Chương 3
“That would be a mistake.”
“Try me.”
Daniel raised one hand.
“Mark.”
His brother stopped, though not happily.
Daniel kept Mia against his side.
He could feel her fingers pinching the fabric at his waist.
“Eric, unlock the door.”
“Sign first.”
Daniel looked at the stack in Eric’s hand.
“What am I signing?”
“A transfer of controlling interest.”
The words were familiar enough to be obscene.
Daniel gave a short laugh that held no amusement.
“In what?”
“You know in what.”
“No, I don’t.”
Eric’s gaze flicked toward Vanessa.
Daniel saw it.
So did Vanessa.
“Don’t look at her,” Daniel said.
Eric’s mouth tightened.
“Daniel.”
“Answer me.”
“Your voting shares in Hartwell Systems.”
Several guests began whispering.
Most of them knew Daniel owned a company.
Very few knew anything about its structure.
Daniel knew exactly enough to understand that no legitimate transfer of controlling interest could be completed by shoving papers at a groom beside an altar.
“You expect me to sign away my company during my wedding?”
“I expect you to sign the documents in front of you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters right now.”
Vanessa took a step toward Eric.
“What are you doing?”
For the first time, Eric looked irritated.
“Finishing this.”
“This was not the agreement.”
Daniel turned his head slowly.
Vanessa seemed to recognize what she had said only after it was out.
Her lips closed.
The stranger near the doors lowered his document slightly.
The nanny made a quiet sound under her breath.
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
“What agreement?”
“Daniel, listen to me.”
“What agreement?”
She shook her head.
“Not here.”
He glanced around the chapel.
“You lost the privilege of choosing where.”
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
“You think I wanted this?”
“I don’t know what you wanted.”
“I wanted today.”
Mia shifted beside him.
Daniel felt it.
Vanessa noticed too, and her voice softened.
“I wanted to marry you.”
The sentence should have helped.
Instead, Daniel heard the precise wording.
Wanted.
Not could.
Not planned.
Not intended.
Wanted.
He looked toward the stranger.
“You said you have the original.”
The man nodded.
“Original marriage record.”
Vanessa turned on him.
“Don’t.”
The stranger’s expression changed, not into anger, but exhaustion.
“You had months.”
“Please.”
“You had months to tell him.”
Daniel stared between them.
“Who are you?”
The stranger swallowed.
“My name is Thomas Reed.”
He raised the document again.
“And according to the State of New York, Vanessa and I are still married.”
Vanessa shut her eyes.
A woman in the pews gasped.
Someone else whispered that they should call the police.
Three people reached for phones.
Eric stepped away from the doors.
“I wouldn’t.”
Daniel’s brother looked at him.
“What, you going to confiscate eighty phones?”
“No.”
Eric nodded toward the high windows.
“But the signal in here is almost nonexistent, and the chapel Wi-Fi password changed this morning.”
The videographer looked up from his equipment.
“I’m connected.”
Eric’s composure cracked by a fraction.
“What?”
The videographer lifted his phone.
“Hard line through the production router.”
Every head near the back turned toward him.
Daniel almost laughed again.
It was too absurd.
The young man whose name Daniel had forgotten twice during wedding planning might have become the most important person in the building.
“Call 911,” Daniel said.
Eric moved.
Not fast enough.
Daniel’s brother stepped between him and the videographer.
“Don’t.”
Eric stopped.
For the first time, uncertainty crossed his face.
Then Vanessa said, “No police.”
Daniel looked at her.
She was pale now.
Not bridal pale.
Sick pale.
“Why?”
“Because this can still be fixed.”
Thomas gave a weary laugh.
“There it is.”
Vanessa glared at him.
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know you never filed.”
“I tried.”
“You told me you did.”
“I said I would.”
“You told me it was done.”
Daniel lifted a hand.
“Stop.”
The room quieted by degrees.
His pulse had become painfully steady.
That frightened him more than panic would have.
“Thomas, when did you marry Vanessa?”
“Seven years ago.”
Vanessa looked toward the floor.
“Where?”
“Manhattan.”
“Why aren’t you divorced?”
Thomas rubbed his thumb along the edge of the plastic sleeve.
“Because I signed the papers and she never filed them.”
Vanessa’s head snapped up.
“That isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I was going to.”
“You had six years.”
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
“Six?”
She wrapped both arms around herself.
“It was complicated.”
“How complicated is filing a divorce you told me was final?”
Her face hardened.
“You have no idea what that marriage was like.”
“No.”
Daniel nodded.
“I don’t.”
He waited.
“Because you told me there was no marriage.”
Vanessa looked away.
That hurt more than he expected.
Not the lie itself.
The ease with which he suddenly remembered all the conversations she had redirected.
The ex she described only as someone she had lived with.
The year in New York she dismissed as a mistake.
The old photograph Mia once found in a drawer that Vanessa said came from a friend’s engagement party.
Daniel had accepted every answer because he had been forty-three years old and tired of suspicion.
He had mistaken relief for trust.
Mia tugged lightly at his jacket.
“Dad.”
He looked down.
Her eyes were fixed on Eric.
“He has another paper.”
Daniel followed her gaze.
Eric had separated one page from the stack.
He was trying to slide it behind the others.
“Hold it up.”
Eric did not.
“Eric.”
“It’s irrelevant.”
“Then hold it up.”
Daniel’s brother took a step toward him.
Eric raised the page.
From a distance, Daniel could make out the company letterhead.
At the bottom were two signatures.
One looked like Vanessa’s.
The other looked like his.
His stomach dropped.
“I didn’t sign that.”
Eric said nothing.
Daniel walked toward him.
Mia tried to follow.
The nanny caught her gently by the shoulders.
“Stay with me, baby.”
Daniel stopped halfway down the aisle.
“Where did you get my signature?”
Eric’s expression returned to something calm.
May you like
Too calm.
“You signed a number of documents this week.”
