My Fiance's Legal Wife Called Me to Help Pick the Ring novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Ring Detail
On a morning engagement shoot at the Lily Pool, Elise takes a phone call from Hugh's wife, has lunch with her, and tells Hugh she'll pick the rings today while his wife toasts her.
"I'm Hugh Alden's wife," the woman on the phone said. "I'd like to know you before you marry him."
I was standing on the stone path beside the lagoon in Lincoln Park, with my left hand held out in front of me.
The photographer holding it by the wrist did not let go.
"You have the wrong number," I said.
"Elise Marchetti, twenty-nine. Marchetti Bakery on Taylor Street. Engaged since April, wedding September twentieth. Is that the wrong number?"
My phone buzzed against my ear.
I pulled it away and looked.
She had sent me a photograph of a marriage certificate.
Hugh's full name was typed on one line, and a woman's name was typed beside it, and the date was nine years ago in June.
"Hugh told me his divorce was final two years ago," I said.
"I know what Hugh told you." Her voice stayed level. "Mirabelle, on Armitage. One o'clock. I'll be the one who isn't crying."
She hung up.
I lowered the phone.
Emmett Voigt was still holding my wrist, with his thumb against the inside of it.
He had been holding it for ten minutes.
He turned my hand a quarter inch at a time under the morning light, so the new ring would catch.
He had held it longer than the ring needed, and I had let him.
"Your pulse just jumped," he said.
He said it quietly.
"It's nothing."
"Elise." He let go. "Do you want me to leave?"
"No." I turned my hand over and looked at the ring. "Hugh's late again."
"He texted you at nine that his closing ran long," Emmett said.
"Yes."
"Tell me what she said."
I told him. It took four sentences.
Emmett's face did not change, but he lowered the camera to his chest and stood very still.
The lily pool had a fringe of cattails and a heron on the far bank.
The light was perfect.
A wedding photographer would have called it a gift.
"Cancel the rest of the shoot," I said. "I'll pay for the full morning."
"I'm not charging you for the morning."
"Emmett."
"Go to your lunch," he said. "If you need a ride after it, I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere."
I believed him, which was not a thing I could afford to think about at the moment.
Mirabelle had white tablecloths and a waiter who looked at my flour-dusted sleeve.
She was already there.
She was tall, with a sleek dark bob and a navy suit.
She had already ordered a pot of tea for two and a plate of lemon cookies.
"Odessa," she said, and did not offer her hand. "Sit."
I sat.
She laid her phone on the cloth, turned it around, and slid it to me.
It showed a wedding photograph. Hugh at twenty-nine, with fewer lines around his eyes, kissing her in front of a brick building.
His left hand was on her waist and a gold band shone on his finger.
"Tell me something only a wife would know," I said.
"His left knee has a scar from a dock in Michigan when he was fourteen. He tells people it was hockey."
I put my hands under the table.
I had traced that scar with my thumb in April.
"The decree," I said. "He showed me a decree."
"I'm sure it was beautiful. Hugh's very good with paper."
"Why are you telling me?"
"Because in twenty-five days you walk into a room and marry my husband," Odessa said. "Somebody should say so before you pay for the flowers."
"I'm the cake," I said. My voice shook. "I make the cake."
"I know. I read your reviews. The lemon one is very good."
I laughed, and it was a horrible sound, and the waiter turned his head.
Odessa poured the tea.
"I could file for divorce tomorrow," she said. "I'm not going to. Not yet."
"Why not?"
"Because I'd like him to be a man who got caught. Not a man who got divorced."
Dessert came, a small tiramisu with two forks.
She told me the rest in a calm voice, without once looking away.
Hugh had filed the marriage license application at the Cook County clerk's office on Monday.
He had sworn on the form that he had never been married.
On the twentieth, he and the bride would sign the license itself in front of an officiant and a hundred and forty guests.
"A man who signs that, knowing what he knows," Odessa said, "has done something that gets a man arrested."
"And you want me to stop it."
"I want you to let it happen."
I looked at the ring on my hand.
It was a two-carat oval, set high. He had picked it himself, and he had never asked what I would choose.
My phone lit up on the cloth.
HUGH: Jeweler at 4:30, Lowe and Daughters on Oak. Pick whatever you want, love. I'm stuck at the closing.
I looked up.
Odessa lifted one eyebrow and said nothing.
I pressed his name and put the phone on speaker.
"Hi, love," I said. "Yes. I'll pick the rings today."
"That's my girl. Wear something nice."
"I can't wait to be your wife."
"Neither can I," Hugh said, warmly, and hung up.
Across the table, his wife raised her water glass and toasted me.
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