He Cheated on Our Wedding Night, I Canceled His Fortune novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Bridal Suite
Annie finds Brooke in her groom's robe, cancels the marriage on her phone and tears up her father's guarantee. Mr. Kell says the note comes due Friday.
On my wedding night I found my husband with his childhood sweetheart.
I did not ask him for a divorce.
We were not legally married yet, and the county clerk had us booked for Monday at nine.
I cancelled the appointment on my phone, standing in the hall of my father's lodge in my wedding dress.
The screen said: Your appointment has been cancelled.
Through the guest room door I could hear her crying.
Austin was in there with her, and I could not hear what he said.
He had no idea what my thumb had just done to his family.
Ten minutes earlier, the last guests had gone out to their trucks.
I walked back to the bridal suite in my gown with two champagne flutes, one for me and one for Austin.
This was my family's ranch, and I had set that room myself.
The guests' cards sat in a stack on the nightstand.
Austin's tuxedo jacket hung over the chair, and I thought he was waiting for me.
Then the bathroom door opened, and Brooke Ansley walked out.
Her hair was wet.
Her feet were bare.
She was wearing Austin's black bathrobe, the one with his initials on the pocket.
I had known Brooke since the engagement party.
She was the girl from the Kell kitchen, the one Austin called his oldest friend.
My father had put her at the family table at the reception.
He said she had nobody up here, and I had not argued.
She looked at me for one second.
She did not stop, and she did not cover herself.
She crossed the room, sat down on the arm of Austin's chair and slid her hand through his.
"You were gone all night," she said to him.
"I couldn't find you, and my anxiety got so bad I couldn't breathe."
"You never used to leave me alone like that."
She said it to him, and she said it in front of me.
Austin sat there in his shirtsleeves with her hand in his.
His face went dark, and he looked at me.
"Annie, don't," he said. "She had a panic attack. I sat with her."
"In your bathrobe."
"She was shaking. She needed to get warm."
"In my bathroom."
"It's not what it looks like."
Brooke put her head on his shoulder.
She was watching me while she did it.
I set the champagne flutes down on the dresser, side by side.
I did not throw them.
I walked out of the room.
Behind me Brooke started to sob, and Austin walked her into the guest room next door.
He did not follow me.
That was when I took out my phone.
I had the county's booking page saved from the week before.
It took four taps.
Now I stood in the hall, with the cancellation on my screen and Brooke's sobbing coming through the door.
The door opened.
Austin came out and shut it behind him.
"Annie, come on. You're upset."
"Monday is cancelled," I said.
He laughed.
"Cancelled what?"
"The registration. We aren't married, Austin. We had a party."
His face changed.
He reached for me, and his fingers closed around my wrist.
"You're not doing this tonight. My mother is downstairs."
"Let go of her wrist."
The voice came from the top of the stairs.
Boone Overstreet stood there with his hat in one hand.
He had run my father's cattle for eleven years, and I had never once heard him raise his voice.
He did not raise it now.
Austin let go.
I walked down the stairs past Boone, and he turned and came down behind me.
The great room still had the Kells in it.
Constance sat by the fire in her grey suit with her shoes off.
Earlier that day she had pinned my veil straight and told me I was a lovely bride.
During the reception she had asked me which hook the suite key hung on, because Austin wanted his tux bag put away.
I had told her.
Mr. Kell stood at the bar with a glass in his hand.
"Annie, honey," Constance said. "What is it?"
I opened my bag.
My father had put a sealed envelope in my hands at the altar rail, and I had not let go of it all day.
Inside was his signed guarantee for the Kell family's bank loan, four point two million dollars, backed by Sorley land.
It started the day our marriage was recorded.
I took the letter out and held it up so they could all see my father's signature.
"Your son's in the guest room with Brooke," I said. "She's wearing his robe."
Constance's face did not move.
Mr. Kell put down his glass.
I tore the letter in half.
Then in half again.
I let the pieces fall on the rug in front of them.
"There's no marriage," I said. "So there's no guarantee."
Mr. Kell stared at the paper on the floor.
He looked at his wife.
Then he looked at me, and his voice was very quiet.
"Then Ray's note comes due," he said. "Nine hundred thousand dollars, Annie. By Friday."
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