Chapter 2 - Table Twenty-Seven
The walk toward the seating area was an exercise in pure social execution.
Heads turned like sunflowers tracking the light, but the expressions staring back at me were masks of absolute horror and morbid fascination. Senator Hastings sat in the front row, his weathered face flushing a dangerous shade of crimson, while his wife gripped her pearl necklace so tightly I half-expected the string to snap. These people had spent decades looking down at me. When Ethan had married me in a quiet civil ceremony six years ago, they called me the "charity bride." When Eleanor ran me out of the family mansion with forged accusations and threats of legal ruination, they laughed behind their crystal flutes.
Now, none of them were laughing.
"Excuse me, ma'am," an usher stammered, stepping into my path. His name tag read *Harrison*, and his hands were trembling so badly the seating chart shook like an autumn leaf. "I... I can show you to your seat. Table... Table 27, right?"
"Don't bother, Harrison," I said smoothly, not breaking stride. "Table 27 is by the scullery door, isn't it? Such a shame. The boys have allergies to cheap disinfectant. We'll be taking the front row."
"You can't sit there!" a shrill, venomous voice hissed from the perimeter of the lawn.
Eleanor Montgomery had descended.
She had abandoned the balcony, practically flying down the sweeping marble staircase to intercept me before I reached the family pews. At sixty-two, Eleanor was a monument to clinical preservation. Her skin was pulled taut over sharp bones, her platinum hair pinned into an immaculate chignon, and her sapphire Carolina Herrera dress screamed generational wealth.
Yet as she stood in front of me, her chest heaving, the veneer was cracking right down the middle.
"What is the meaning of this circus?" Eleanor demanded, her voice dropping into a harsh, vibrating register meant only for my ears. Her gaze flickered toward the boys, and for a fraction of a second, raw terror flashed behind her icy eyes before being replaced by cold fury. "How dare you bring street urchins to my son’s wedding? Harrison! Call security immediately. Have this woman escorted off the grounds!"
"Touch them, Eleanor," I said, my voice dropping so low and flat it made the older woman flinch, "and your security team will be answering to the State Attorney before sundown."
Liam stepped forward, his small shoulders squaring instinctively. "Don't yell at my mom."
The sheer audacity of a four-year-old child looking Eleanor Montgomery dead in the eye caused several women in the third row to gasp aloud.
Eleanor recoiled as if she had been slapped. Up close, there was no hiding from the reality. Liam’s eyes were Ethan’s. His voice had the exact cadence of the Montgomery men when pushed into a corner.
"You..." Eleanor choked, her manicured hand hovering near her throat. "You signed the agreement. You took five hundred thousand dollars and you signed the termination paperwork! You swore to the board you were never carrying an heir!"
A cold, razor-thin smile touched my lips. "I took nothing from you, Eleanor. The check you slid across that mahogany desk five years ago? I shredded it on the sidewalk outside your attorney's office. And that 'termination paperwork' your crooked doctor drew up? He's currently under federal investigation for medical fraud, courtesy of an anonymous tip I filed last Tuesday."
Eleanor’s face went past pale—it went completely ash-gray.
"They're his," she whispered, the realization finally breaking through her fortress of arrogance. "All three of them."
"Every single one," I replied, leaning in until my perfume—sandalwood and night-blooming jasmine—overwhelmed the scent of her lavender water. "Liam is the oldest by four minutes. Noah is the strategist. Caleb is the one who breaks things when people are rude to me. And right now, Eleanor... you are being exceptionally rude."
"Avery!"
The roar came from behind us.
May you like
Ethan had stepped down from the altar. He completely ignored his bride, ignored the officiant, and shoved past his best man, his eyes burning with a desperate, wild madness as he crossed the lawn toward us.
***
