He Made Her His Wife for Seven Days. I Made Him My Ex. novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Mrs. Holloway for the Week
At the Holloway Grand's anniversary dinner Harrison gives Gretchen Sylvie's ring and name for seven days; Sylvie walks out with her suitcase and a stranger pays her cab.
The place card at the head table said Mrs. Harrison Holloway.
My own card was at table fourteen, beside the kitchen doors.
I stood in the ballroom of the Holloway Grand with my hand on the back of a gold chair, and I read it twice.
Three hundred guests were taking their seats under the chandeliers for the hotel's fortieth anniversary.
My husband had texted me at noon.
"Cancel Maine, big week. Don't be jealous, it's for a dying man. You're the only one I love."
I had cancelled nothing.
My suitcase was in the coat check, packed since Sunday, because I wanted that trip more than I had let him see.
The card was written in looped silver ink.
I knew that ink.
Harrison's mother used it on her own invitations.
"There you are, darling." Harrison's mother came up beside me in camel cashmere and kissed my cheek. "Harrison asked me to handle the cards. I hope you don't mind the seating."
"What is Mrs. Harrison Holloway doing at the head table?"
"Oh, you'll hear it from him." She patted my arm. "Be gracious. You always are."
Gretchen Keating swept in a minute later in rose satin, her honey hair pinned up, and sat down in my chair.
She did not look at me.
She had been Harrison's childhood friend for twenty-five years, and for four of those years I had been told to be grateful she was so close to him.
Harrison went to the microphone.
He tapped it twice, and three hundred people went quiet.
"Thank you all for forty years of Holloway Grand." He smiled that easy smile. "Before dinner, a personal word."
He put one hand on the back of Gretchen's chair.
"Gretchen's father, Mr. Keating, has about a week left. His one wish is to see his daughter married."
A sound of sympathy went through the room.
"So for the next seven days, Gretchen will be Mrs. Holloway."
Someone began to clap.
"My wife understands," Harrison said. He found me in the crowd and winked.
Phones came up all over the ballroom.
I felt every one of them land on me.
Harrison came down off the stage, still smiling, and stopped at my elbow.
"Ring, Em," he said quietly.
"What?"
"Gretchen needs one that looks right. Just for the photos." His eyes went to my left hand. "Don't make that face. It's a week. You being jealous is the cutest thing about you."
"Harrison, I am standing in a room full of your investors."
"Exactly. So don't make it weird."
Helen, my mother-in-law, set her hand on my shoulder.
"Give it to him, darling," she said, warm and low. "Mr. Keating is dying. Think how it would look if you fought about it."
I looked at the two of them.
Then I looked at table fourteen, where the pastry staff I used to train sat in their good clothes, watching me.
One of them had a phone out.
I turned the ring slowly off my finger.
It left a pale band behind.
Harrison held out his palm.
I walked past it to the head table.
His champagne flute stood by his plate, full to the rim.
I dropped the ring into it.
It sank to the bottom and lay there, gold in the bubbles.
"Keep it for the week," I said. "She can have the name for seven days. I'm taking the rest."
"Sylvie." Harrison's smile went stiff. "Don't be dramatic."
Gretchen stared at her plate.
Her hands were shaking.
I noticed that and did not stop to think about it.
So I walked out.
Nobody followed me across the marble floor, and nobody said a word until I reached the coat check.
Helen was already there.
She had walked around by the side door, and she held my suitcase by its handle.
"Take the good coat, it's cold out," she said, and held it up for me. "Go to your friend Dee's. Don't fight him tonight, darling. You'll only look hysterical."
Her voice was so kind that I almost put my arms in the sleeves.
I took the suitcase from her myself.
"I'll manage," I said.
Outside, it was raining on Boylston Street.
A cab stood at the curb with its light on.
I climbed in, gave Dee's address and held my card to the reader.
It beeped twice.
"Declined," the driver said.
I tried the second card.
Declined.
Joint account, joint cards, every one of them in Harrison's name.
My phone buzzed with a text from him.
"Mom says you'll calm down by morning. Come home when you're done."
The cab door opened on the street side.
A man in a charcoal overcoat held an umbrella over the door and a bill out to the driver.
"I've got it," he said.
He was tall, dark hair going grey at the temples, and he was looking at the Holloway Grand's doors, not at me.
"Mrs. Holloway," he said. "I'm Nathaniel Sterne."
He finally looked down.
"I've been waiting four years for one of you to walk out of that door."
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