He Cheated on Our Wedding Night, I Canceled His Fortune novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Key

At dawn Ray begs her to go back. Boone shows the hallway clip of Constance letting Brooke into the suite.

Boone drove me across the yard in the ranch truck, because I was not walking it in a wedding dress and satin shoes.

The headlights lit the barn, the corrals and the white tent still standing in the east field.

Behind us the lodge was lit up in every window.

"Your father's up," Boone said. "Kitchen light's on."

"Did you call him?"

"I called him from the lodge, after I went through the hall camera."

I turned in the seat.

"You went through it?"

"After the cake." He kept his eyes on the road. "The one you had put in for the gift table."

I had forgotten that camera existed.

I had asked for it because a guest at my cousin's wedding once walked out with an envelope full of cash.

Boone parked at the back door of the ranch house and cut the engine.

He took his phone out and held it between us.

"Watch it before you go in. Then you don't have to take my word."

The clip was grainy and silent.

At 9:12 p.m. the hallway outside the suite was empty.

Then Constance Kell walked into frame in her grey suit.

She stopped at the hook by the stairs and took down the brass key to the bridal suite.

I had told her which hook it was on.

She looked both ways.

Brooke came up behind her, carrying a garment bag.

Constance unlocked the door, handed Brooke the key and went back down the stairs.

Brooke went inside.

The door closed behind her.

I watched it twice.

My hands were steady, and I noticed that, and I did not like it.

"Where's the next clip?" I said.

"Austin goes up at ten," Boone said. "Brooke never comes out."

"The reception ended at eleven."

"Yes, ma'am."

"So I stood up in front of two hundred people and danced with him at ten-thirty."

"You danced with him at ten-thirty and again at a quarter to eleven," Boone said. "He came down for the dances. Then he went right back up."

I gave him the phone.

My throat hurt, and I swallowed twice.

"You could have told me at the dance."

He looked at the dashboard.

"I wasn't sure what I'd say."

I let that go, because the kitchen light was on, and my father was behind it.

Dad sat at the table in his good suit with the tie pulled loose.

He had a cup of coffee going cold in front of him and his bad leg stretched out on a chair.

He looked up when I came in with Boone behind me.

"Annie," he said. "Honey. Sit."

"I don't want to sit."

"Mr. Kell phoned me from the lodge. He said you tore the letter."

"I did."

"I know." His voice cracked on it.

I stood there in the gown with half the hem soaked from the grass.

"Dad, she was in his robe. In my bathroom."

"I know that too."

"Then you know what he is."

My father rubbed his face with both hands.

"Was Brooke hurt?" he said.

I stared at him.

"Hurt? She was in my husband's bathrobe, Dad."

He looked down at the table.

I remember that he looked at the table and not at me.

"Go back, Annie," he said. "Not tonight. Tomorrow. Say you were overwrought. We'll book Monday again for Tuesday."

I did not move.

"You want me to marry him."

"I want you to give the Kells a week. The letter's gone, and the bank wants its signature on the Kell loan by month's end, and I can't make that note on Friday."

"You signed a guarantee for four million dollars on a man you never asked about."

"I signed it for you."

"You signed it for a ranch that needed the Kells' money."

He did not answer.

Boone stood by the door with his hat in his hand and his face closed.

"Sit down, honey," my father said again.

"No," I said.

"I'm not giving that man a week, and I'm not giving him a Tuesday."

"Annie."

"Constance took the key off the hook, Dad. She walked Brooke upstairs herself."

My father's head came up.

He looked at me, then at Boone.

"What did you say?"

"It's on the camera," Boone said quietly. "I watched it twice."

My father's face went grey.

"Constance," he said. "Constance gave her the key."

He said it slowly, and he did not sound surprised.

"Dad," I said. "What do you know?"

"Nothing." He pushed back from the table and stood up too fast.

His bad knee caught, and Boone moved to take his elbow.

My father shook him off.

"I'm going to bed," he said. "We'll talk when we're all rested."

He went out of the kitchen and up the back stairs.

I stood looking at the empty doorway.

Boone put his phone on the table in front of me.

"I'm going to say something," he said, "and you won't like it."

"Say it."

"Brooke got into that suite at 9:14."

He held my eyes.

"She was in your suite an hour and a half before the reception ended. Constance put her there."

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