My father didn’t have any more children than the triplets outside his marriage.
Numb, I rejoined Lottie at our table. I said nothing, because there was nothing I could say to make it better. She pulled out her phone as the music continued.
“The marriage of the century.” She held up a gold plate engraved with the words Marriage of the Century.
She pushed her cheek out with her tongue.
“Online they’re calling us the sham of the century. Fraud of the century. Joke of the century.”
“Lottie…”
She dropped the plate with a clang. “We have a wedding night to finish.”
She stared out at our reception, dead eyed and determined.
Four
STORY
* * *
The minute we were out of the ballroom I shoved West off. He could stand—he was barely hurt.
“I’m sorry—” West started, but I turned on him.
“Stop! Stop saying you’re sorry. I’m really tired of the men in my life using me to make themselves feel better. If I have to feel like shit, so do you.”
He looked like he wanted to say something, but to his credit, didn’t.
I could still hear the ballroom, the music playing as if nothing had happened. The way Grayson had looked at me seared into my chest like a brand. Scarring. White-hot.
“What was on their phones?” I asked quietly, afraid of the answer.
“This is you, right?” West held out his phone for me to look at.
Grayson.
Me.
Hours ago, as we’d said our goodbyes behind the altar. I lifted my eyes from the phone, colliding with West. A wedding full of people who’d seen me at my most vulnerable moment.
“How many people have seen this?” My eyes locked with West’s warm chocolate ones.
“Only a couple hundred thousand. Don’t get a big head. You’ll be forgotten in the morning.”
I spun, finding Mrs. du Lac.
A couple hundred thousand?
Only?
She stepped past me to her son, dabbing West’s nose with a silky white cloth. Her floor-length gown flowed across the marble, seeming to repel wrinkles and shadows, the silky cornflower color bringing out the complexion of her skin. Both elegant and intimidating, like her.
“What a way to ingratiate yourself with our new family,” she said lightly.
She reminded me a little of Tansy, in that she had that graceful air. She didn’t rush, even as her son bled.
A couple hundred thousand. Hundred. Thousand.