My Marriage Was Their Bet novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: After the Ballroom

Bancroft reached the microphone stand, and he did not stop there.

He shoved it aside and caught my arm above the elbow.

His fingers dug in to the bone.

"You stupid girl," he said, in a whisper that the open microphone carried to the back wall.

"You ungrateful little nothing. After everything I gave you."

"Let go of me."

"I made you. I picked you up out of nothing and I made you."

"You will not stand there and do this to me."

He yanked me against him.

His other hand came up fast, open, and I saw what it was going to do.

On the sound table behind me stood a bottle of champagne that Bea had opened for the toast.

I set the frame down, found the bottle's neck and swung.

It hit his forearm with a crack, and the bottle burst.

Foam and glass sprayed over the stage.

Bancroft screamed and let go.

I staggered back with champagne running down my gown, and my arm burned where he had held it.

He came at me again, holding his arm, white with rage.

A black sleeve came across the stage and caught him around the chest.

Samson hauled him backward off his feet and pinned both his arms.

"Don't touch her," he said, in a voice I had never heard from him.

"Get off me, J. Get your hands off me."

Kitty ran up the steps in her borrowed suit, grabbed Bancroft's ankle and tripped him.

He went down on one knee in the broken glass.

She sat on his leg with her whole weight.

"That's for the dress," she said.

"Get this girl off me!"

"That's for every other girl," Kitty said, and bounced a little.

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