Chapter 9 - The Stripping of the Monogram
Victoria looked wildly around the lawn, searching for an ally among the relatives she had bullied and manipulated for decades.
"Robert, tell him!" Victoria shrieked at my father, pointing an accusing, trembling finger.
"Tell him Eleanor gave me authority over the estate! Tell him Allison is lying!"
My father stood in the center of the lawn, looking at his sister-in-law, then down at his broken coffee cup, and finally up at me.
For twelve years, Robert Weller had hidden behind Victoria's aggressive authority, terrified of conflict, desperate to avoid the pain of his late wife's absence.
He looked at my emerald dress, at the sapphire pendant that had belonged to the woman he had loved with all his soul, and something ancient and honorable finally awoke within his chest.
Dad walked slowly across the grass, stopping directly between Victoria and me.
He looked Victoria dead in the eye, his jaw setting into hard, unyielding granite.
"Eleanor never gave you a damn thing, Victoria," Dad said, his voice loud, clear, and ringing with absolute truth.
"You stole her papers from my attic the week after her funeral. You told me the state had closed the trust accounts."
"You made my daughter feel like a stranger in her own mother's family just to feed your miserable, shallow vanity."
"Robert!" Victoria gasped, clutching her throat.
"I am done being your prop, Victoria," Dad declared, reaching up and ripping off the silver boutonnière she had pinned to his navy blazer.
He threw it onto the grass at her feet.
"And you will never speak to my daughter like a servant again."
Tyler Vance stepped forward from the arbor, his head hanging low, looking at Madison with eyes filled with profound shame and disgust.
"Tyler, please," Madison wept, running to him, grabbing his arm. "I didn't know about the money! I swear, I didn't know!"
Tyler slowly pulled his arm free from her grasp, stepping back toward his father.
"You knew she was sitting alone in her apartment while we planned a fifty-thousand-dollar flower wall, Madison," Tyler said quietly.
"You knew she washed your clothes and paid your bills, and you told her she didn't fit the aesthetic."
"I don't think I can marry someone who views human beings as accessories."
Madison sank onto the wooden bench beside the fountain, sobbing hysterically into her hands as the fairy-tale wedding dissolved into dust.
Arthur Vance turned to Victoria, holding out his hand for the monogrammed leather binder.
"The wedding is canceled, Victoria," Arthur said with absolute finality.
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"My security team will escort you off Riverland Plantation within fifteen minutes."
"And on Monday morning, federal forensic auditors will be arriving at your bank to recover every penny of the funds you embezzled from Eleanor's endowment."
