He Left Our Wedding for a Sprained Ankle, So I Married My Ex-Boss novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Hundredth Time

"I have never taken a cent from that man," Chloe said again, louder.

Four hundred phones were already in four hundred hands.

"Then let's read your messages," I said into the microphone.

I touched the console, and the page behind every place card woke up.

It had been blank all night.

Now it filled, line by line, on every screen in the room.

Chloe to Dillon, March: Come now or I tell everyone.

Chloe to Dillon, April: I fell. The attic. Bring eight thousand and don't be late.

Chloe to Dillon, the wedding morning: If you marry her, I'll end you. Come now.

Dillon's replies sat under each one.

Coming.

Please don't.

I'll do whatever you want.

At table two a woman read the third one aloud, in a small appalled voice.

At table six somebody said, "Oh my God."

The big screen switched to a photograph of a spiral notebook in blue pen.

March, eight thousand.

April, six thousand.

The wedding week, in capitals: DOUBLE.

"That's forged!" Chloe shouted.

"It's your handwriting," said the church treasurer. She sounded sick. "I know your handwriting, Chloe. I've been reading your thank-you cards for two years."

"You don't understand."

"I think we understand perfectly," said the retired dentist.

Chloe whirled on me.

"You broke into my house!"

"I walked into your house on the key you left under the mat, from an email you sent me, at three in the morning."

I pressed the last button.

Her own voice filled the ballroom through the speakers, soft and intimate, recorded from the tablet she had left in the attic.

Everyone's watching, Gillian. That's what the box was for.

Then, after a pause: Forty thousand people can see you handling my dead mother's letters. Say hello.

← Chapter 22 · All chapters · Chapter 24 →

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