My Fiancé Let Her Ruin Our Wedding but Insisted It Was Just a Joke novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Forty-Six Thousand

Outside in the cold, Darcy learns her savings were moved to the assistant an hour before the vows, and the only guest who did not laugh offers to walk her back in to the microphone.

I stood on the gravel in my wedding dress and watched forty-one thousand people watch me.

The number in the corner of the screen climbed to forty-three.

Comments scrolled past faster than I could read them.

*Poor girl.*

*lmao the veil*

*Is this real??*

*She's actually crying, this is sick.*

I was not crying.

That was the strange part.

I felt cold and very clear, and my hands had stopped shaking.

The lodge doors opened behind me.

I did not turn around.

"Ms. Bradfield."

It was the man from the third row.

Tobias Hallett stopped a few steps away and held out his charcoal jacket.

"It's thirty-eight degrees," he said.

"I'm fine."

"You're shaking."

I looked down.

I was.

I took the jacket and put it on, because pride was not going to warm me.

It smelled like cedar and cold air.

"I wasn't laughing," he said.

"I saw."

"I wanted you to know it before you left."

"Why?"

He took a moment before he answered.

"Because I'm the only one in there who isn't a friend of theirs."

That made no sense to me, and I was too tired to ask him to explain it.

"I'll drive you wherever you want to go," he said.

"No, thank you."

"Your car is in the lot behind the kitchen. Someone parked a catering van across it."

I looked.

He was right.

A white van sat nose to bumper against my little blue hatchback, and I knew without asking who had arranged that.

Marley had always had the parking planned.

I turned my back on the lodge and opened my banking app.

I wasn't thinking about the money.

I just needed something to look at that was not my own face.

The joint account was the first thing on the screen.

Balance: $212.40.

I stared at it.

I had checked it myself the morning of the dress fitting.

Yesterday morning it had held $46,912.

It had my savings in it, four years of night shifts and weekend double rounds, my half of the down payment on the house we were closing on in nine days.

I pressed the transaction list.

One line at the top.

*Transfer out: $46,700.00. Today, 2:51 PM. To: J. HUDAK.*

The ceremony had started at four.

My hand went flat against my chest.

Jenna.

Jenna, standing in the aisle with my bouquet and her eyes on the floor.

I called the bank.

A calm woman asked me to confirm my name and the last four digits of my number.

"There's been a transfer I didn't make," I said. "On the joint account."

"One moment."

Keys clicked.

"Ma'am, the transfer was authorized by the other account holder, Mr. Pellham, at 2:51 this afternoon. It's a valid transaction between two accounts. I can open a dispute, but it may take several weeks."

"Several weeks."

"Yes, ma'am."

"It's my money," I said. "I put in forty-six thousand dollars."

"I understand, ma'am. As joint holders, either of you may move funds."

I closed my eyes.

Ten years of him saying *what's mine is yours*.

I had thought it was a promise.

It had been a loophole.

"Open the dispute," I said, and she did, and I gave her my email and my name again.

When I hung up, Tobias was still standing there.

He had not looked at my phone.

He was looking at the lake.

"They moved your money," he said.

I did not ask how he knew.

"Almost all of it. Before the ceremony."

"Mr. Pellham's assistant has been wearing a new watch for a week," he said. "I thought it was odd."

It was a small thing to say.

It was also the first thing anyone had said all afternoon that made me think somebody had been paying attention.

I opened the livestream again, only to see what they were doing.

The wedding hall was full of music.

Colt had carried his camera into the reception room and was turning in a slow circle.

I saw the tables, the white roses I had chosen myself, and my aunt standing in the corner holding her purse.

I saw the cake.

I saw Conor, in the middle of the dance floor, with Jenna on his arm in the cream dress, laughing.

The DJ was playing our song.

Colt's voice came through the speaker, bright and loud.

"Everybody up! It's a joke, people, she'll be back. We paid for this open bar, so let's party!"

Conor lifted his glass toward the camera.

"To the bride," he said.

Jenna drank.

The room cheered.

I looked at Tobias.

He looked at me.

"I would like to go back in there," I said.

"Dressed like that?" he asked.

"Dressed exactly like this."

He nodded slowly and held the door.

"Then I'll walk you to the microphone," he said.

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