For Our 10th Anniversary, My Husband Gave Me a Green Dress and My Sister a Baby novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Smile for the Cameras

In the ballroom Shelby shows Lena the messages proving Travis chose the dress; Lena photographs them and stands for the anniversary photo with a husband who says thank you.

I put my ring in my purse, next to the vows I had written that morning.

Then I followed my sister down in the elevator without saying a word.

The Stags' sponsor reception filled the ballroom with money and polite laughter. Travis stood by the team banner, shaking hands as if his wife had not just learned her sister was carrying his child.

He saw me at the door.

His shoulders loosened.

He did not look sorry or tender. He looked pleased that I had obeyed.

Shelby steered me into the narrow hall behind the stage curtain, where the caterers kept their carts.

"You shouldn't make this harder than it has to be," she said.

"I haven't done anything yet."

"Exactly."

There was satisfaction in the word, and she did not hide it.

"He told you he didn't choose the dress," Shelby said. "Didn't he?"

I went still.

Her mouth curved up at one corner.

"What do you want?"

"I want you to know nobody stumbled into this." She laid a hand over her stomach. "We planned it."

"You're sleeping with my husband and you're pregnant with his child. I understand plenty."

"You still think he's the one who protects you."

She said it gently, which was the worst part.

Then she took out her phone.

"He told me about your little deal months ago. The green dress."

The noise from the ballroom dropped away until I could hear only my pulse.

Travis had told her.

The story I had barely been able to say aloud to the man I was about to marry. My mother's kitchen, my promise, my worst fear.

He had taken it to my sister's bed.

Shelby turned the screen toward me.

At the top of the thread was a photo of the green dress, spread across a boutique counter.

Under it, Shelby had typed: This is the one. She'll know right away.

Travis had answered: That's cruel, Shell.

For a second, relief tried to rise in me.

He had known it was wrong. He had objected.

Then she scrolled down.

You said she'd leave if you ever sent it. This way she walks out on her own. You never have to be the man who left his wife for her sister.

A long gap sat between the messages.

Then Travis: Fine. Send it to the house. I'll sign the card.

My fingers went numb.

I thought of him in the suite an hour ago, saying I didn't choose that dress, with my ring in his hand.

I thought of the words he had thrown at me. You never trusted me. Every road trip, I paid for what your father did.

He had accused me of waiting for him to become my father, and then he had picked the one cruelty that would make him exactly that.

No. Worse.

My father had used my mother's fear because he never bothered to understand it.

Travis had understood mine perfectly.

That was why the dress worked.

"Why are you showing me this?" I asked.

"Because I don't want you telling yourself it was a mistake and running back to him when things get hard."

She wanted me gone.

Not only out of his bed or his house. She wanted me to know he had helped put me out.

My hands shook as I raised my phone and photographed every message.

Shelby watched me do it. She did not try to stop me.

She was too sure that the proof meant she had won.

"Save them if you like," she said. "It might make this easier for you."

A man's voice called from the stage. "Travis and Lena, we're ready for you!"

I lowered the phone.

Across the ballroom, Travis held out his hand.

Faces turned.

I could have held the screen above my head. I could have told two hundred sponsors, teammates and photographers exactly what my husband had done.

Instead I walked to him.

It wasn't forgiveness.

I had finally read him correctly.

He still believed I would do whatever he asked, and I saw no reason to correct him yet.

Near the back of the room, a tall man in a team suit stood alone with a glass of club soda.

It was Nate Corrigan, the Stags' goalie.

He was the only person in the ballroom who wasn't smiling.

Travis took my hand and drew me under the lights. His palm settled at my waist, comfortable from ten years of photographs.

"Squeeze in tighter, you two," the photographer called.

Travis pulled me against his side.

Behind the cameras, Shelby watched us with her hand on her stomach.

"Good," said the photographer. "Now look at each other like you mean it."

Travis turned and smiled down at me.

I looked up into the face of the man who knew exactly what the green dress meant and had sent it anyway.

The flash went off.

Again.

Again.

To everyone watching, we were still the famous captain and the wife who had stood beside him for ten years.

When the photographer finally lowered his camera, Travis leaned in until his breath touched my ear.

"Thanks for being sensible, Lee," he whispered. "I knew you would be."

His hand stayed warm at my waist.

"Give it a month. This will blow over."

He thought my silence was a yes.

It was not a yes.

I was thinking about the messages saved in my phone.

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