Chapter 4 - The Grand Ballroom
By seven o’clock, more than seventy guests filled the Grand View ballroom beneath crystal chandeliers, and champagne moved around the room on silver trays while Derek circulated among senior executives with one hand casually tucked into his pocket. He laughed slightly too loudly at important people’s jokes and carried himself like a man already picturing future promotions. If guilt was bothering him, it had been instructed not to interfere with networking.
Clara arrived in an emerald gown and came directly toward me. She hugged me warmly, told me I looked beautiful, and stepped back while still holding both my hands as though we were the lifelong friends I had believed us to be twenty-four hours earlier. “Are you excited?” she asked, and I looked at the woman who had helped choose my wedding flowers while secretly sleeping with my fiancé and said, “More than you know.”
Dinner proceeded normally enough that at moments I almost wondered whether I had imagined the previous day. Plates arrived, glasses were refilled, relatives discussed the wedding, and Clara laughed beside people who trusted her professionally while Derek occasionally touched my shoulder with casual ownership. The ordinary surface of the evening made what lay underneath feel even stranger.
After the final dinner plates had been cleared, Nolan rose near the small stage and tapped a butter knife lightly against his water glass. Conversations gradually faded until the ballroom settled into silence, and Derek straightened his jacket as though he expected my brother to toast his promising future. “Tonight was originally billed as an informal wedding rehearsal,” Nolan began, “and since Derek has spoken often about loyalty, character, and partnership, Emily wanted to offer a brief presentation honoring those principles before the wedding.”
Derek’s face brightened immediately. He slipped an arm around my waist and whispered, “You shouldn’t have, Em,” while Clara pressed one hand against her chest with such a tender expression that I briefly wondered whether she had considered professional acting as a backup career. Then the lights dimmed, and the projector screen behind Nolan flickered to life.
The first photograph showed Terminal 3.
There was Derek in the dark wool coat I had taken to the cleaners, Clara in her cream trench coat, and the two of them kissing beneath the departures board while their matching bags rested beside them. The timestamp was clear, the luggage tags were visible, and the destination information left very little room for an unexpected business seminar in Seattle or emergency visit to Portland.
Derek’s arm dropped from my waist.
Nobody spoke as the next images appeared. Itemized transfers and wedding transactions filled the screen, showing money from the expenses I had funded moving through Clara’s business connections for inflated or fictitious bridal services, including deposits Derek had personally encouraged me to cover and contracts Clara had placed in front of me. Somewhere near the front of the ballroom, a woman whispered, “Oh my God.”
Then the speakers came alive.
Derek’s voice filled the room, clear and relaxed, joking about leaving me stuck with wedding debt. Clara’s laughter followed his, and for three years I had known that laugh well enough to recognize it from another room; now every executive, relative, client, and family friend in Grand View recognized exactly what they were hearing.
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Derek went completely pale.
Clara’s champagne glass slipped from her hand and shattered against the hardwood floor. In the absolute silence that followed, Nolan calmly reached for the microphone.
