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Lahat ng Kabanata ng His Wedding Day Bride: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

24 Kabanata

Prologue

The music changed when I was twenty steps out.It was supposed to be Pachelbel. My mother and I had argued about it for six months because she thought it was overused. I had insisted. I had won. It was Pachelbel until I reached the second row, and then the song shifted under my heels into a violin, Italian, older than anything I'd picked.My father's arm tightened on mine."Luela." He said my name once, quietly, the way he'd said it when I was eight and had broken something I wasn't supposed to touch. I kept walking.I didn't look at the third row. Vivienne Crane was there. She'd been crying since the processional started. I'd seen her at six that morning when she came to my suite to apologize, and I had closed the bathroom door in her face. I didn't need to see her cry in a bridesmaid dress on top of that.Cosima Marchetti sat in the second row on the right. Her hands were folded over her clutch. She was the only person in the ballroom who looked unsurprised.The room was warmer than

Discovery

"Where's Vivienne, Lu?"Margot was at the window of the bridal suite. She hadn't looked at me in twenty minutes. The seamstress had finished pinning the side seam of my gown. The other bridesmaids were laughing in the next room about a wedding in Bali that had been ruined by a monsoon."Fixing the table linens.""There's nothing wrong with the table linens. I called the planner an hour ago."I kept my eyes on Bea, the seamstress, who'd been doing my mother's fittings since I was nine. She didn't gossip. She also didn't look up from my waist when I glanced at her, which was the second sign that night that nothing in the room was what it looked like."You're done, miss. Beautiful.""Thank you, Bea."She left. I picked up my phone from the vanity.Carter (8:47 PM): Heading to bed. Love you.Vivienne (7:28 PM): Fixing something with the linens, will be back soon ❤️Vivienne (8:50 PM): Almost done!It was 10:04.I walked out of the suite in the slip dress with the veil still pinned to my h

Swap

"You came back."My mother was in the lobby of the Plaza at seven in the morning, in cream silk, her pearls already on, her hands folded over a small handbag. She'd been waiting at the elevator since six. Hudson had sent her down. He hadn't been sure I'd come up on my own."I came back.""Where did you go?""I'll tell you. After."She took my hand and walked me to the elevator. She didn't ask anything else. She'd known, from looking at my face, that whatever I'd done in the night had been mine to do.In the bridal suite, the dressers came in at seven-thirty. Vivienne arrived at the door at seven forty-five, her hair perfect, her mascara perfect, her arms out. I let her hug me. I didn't flinch. I'd already decided not to give her that.Margot pulled me into the bathroom at eight-fifteen."Tell me.""After."She let it go. She didn't ask anything else.The dress was laced into me at nine. Twenty-three hooks. My mother held my hand through eight of them. Carter texted at nine forty-seven

Inventory

"Coffee."Atlas was at the kitchen island in a different suit. The one from yesterday hung in a garment bag on the back of the dining chair, ready for a courier. He'd been up since five."Six in the morning.""On Sunday.""On the morning after our wedding."He didn't look up from the espresso machine. He pushed a mug across the marble in my direction. I took it. The coffee was made how I drink it. He'd made it without asking.I'd come into the kitchen in his pajama pants and a t-shirt I'd found folded on the dresser in the guest bedroom. The t-shirt was the MIT one. He'd left it there for me last night without saying so. I'd slept four hours sitting up in my wedding dress, then washed my face at three a.m. and changed."There are toiletries in your bathroom.""I noticed.""They're your brands.""I noticed that too."He didn't comment on it. He didn't have to. I'd walked into a bathroom at midnight in a strange apartment and found my shampoo, my conditioner, my face wash, the specific

Cosima

"My grandmother is expecting us at two."He'd said it at the breakfast island the next morning, the second morning of our marriage, in a tone he hadn't used yet with me. The tone was a sentence I'd hear him use in other rooms over the next two years; he used it when he'd been given a directive he wasn't going to argue with, and he used it now because his grandmother had told him the time and he'd written it down in the small leather notebook he kept in his jacket pocket."Westchester.""Yes."We left at one-fifteen. The driver took the West Side Highway up to the Henry Hudson and over to the parkway, the same route my father had taken me to my grandmother's house every Sunday of my childhood. We didn't speak much in the car. Atlas worked on his laptop for the first twenty minutes, then closed it and looked out the window.The Marchetti estate sat behind a stone wall at the end of a road I wouldn't have found on my own.The driveway was a quarter of a mile long, lined with poplars Vinc

