My Fiancé Butt-Dialed Me Mid-Affair, So I Married His Brother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Slap

Joanna slaps Brandon, throws Kendall out and says yes to Hayes in front of the guests. Constance shows her a photo that proves Hayes knew.

Two hundred people watched me look at Hayes Lathrop's hand.

It was large and scarred across the knuckles, and it was not shaking.

"You're out of your mind," Brandon said. "Hayes, get out."

"Sit down, Brandon," Hayes said without turning.

Brandon did not sit.

He stepped between us and shoved at his brother's chest.

Hayes did not move.

"He has no standing," Constance said into the microphone. "That man walked out of this family eight years ago."

"You locked me out eight years ago," Hayes said. "The word in your agreement is son."

Constance's pearls rose and fell once.

I stopped listening to them.

I looked at the man who had called me a bank loan with brown hair.

Then I swung my right hand as hard as I could.

The slap rang off the ballroom ceiling.

Brandon staggered into the cake table, and the knife slid to the floor.

"That's for the guest room," I said.

Somebody in the back started to clap, and then stopped when nobody joined.

Kendall was suddenly at my elbow.

Her face was wet and her mascara had run into her freckles.

"Jo," she said. "Jo, please, let me tell you."

"No," I said.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"Get out, Kendall."

She stood there one more second with her mouth open.

Then she walked out through two hundred people, and the doors swung shut behind her.

I did not watch her go.

I had been her friend for ten years, and I did not trust my face.

Hayes touched my arm lightly, only above the elbow.

"Terrace," he said. "Two minutes."

I followed him through the glass doors into cold air.

The lawn dropped away toward the water, and the lights of the club ran down it in a line.

"My father's will leaves me his house on the Sound," Hayes said. "And the voting shares my stepmother has been holding for me since he died."

"Why would she hold them?"

"Because there's a condition. I have to be married before I turn thirty-six."

"When is that?"

"Thirty-one days."

I stared at him.

"So this isn't a rescue," I said.

"No," he said. "It's a trade."

I almost laughed.

It was the first honest thing anyone in that family had said to me.

"Tell me the terms," I said.

"Two years. Separate bedrooms. We touch only when someone is watching."

"And the note?"

"The agreement says it's torn up on the marriage of a Sayre daughter to a Lathrop son. Constance wrote it herself."

"She'll fight it."

"She will."

"Then I want her to watch me do it," I said. "Not tomorrow in a quiet office. Tonight, in there."

Hayes looked at me for a long moment.

"You don't want a quiet exit."

"I've been quiet for two years," I said. "I'm done."

His mouth moved, and it was almost a smile.

"All right."

We walked back in together.

The band had stopped playing.

The guests had drifted into clumps with their drinks, whispering, and they went silent when we came through the doors.

My father stood where I had left him by the bar.

His hands hung at his sides.

"Joanna," Dale Sayre said. "Sweetheart, whatever he's offering, I won't let you."

"Dad, you signed it," I said. "I'm finishing it."

I picked the microphone up from the cake table.

It still had frosting on it.

"Everyone," I said. "I'm sorry to interrupt your evening."

Nobody laughed.

"The engagement is off. I'll be married tomorrow at nine o'clock at the county courthouse."

A murmur ran around the room.

"To Hayes Lathrop."

Brandon made a strangled noise in his throat.

Constance lowered her champagne very slowly.

"Joanna," she said. "Come here a moment, dear. Just us."

She said it kindly.

She had always said everything kindly.

I walked over to her because I wanted to see her face when the clause came apart in her hands.

She took out her phone and held the screen up where only I could see it.

A hotel lobby, in September.

A tall man in a gray coat stood by the revolving door with his back half turned.

Behind him, near the elevators, a blond man had his hand low on a red-haired woman's back.

I knew all three of them.

"That was taken in September," Constance said gently. "Ask your future husband how long he has known."

I turned my head.

Hayes was watching me across the ballroom.

He had seen the screen too.

He did not look away, and he did not say it was a lie.

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