My Father Went to Prison for Their Money, So I Married Their Heir novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Toast
At the Ravenel Terminals gala Sabra takes the microphone to name her father, and the heir stands up and claims her as his wife.
Winston Ravenel was halfway through the word "honesty" when I took the microphone out of its stand.
The ballroom went quiet one table at a time.
Three hundred people in dinner clothes turned to look at a woman in a black server's vest.
I had paid a girl on the catering crew forty dollars for that vest.
I had carried crab cakes around that room for an hour, waiting for him to get to that word.
"Good evening," I said. "My name is Sabra Braswell."
Winston did not stop smiling.
He was sixty-six, silver-haired, with a bourbon in one hand and a seventy-fifth anniversary banner behind his head.
"My father was treasurer of the dockworkers' pension fund," I said. "Eleven years ago."
"This company said he stole nine point four million dollars from six hundred and twelve retired men and their widows."
Somewhere near the front, a fork dropped onto a plate.
"He's in the prison at Reidsville tonight. The money was never found."
"I came to ask Mr. Ravenel to say my father's name out loud, in front of everyone he's thanking for being honest."
Winston lowered his glass.
"Miss Braswell," he said, soft and pitying. "I remember your father well. I pray for him every Sunday."
A few people at the near tables actually nodded.
That was what I had not planned for.
They felt sorry for him.
"Then say what he did," I said. "His name is Amos Braswell. Say it."
Winston looked past me and lifted two fingers.
Two men in dark suits came off the wall and crossed the dance floor fast.
The microphone cut out in my hand.
Somebody in the sound booth had pulled it.
I kept talking anyway, as loud as I could.
"Ask him where the money went!"
The first man took my elbow, and the second took the other one.
My feet left the floor.
My shoes came off, one and then the other, and slid away across the parquet.
I had spent eleven years learning to stay quiet in rooms like this one, and it had bought my father nothing.
"Let go of her."
The voice came from the head table, not loud.
The men stopped.
A man had stood up from the chair on Winston's right and was walking toward us with his napkin still in his hand.
He was tall and dark blond, in a tuxedo that looked slept in, and he did not hurry.
I knew his face from the company's website.
Beau Ravenel, the executive vice president and the chairman's only son.
"Beau," Winston said. "Sit down."
Beau did not sit.
He took the dead microphone out of my hand, tapped it twice and set it in the stand.
Then he took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders.
It was warm and smelled like cedar.
"This is my wife," he said, to the whole room, without a microphone.
His voice carried anyway.
"She was supposed to wait for me in the car until Friday, and she's been upset all week. I'm sorry, Dad. I'm sorry, everyone. We were going to tell you together."
The whole ballroom made one sound.
I stared at him.
I had never exchanged a word with this man in my life.
Winston's smile finally slipped.
For one second his face was empty, and then it was furious, and then it was a chairman's face again.
"Beau," he said quietly. "What did you say?"
"Her name is Sabra Ravenel," said Beau. "If anyone wants her removed from this building, they can start with me."
The two security men let go of my arms at the same time.
Beau held out his hand, palm up.
There was a white scar across the middle of it.
I thought about the alternative.
The alternative was a county cell, a trespass charge, and Winston Ravenel on the evening news pitying the poor thief's daughter.
I picked my shoes up off the floor with my own hand and took his.
His fingers closed around mine, dry and steady.
"I'm not your wife," I said, under my breath.
"Not yet," Beau said. "Walk."
We walked the whole length of the ballroom with three hundred people watching.
Nobody stopped us.
Outside, the valet ran for a car, and Beau waved him off and opened the door of his own truck himself.
I climbed in and sat with his jacket in my fists, shaking.
He got in on the other side and shut the door, and the noise of the street went away.
"Who are you?" I said. "What do you want?"
"I'm the man who just lied to my father in front of the whole port," Beau said. He looked straight ahead through the windshield. "On Saturday he announces that I'm engaged to a shipping heiress from Charleston. I need to already be married by Friday."
He turned his head.
His eyes were grey and tired and did not blink.
"I need a wife, Miss Braswell. And you need a way into my father's house."
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