Mother

"Lu."My father was at the door of the townhouse before I'd cleared the bottom step. He was in shirtsleeves. He'd been waiting at the parlor window since Theron had texted my mother twenty minutes ago to say I was on my way uptown.I'd come alone. Atlas had offered the driver, and I'd taken him; Atlas had offered to come with me, and I hadn't taken that. There were sentences I needed to hear in this house I didn't want him in the room for. He hadn't argued. He'd put me in the car at the curb, closed the door himself, and watched the car pull away from the awning of his building.I'd ridden uptown in the back of the car alone. The driver hadn't tried to talk to me, hadn't turned on the radio, hadn't done anything except glance at me in the rearview mirror twice during the drive uptown and look away when I'd caught him. He'd dropped me at the curb of the townhouse I'd grown up in, the four-story red brick with the iron railing my grandfather had bought in 1948, and he'd waited at the bo

Pieces

"He's downstairs, Lu."Sasha was at the gallery door at four in the afternoon. I was in the back office reviewing a Maren Olsson valuation for a Lauder family acquisition. The third Monday since the wedding. The first week was over. The press had moved on. I'd had four days of work I hadn't been able to do in October because Carter's mother had wanted me at three luncheons."Who's downstairs?""Carter. He's at the door."I set the valuation down. I looked at Sasha. She was holding her phone. She'd already pressed something."You called Theron.""I called Theron's office. They are sending the security detail.""How long.""Two minutes. Maybe less."I stood up. I walked to the window of the back office. I could see down to the sidewalk on Orchard Street. Carter was on the curb in a wool coat and the kind of unshaven face he hadn't worn at the wedding. He was holding a bouquet of white roses. He'd never bought me peonies in three years."Did you let him in?""No.""Don't."The security d

Sterling

TRIGGER WARNINGThis chapter contains: explicit sexual content (make-out scene), non-consensual touching from antagonist (brief, addressed), possessive behavior, sexual arousal, suggestive language. Reader discretion advised.CHAPTER 7: STERLING"Turn."Atlas was at the bedroom doorway. He'd come back from the office at six, showered in twenty minutes, dressed in a black tuxedo I hadn't seen before, and come down the hall to my room. He didn't enter. He stood in the open doorway. He'd been waiting four seconds for me to look up from the mirror.I turned.The dress was a column of black silk with a low back, cut by Sofia Renzi, the designer Cosima had sent me to that week. Sofia had dressed Cosima for thirty years; she had dressed Margaret Tang for ten. The fitting on Wednesday had taken ninety minutes. The dress arrived at the apartment that morning in a long flat box wrapped in tissue. Marisol had pinned my hair. My grandmother Marguerite Skye's earrings, the only piece of jewelry I'd

Office

"There's a board lunch on Tuesday."He said it on Sunday morning at the kitchen island, after we'd come back from dinner at my parents'. He'd been quiet at dinner. He'd answered Hudson's questions, told my mother a story about Beatrice in Florence, eaten the chocolate cake my mother had made because she'd made it once at his apartment three years ago at a fundraiser and remembered he'd liked it. He'd been at my parents' table for the first time. My father had apologized to him. Atlas had accepted the apology without making my father work too hard for it.We'd come home at ten. We hadn't spoken on the drive downtown. He'd gone to his study; I'd gone to my room. I'd come into the kitchen at seven on Sunday because I'd heard the coffee."A board lunch.""At the office. Marchetti Holdings. Twelve members. I'd like you to come.""Why.""Because the rooms I work in shouldn't be a room my wife has never been in."I looked at him over the rim of my mug."You want me seen.""Yes. And I want you

Hospital

"Lu. It's Mama."It was nine on Tuesday morning. I'd just sat down at my desk. The Sterling gala was on Saturday. The Pinnacle board move had been yesterday. I'd been alone in the apartment Monday night until eleven; Atlas had been at the office through it. He'd come home and slept three hours and left at six. I was tired. I hadn't told him I was tired."Mama.""Vivienne is in the hospital. She took too much of something last night. Not lethal. Her parents called us at four. She's at Mass General."I put down the valuation I'd been holding."Boston.""Boston.""She's not in New York.""No, cara. She moved two weeks ago. To get away. She is in inpatient now. She is awake. She is asking for you.""Mama, I'm not flying to Boston.""I'm not asking you to fly to Boston. I'm telling you what is happening. Her mother called me, not your father. Diana wanted me to tell you. She wanted you to know that Vivienne asked for you specifically."I sat with that for a long count."Mama.""Yes.""Don't

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