Chapter 1 - THE DRESS THEY TORE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE
The sound of my dress ripping silenced two hundred wedding guests.
My mother-in-law, Eleanor Hale, stood behind me with a fistful of pale blue lace twisted around her jeweled hand. On my other side, the bride gripped the front of my maternity gown and pulled so hard that the outer layer split from my shoulder to my waist.
I stumbled forward and wrapped one arm around my eight-month pregnant belly.
The lining beneath the lace kept me covered, but that did not lessen the humiliation.
Phones rose around the ballroom.
Someone gasped.
Someone else whispered, “Oh my God.”
Chloe lifted her bare left hand beneath the chandeliers.
“My ring is missing,” she shouted. “And she took it.”
The diamond she claimed I had stolen was worth nearly a million dollars. It had been insured, photographed for magazines, and displayed to every guest who came within ten feet of her since the engagement.
Now Chloe pointed at me as if my guilt had already been decided.
I looked toward my husband.
Dominic stood several feet away in his black tuxedo, frozen beside the champagne fountain.
“Say something,” I whispered.
His gaze dropped to the marble floor.
“Just let them search you,” he said. “We’ll handle it later.”
Something inside me became completely still.
For three years, Dominic had told me his family needed time to accept me.
Time after Eleanor called my department-store dress cheap.
Time after Chloe told her friends Dominic had married beneath his class.
Time after they seated me with the hired staff at Thanksgiving because there was supposedly no room at the family table.
Every time I asked him to defend me, he used the same words.
Later.
Not tonight.
Don’t make it worse.
Eleanor yanked at the torn fabric again.
“Honest people have nothing to hide.”
“Take your hands off me.”
She smiled.
“What are you going to do, Vivienne? Buy another dress at a discount store?”
A few guests laughed nervously.
Chloe grabbed my purse from the nearby chair and turned it upside down.
My wallet, keys, lipstick, prenatal vitamins, receipts, and phone scattered across the floor. A black electronic access card slid beneath a table.
Chloe kicked through my belongings with the toe of her satin shoe.
“No ring.”
“She hid it somewhere else,” Eleanor said.
“Search her pockets.”
I stepped back.
“No one is touching me again.”
Dominic moved closer, but not to protect me.
“Vivienne, cooperate. Chloe is upset.”
I stared at him.
“Your sister tore open your pregnant wife’s dress in front of hundreds of people.”
“She lost something valuable.”
“And I didn’t?”
His face tightened.
“Don’t turn this into a marriage issue.”
“It became a marriage issue the moment you watched.”
Near the ballroom entrance, the wedding coordinator, Nora, stood unusually still. She was not looking at me.
She was staring at Amanda, Chloe’s cousin.
Amanda wore a champagne-colored gown and held a small silver purse tightly against her side. Her knuckles were white.
Above her, a tiny red light blinked from the security camera.
The ballroom cameras recorded continuously.
Chloe had forgotten.
So had Eleanor.
I gathered my torn dress with one hand and picked up my phone with the other.
Chloe laughed.
“Calling the police on yourself?”
“No.”
I dialed a number I had avoided using for three years because Dominic had begged me never to reveal the full truth about my family.
My father answered immediately.
“Vivienne?”
I looked at my husband.
“Dad,” I said. “It’s time.”
His voice became sharp.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Stay where you are. Nora already alerted us.”
I ended the call.
Eleanor folded her arms.
“What exactly do you think your father is going to do?”
The ballroom doors opened.
Two hotel security executives entered with the regional director and our family attorney.
Behind them walked my father, Jonathan Vale, chairman and majority owner of Vale Hospitality Group.
The company owned twenty-three luxury hotels across the United States.
Including the one where Chloe was holding her wedding.
Dominic’s face drained of color.
Chloe slowly released my torn dress.
My father crossed the ballroom without looking at anyone else. He removed his jacket and placed it around my shoulders.
May you like
Then he turned toward the Hale family.
“Who put their hands on my daughter?”
