Wedding Day: My Fiancé Put Another Woman in My Wedding Car novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Whether It Ends

At ten to nine Thames Street was full of people who had not come to shop.

Jo had posted one sentence online at seven.

It said: Come to Danner Hardware at nine. Bring nothing. Wear shoes.

By eight-thirty there were sixty people on the sidewalk.

There was the contractor, the old man who bought single light bulbs, both grout women, and the boy with the hammer, who had brought his mother.

There were reporters.

My father stood in the doorway under the green awning with a push broom and an expression of deep suffering.

"I own a hardware store," he said to me. "I'd like to sell hardware."

"You will, Dad. I promise. Ten minutes."

"You said that about the roses."

Nathaniel's car pulled up at nine exactly.

He got out in a dark suit with no tie, and he did not look at the crowd, only at me.

I stood on an upturned paint crate by the door, which put me a head above everyone.

Jo had provided the crate.

She was holding her phone steady with both hands.

"Good morning," I said. "Thank you for coming. I'm Claire Danner, I mean Claire Aldridge, I mean I'm still working on the name."

Somebody laughed.

"A week ago some people told this town I married my husband for a building. Some told you I married him because of a baby. Some told you I was his weapon." I held up the folded page. "So I'd like to show you the actual paper."

Nathaniel stopped at the edge of the crowd.

"This is a contract," I said. "He wrote it the night we married. One year. Separate rooms. He touches me only when people are watching."

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