The Bride He Replaced novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Reception
Hannah walks into the Teasdale ballroom where Camilla keeps steering her out, and a stranger watches only Camilla.
Bea drove with one hand and held a peanut butter sandwich out to me with the other.
"Eat that," she said. "You're feeding two, and neither of you has had lunch."
"I can't eat."
"You can chew. Chewing is a decision."
I chewed.
Bea had been my landlady for four years and my friend for three and a half of them.
She knew I took my tea too hot and that I hated being rescued.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Where do you think?" She changed lanes. "The Teasdale Hotel. The reception's at four, and nobody told the woman who's actually married to the groom."
"They'll throw me out."
"Then they'll do it where people can see."
I looked down at my cream dress and my flat shoes.
Then I looked at the sonogram in my lap.
"I don't want to make it worse."
"Sweetheart, how much worse can it get?" Bea said. "They've already told the internet you made the baby up."
That settled it.
The Teasdale Hotel stood on the river with its name in gold over the doors.
I had picked the flowers for the lobby myself last Easter.
A young man at the front desk looked at me and then looked at his screen.
"Ms. Draycott," he said. "I'm so sorry. You're on the guest list."
"I am?"
"Table nineteen."
Miles had given his own wife a seat.
Table nineteen turned out to be next to the kitchen doors, behind a pillar, where the swinging doors would hit the back of my chair.
Bea took the seat beside mine and put her purse in her lap.
"I'm your plus one," she said. "Don't argue."
The ballroom glittered.
Two hundred guests were drinking champagne under a ceiling of white roses, and a band was playing at the far end.
On the head table stood a four-tier cake with two figures on top.
The woman figure wore a long white gown.
My ring was on Camilla's finger across the room, and it caught the light every time she lifted her glass.
She wore a different dress now, a white satin one with a short train.
She saw me before anyone else did.
She said something to Miles, set her glass down and crossed the whole ballroom in her heels.
"Hannah." She took my hands in both of hers. "Oh, thank God. I called you all morning."
Her palms were warm.
She smelled of the peonies from her shop, as she always did.
"Come with me," she said, low and quick. "Please, you look so pale. I'll take you out the side door and get you some water. This is too much for you right now, and you don't have to be in here."
It was kind.
It was what she would have said on any other day of our lives, and for a moment my body believed her.
My shoulders even loosened.
Then I looked at her left hand, still holding mine.
The pale line on her finger was there under my ring, and she was gripping my fingers hard enough to hurt.
"I'm not leaving," I said.
"Han, you're upset."
"Yes."
"Let me walk you out. Before Marguerite sees you."
"Marguerite saw me an hour ago, on the sidewalk. She offered me a hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
Camilla's face went still for a second.
"She did what?"
"You didn't know?"
"No," she said. "No, of course I didn't know."
She said it fast and light, and her eyes slid to the head table.
Miles was standing by his chair, watching us, talking to nobody.
Bea cleared her throat.
"Miss Lowell, I'd like a glass of water myself."
Camilla turned to her with a bright, tired smile.
"Of course, Mrs. Moran. I'll send someone over."
She did not move.
Her gaze had gone past my shoulder to the back of the room.
I turned.
At a corner table behind the dessert station, alone, sat a man in a dark suit and no tie.
He had short dark hair, grey at the temples, and wide shoulders held very still.
He had a glass of water in front of him and a place card I could not read from here.
His glass was untouched.
His eyes were on Camilla and nobody else in that whole bright room.
Not on the cake, not on the groom, and not on me.
He did not look angry. He looked patient, and he looked certain.
"Camilla?" I said.
She did not answer.
The champagne flute she had picked up from a passing tray slid out of her fingers.
It hit the marble floor and burst, and every head in the ballroom turned.
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