Nine Rejected Marriages, I Wed My Ex's Rival novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Ninth Appointment
Claire waits at the Marriage Bureau for a fiancé who never shows, blocks him, calls his rival and gets a car at the curb in ten minutes.
The last appointment of the day at the city marriage office was at 4:45.
Preston had picked the slot himself, so he could come straight from his meeting.
It was 4:41, and Claire Winslow was the only person left in the waiting room.
She sat very straight in a plastic chair with her coat across her knees and a folder on top of it.
The folder held her passport, the application and the receipt for the marriage license.
It was the third license she had paid for, because the first two had expired in Preston's desk drawer.
This was the ninth date they had set.
Every one of the first eight had a reason, and the reason had always been the same woman.
That morning he had texted her: "4:45. Promise. Counting on you."
She had read it twice, standing in her kitchen, and let herself believe it.
Her thumbnail found the skin beside her index finger and started to pick, a habit she had broken at nineteen.
The clerk put her head out of the office door for the ninth time.
She was a gray-haired woman with reading glasses on a chain, and she had stayed ten minutes past closing for Claire once before.
She carried a paper cup of water over and set it on the table beside Claire's chair.
"They're digging up Lafayette again, honey," she said. "I'm sure that's all it is."
Her eyes were soft and full of pity.
"I'm sure it is," she said, and smiled with her mouth only.
Her phone buzzed in her bag.
For one second she let herself hope.
The screen said Preston's Office.
It was his assistant, who had called her twice before to apologize for him.
"Ms. Winslow," the assistant said. "Mr. Vanderveer sends his apologies."
"He's not coming."
"Ms. Rhodes twisted her ankle at rehearsal. Mr. Vanderveer had to take her to the hospital."
Delaney.
"Of course he did," Claire said.
"He asked me to tell you he will make it up to you."
She ended the call without answering.
A message arrived before she had put the phone down.
It was from Delaney, with three hearts at the end.
"Claire, I'm SO sorry. I fell at rehearsal and Preston wouldn't leave me on the floor. I know your appointment is at 4:45. Please don't be mad at him. He just has the biggest heart. xx"
Claire read it once.
It was kind.
It was always kind, and that was the part she had never been able to argue with.
She opened her thread with Preston, and her thumbs moved without shaking.
"We're done. Don't call me."
She pressed send.
Then she found Block, and she pressed that too, and the screen went quiet.
Something that had sat on her breastbone for four years came loose and was gone.
She could breathe all the way down.
So she stood up.
The chair scraped on the linoleum.
Claire walked to the desk and set the untouched cup of water on it.
"Please cancel the 4:45," she said. "I won't be rescheduling."
"Oh, honey."
"I'm not getting married," Claire said, steady in a way she had not been for years.
She walked out into the November cold.
The wind hit her face, and it woke her up.
On the sidewalk she took out her phone again and went down her contacts to a name she had saved in April.
She had never called it.
At the Heller gala, seven months ago, a man had cornered her by the coat check.
He was Preston's biggest rival, the only man in New York Preston would not say out loud.
He had looked at her left hand, and then at her face, and said something she had laughed at.
Now it was the only offer anyone had ever made her that did not start with an apology.
Her heart pounded as she pressed his name.
It rang once.
"Crane."
His voice was low, and it cut through the noise of Worth Street.
"This is Claire Winslow," she said. "At the Heller gala you told me that if I ever needed a husband, I should call you."
The line was quiet.
"I said a lot of things that night," Weston Crane said. "Which offer is this?"
"The husband."
She heard fabric rustle on his end, and then a door closing.
"Where are you?"
"The marriage office on Worth Street. It closes at five."
"I know when it closes," he said. "Don't move. Ten minutes."
"Ten minutes?"
"I'm coming over. We'll register."
The line went dead.
Claire stood very still with the phone against her ear.
She had never thought he would say yes.
She could still hail a cab and go home.
Then she pictured Preston at the hospital, his forehead creased, holding Delaney's hand.
Going home meant waiting for the tenth promise.
She stood up straighter and waited.
It was nine minutes, not ten.
A black car drew up to the curb, so smooth that its tires made no sound.
A man in a dark overcoat got out of the driver's seat and opened the rear door.
"Mr. Crane," Ross said, holding up a phone. "Your father's office called again."
"Let it ring," said the man in the back.
Weston Crane stepped out onto the pavement.
He was taller than she remembered, in a charcoal suit, with the same dark, unhurried eyes.
He did not smile.
He looked at her face, then at the folder in her hands, and held out his hand.
"Ms. Winslow," he said. "You have until we reach that door to change your mind."
She was already holding the folder against her chest.
She put her hand in his.
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