Mom Let Me Marry the Security Guard novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: You Don't Get a Vote
The hearing was set for ten days later, in the family court on Mercer Street.
My mother did not wait for the courtroom.
She wanted the hallway, because the hallway had the press.
She arrived at nine, with her lawyer, Bridget in a pale dress behind her, and a half-dozen women from the Foundation lined up on the marble bench like jurors.
Beatrice arrived with a banker's box.
Ethan arrived with me, in the suit he had worn to the dinner.
"Don't say anything to the reporters," he murmured.
"I wasn't going to."
"You were about to."
I was.
The court clerk opened the door at ten, and the judge, a gray woman with a tired mouth, let in the lawyers and then the families.
My mother's lawyer stood first.
"Your Honor, my client's daughter was induced to marry a man who concealed his true purpose. Mr. Rudd holds a debt against the Penhallow home. He took a job at her family's events to approach her. That is fraud."
Every head in the corridor turned toward Ethan.
He did not look at them.
"Mrs. Rudd," the judge said to me. "Did you know of the debt when you married?"
"No."
"Then you were deceived."
"I was," I said.
My mother's face lit.
"I was deceived for two weeks," I said. "Then I found out, and I asked him every question I had, and I stayed."
The judge took off her glasses.
"Mrs. Rudd, you understand that if I void this marriage, you are free of him?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Do you want to be free of him?"
"No."
My mother half rose.
"She's confused! She's been manipulated by a man who..."
"Sit down, Mrs. Penhallow," the judge said.
My mother sat.
"Mr. Rudd, you're named in this petition. Do you have anything to say?"
Ethan stood.
He looked at the judge, and then, for the first time, at the hallway full of Foundation women.
"I held the note for revenge," he said. "I'm not going to dress that up."
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