He Made Her His Bride to Punish Me for Jealousy novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Wrong Bride
On her wedding day Kerry films her fiancé putting her ring on her best friend's finger in front of two hundred guests, walks out with her mother and sends the proof to both families, and Dawson's grandmother texts back: bring your mother to my house now.
Dawson slid my engagement ring onto Margo's finger in front of two hundred guests.
I watched it from the back doorway of the church, in my wedding dress, holding my phone up in front of me.
The phone was filming.
I had started the video for my mother, who was three weeks out of heart surgery and sitting in the front pew in her wheelchair.
She couldn't turn around to see me come in, so I had promised her the whole thing on tape.
The night before, Dawson had texted me one line.
Trust me tomorrow. Whatever happens, tomorrow night you're my wife.
I had read it six times and gone to bed smiling.
Now the organist stopped in the middle of a note.
Dawson took the microphone from the officiant and tapped it twice.
"Kerry, I know you're back there," he said. "Last Tuesday you went through my phone while I was in the shower."
A few guests laughed, because they thought it was a bit.
"Under our plan, one doubt costs one day. Today is Margo's day."
Margo, my best friend since we were nine, stood beside him in a cream suit, and her smile was warm and a little apologetic.
She held up her left hand so the diamond caught the window light.
It was my diamond.
Dawson had taken it from my jewelry box that morning and told me it was going to the jeweler for a last cleaning.
Three months earlier I had asked him about a photo of the two of them in Charleston, and he had called it the Trust Plan.
Every time I doubted Margo, she got one day of something that was mine.
The first day was our anniversary dinner in September, and I ate cereal at home.
The second was the morning of my mother's surgery, when he sat in the cafeteria with Margo while I waited alone upstairs.
I had told myself there was one more day, and then it would be over.
I did not know the last day was this one.
"Tomorrow is yours," Dawson said into the microphone. "Same church, same dress, noon. I promise."
Margo set a leather folder on the lectern and opened it for the officiant.
She had carried that folder since the rehearsal and wouldn't let anyone else touch it.
"The certificate for the photos," she said. "The real one is tomorrow."
Dawson signed where she pointed, laughing, without reading it.
Margo signed under him and looked straight down the aisle at me.
"It's just one afternoon, Nelly," she called. "Don't make a scene. Your mother's watching."
In the front pew, my mother had finally gotten the wheelchair turned around.
Her face was grey.
I felt all two hundred heads turn toward the doorway.
Dawson saw me then and held out his hand.
"Kerry, come on. It's a lesson. You pass if you stand there and smile."
I didn't smile.
I lowered the phone, stopped the recording and walked up the aisle in my wedding dress.
I did not go to him.
I went to my mother, took the handles of her chair and turned her toward the side door.
"Take me home, honey," my mother said.
"I'm taking you home, Mom."
Behind me, Dawson's voice cracked through the speakers. "Kerry. If you walk out, the plan is over and so are we."
I looked back once.
"Then it's over," I said.
Nobody in the church moved.
Margo took one step down from the altar. "Call me when you're calm," she said gently, and I kept pushing the chair.
In the parking lot, I got my mother into the car and folded her chair into the trunk with my veil still caught on the handle.
Then I sat behind the wheel and opened the Thornbury family group chat that Dawson's grandmother had made for wedding logistics.
I attached the video.
Underneath it I attached the email Dawson had sent me in August, titled Trust Plan v3, with Margo copied on every line.
Then I sent both to Margo's mother, and to the wedding guest chat with eighty-one people in it.
My hands were steady the whole time, which surprised me.
I pressed send and started the engine.
Before we reached the end of the block, my phone lit up on the dashboard.
It was Dawson's grandmother, Constance Thornbury.
Bring your mother to my house. Now.
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