He Called My Inheritance a Forgery in Front of Three Hundred Guests, Then Took Every Blow Meant for Me novel · Chapter 1 of 40
Chapter 1: The Toast
At the Harvest Gala, Kendrick Mercer takes the microphone from Genevieve, calls her will a forgery and offers her a server's job, and the second witness to the real will turns out to be her best friend.
I was halfway through my toast when Kendrick Mercer took the microphone out of my hand.
"To my father," I had said, "who built this place with his own two hands, and left it to me."
Three hundred glasses were in the air.
The Glasshouse was lit gold for the Harvest Gala, like it was every October.
My father had thrown this party for thirty-one years.
This was the first one without him.
I was wearing my mother's green silk dress.
I had practiced the toast in the mirror until I could say "my father" without my voice going.
Then a hand closed over mine on the microphone.
Kendrick didn't pull.
He just held on until I let go.
"Everyone, please put your glasses down," he said.
Nobody did at first.
He waited.
He was good at waiting.
One by one, the glasses came down.
"I'm sorry to do this here," Kendrick said. "But Genevieve has told this room something that isn't true, and the press is at table nine."
A woman at table nine lowered her phone, then raised it again.
"The will Genevieve filed last month is a forgery."
The sound that went through the room was like a wave going out.
I laughed.
It was the only thing I could think to do.
"Kendrick, give me the microphone."
He didn't look at me.
"That will is dated August second," he said. "It says Thomas signed it that afternoon at his lawyer's office in Stockbridge."
He let it sit.
"On August second, Thomas was in a hospital bed at Mass General with a stent in his heart."
"I drove him there," he said. "I sat with him for four days."
My face went hot, then cold.
I hadn't known about any stent.
I hadn't known because I hadn't been here.
"Thomas signed his real will in July, in his study, upstairs in this house," Kendrick said.
"He left his half of Bradbury and Mercer to me. And the house."
"That's a lie," I said.
It came out too loud.
A waiter froze with a tray of oysters.
"My father would never give you the house. He'd never give you anything."
Kendrick finally turned and looked at me.
He had grey eyes, and they had never once been warm when they landed on me.
They weren't now.
"Your father gave me five years of his life while you were in New York," he said quietly. "He gave me plenty."
Somebody near the bar said, "Ouch."
At table four, a blonde woman in a white dress put her hand over her mouth to laugh.
The silver-haired man beside her patted her arm, smiling.
I didn't know them yet.
I would.
Kendrick lifted the microphone again.
"Thomas did want Genevieve to have a place here," he said to the room. "So she does."
I held my breath.
"If she wants to learn what her father built, she can start where he started. Where I started. On the floor."
He looked at me.
"Monday. Six a.m. Black shoes."
For one second there was total silence.
Then the blonde woman at table four laughed out loud.
It was a bright, delighted laugh, and it gave everyone else permission.
It spread table to table.
Not everybody.
But enough.
"She'd look adorable in an apron," the blonde said, not quietly at all.
I had a full glass of champagne in my hand.
I threw it in Kendrick Mercer's face.
It hit him across the mouth and ran down his shirt collar.
Someone gasped.
Someone else clapped, once, and stopped.
Kendrick didn't flinch.
He took a white napkin off the nearest table and wiped his face, slowly.
"You forged it," I said. "You forged my father's will and you're standing in his house telling his friends I'm the liar."
"Thomas signed in front of two witnesses," Kendrick said.
He folded the napkin and set it down.
"Would the witnesses raise their hands, please."
At the board table, my godmother raised her hand.
Rosemary Ellery.
She had held me at my christening.
She had held me at my mother's funeral.
She looked at me over her reading glasses, and her eyes were wet.
"I'm so sorry, Gen," she mouthed.
I shook my head at her.
That was one.
One old woman who could have been confused.
One old woman who could have been lied to.
"And the second," Kendrick said.
Nobody moved.
Then, by the dessert table, a hand went up.
It was beside the tall white cake with the gold leaves I had watched her pipe all afternoon.
It was dusted with flour.
Chloe Dunning had been my best friend since we were eight years old.
She was still in her pastry whites.
She wouldn't look at me.
She just stood there with her hand in the air, and her chin shaking.
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