Chapter 2 - The Groom's Discovery
Ethan stopped so suddenly that the guest behind him nearly walked into his back.
His champagne flute lowered to his side as he stared at me. Then his eyes shifted to the garden hose in Vanessa's hand, the water still running across the grass, and finally to the phones several guests were holding up.
"Mom?"
The word wasn't loud, but it carried.
Vanessa turned toward him so fast that champagne splashed over the rim of her glass.
For the first time since I'd arrived, she looked at me without contempt. Her eyes moved from my soaked clothes to Ethan's face, then back to me as if she were trying to force the pieces into a picture she could understand.
"Your... mother?" she whispered.
Nobody laughed now.
Ethan set his glass on the nearest table and started across the lawn. The young server who had tried to help me stepped aside, but he didn't leave. The man who had been recording slowly lowered his phone.
Vanessa released the hose nozzle. Water stopped spraying, but the damage was already visible—my clothes clung to me, my shoes were buried in wet grass, and the entire party had witnessed exactly how she'd treated a woman she believed had no power.
She reached for Ethan's arm as he passed her.
"Ethan, wait. You don't understand. She came in here looking like—"
He pulled his arm away before she could finish.
Then he knelt in the wet grass beside me.
His eyes dropped to the grocery tote pressed against my chest.
He knew that bag wasn't something I normally carried.
And when he noticed the small recording light still glowing inside it, his expression changed again.
"Mom," he said quietly, "how long has that been recording?"
May you like
I looked past him at Vanessa.
"Long enough."
