took the microphone off its stand.
"Thank you all for coming," I said.
The room was so quiet I could hear the screen's fan.
"Dinner is paid for. Please eat. The salmon is excellent. I chose it myself, along with everything else, because my groom was busy."
A man near the front laughed in shock, and stopped.
Someone was crying near the back. I thought it was my aunt.
"Every gift will be returned. The band is paid through midnight, so please dance if you can."
I looked at the screen, where my own face looked back at me, ten feet wide.
"The honeymoon cannot be refunded. Porter and Blair, please use it. I would suggest two rooms."
I put the microphone down on the stool.
Then I walked off the riser to the tech table at the side of the stage.
Hoyt Treadway stood behind it with one hand over the switcher, waiting.
My mother had suggested him three weeks ago, and he had been calm and exact ever since.
He had asked me twice whether I really wanted the dressing room on the big screen.
I had said yes both times, because my mother had asked me to.
"Do you want me to cut it?" he said, low.
Behind him the screen still showed the empty dressing room and the vanity.
"No," I said. "Leave it running. My mother is still watching."
He looked at me for one second, then nodded and took his hand off the switcher.
Porter came through the side door and grabbed my arm.
"Margo, please, let me explain."
I looked at his hand until he let go.
Then I walked out through the lobby in my dress, past the front desk, past the doorman, into the cold.
My phone buzzed twice before I reached the curb.
The first message was from my mother.
Baby, come to me. Don't go home. Take the memory card out of that camera before you leave.
The second was from Harlan.
Come back in and apologize to our guests, or your mother's hospital room becomes mine to cancel.
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