Chapter 7: The Groom Comes to the Door
Dad didn't move from the edge of the bed.
The knock came again.
"Dad.
Come on."
He looked at me.
I looked at the door.
"Come in," Dad said.
The handle turned.
Julian stepped into the room already smiling — the practiced, easy smile he wore in photographs, the one that made him look like a man who had never needed anything from anyone.
He was in his suit.
White pocket square.
Hair done.
He looked like the wedding he had designed: expensive, effortless, borrowed.
He saw me and the smile stopped.
Not gradually.
All at once, like a switch.
"What is she doing here?"
"She came to talk to me," Dad said.
"I told you she would try this." Julian's voice shifted into something faster and harder.
"I told you she would show up and try to make today about her.
This is exactly what she does — she controls everything with money and then acts like she's the victim when someone pushes back."
"Sit down, Julian."
"We don't have time to sit down.
The ceremony is in twenty-five minutes—"
"Sit down."
Julian sat.
He took the chair I had been in.
I moved to stand near the window, which put the contracts on the desk directly in his line of sight.
He saw them.
His eyes moved across the pages quickly, then back to Dad's face.
"Whatever she told you—"
"Where are the documents you showed me?" Dad said.
"What?"
"The expense reports.
The transfer records.
The documents you showed me three days ago that you said proved she was stealing from her company." Dad's voice was flat and steady.
"Where are they?"
"I left them at home.
I didn't think I'd need them today—"
"You took them back from me.
I watched you put them back in your bag."
Julian's mouth opened.
Closed.
"I was protecting her," he said.
"I didn't want them sitting around where someone could find them—"
"You were protecting her." Dad repeated it without inflection.
"Yes."
"By showing them to me.
And then taking them back."
"Dad—"
"The contracts on this desk have your sister's name on them.
Every single one.
As the sole guarantor." Dad leaned forward slightly.
"Your name appears once.
As the groom." He paused.
"Did you know that when you signed the venue agreement?"
Julian's eyes went to the contracts again.
Something shifted in his posture — a small, almost imperceptible adjustment, like a man deciding which direction to run.
"She offered," he said.
"She insisted.
I told her it wasn't necessary—"
"That's not true," I said from the window.
He turned to look at me.
The easy contempt was back, but thinner now, stretched over something less certain underneath.
"Nobody asked you."
"You called me a loser in a family group chat this morning," I said.
"In front of twenty people.
After I spent a hundred and ten thousand dollars on your wedding.
So I think I've earned a sentence or two."
"You were stealing from your company—"
"Show me the documents."
"I don't have them here—"
"Then describe them.
What account numbers were on them?
What dates?
What transfer amounts?" I kept my voice level.
"You built a case against me.
You should be able to describe it."
Julian stood up.
"I don't have to do this."
"Sit down," Dad said again.
Quieter this time.
Which was worse.
Julian didn't sit.
But he didn't leave either.
He stood in the center of the room with his hands at his sides and his jaw tight.
"Chloe's trust fund releases today," I said.
"On the wedding date.
Four hundred thousand dollars.
You knew that before you proposed."
"That has nothing to do with—"
"A joint account you opened with her three months ago sent forty thousand dollars to a personal account the same week you showed Dad those documents." I watched his face.
"Whose account was it, Julian?"
The room was very quiet.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Then tell me I'm wrong.
Tell me where the forty thousand went."
He looked at Dad.
Dad looked back at him without expression.
"This is insane," Julian said.
His voice had risen slightly.
"She shows up here with some papers and some story and suddenly I'm on trial on my wedding day?
After everything I've done to protect this family from what she—"
"What have you done to protect this family?" Dad said.
Julian stopped.
"Name one thing," Dad said.
"Specific.
With a date."
The silence that followed was the longest one yet.
Julian reached into his jacket pocket and took out his phone.
He looked at the screen, then at Dad, then at me.
"Chloe is waiting," he said.
"Two hundred guests are waiting.
If you do this today—"
"The vendors are on hold," I said.
"Cedar Grove, catering, florist, photographer, band.
All of them.
Pending my written confirmation.
Which I have not sent."
Julian's phone was still in his hand.
His knuckles had gone pale around it.
"You wouldn't."
"I already did.
Three hours ago."
He stared at me.
For the first time since he had walked into the room, he looked like someone who had run out of prepared answers.
May you like
Then he did something I had not expected.
He called Chloe.
