The Prenup Evaluation That Ended Five Years Chapter 10

Three months later.

The gates of the Whitmore estate stood open.

A helicopter circled overhead, camera trained on the sprawling lawn below.

White roses, flown in from the Ecuadorian highlands, blanketed the grounds as far as the eye could see.

This wasn’t just a wedding. It was a live broadcast to the rest of the world.

My gown was custom. A master French dressmaker had spent a hundred days on it by hand.

Over a thousand custom-cut diamonds were sewn into the skirt.

I took my father’s arm and stepped onto the aisle. Petals covered every inch of it.

At the far end, Elliot stood waiting in a white tailcoat.

At the same time.

South side of town. A construction site baking under ninety-five-degree heat.

Gavin was in rough work clothes.

Cement dust and yellow mud caked the fabric.

He pushed a wheelbarrow full of wet concrete along a sagging plank, every step a fight for balance.

The wood groaned under the weight.

The handles ground against the burst blisters on his palms.

“Ten minutes! Take a break!”

The foreman yelled from the shade.

Gavin dropped the wheelbarrow and sank down beside a pile of bricks.

He wiped his mud-crusted hands on his pants.

He pulled a secondhand phone from his pocket. The screen was shattered, cracks webbing across every inch.

He opened a video app.

The wedding livestream was pinned to the top of the feed.

The screen was tiny, fractures cutting across the picture.

He stared at the face on the screen.

The same face that used to cook him pasta in their tiny rental.

The same face that had stood beside him in the rain, handing out flyers.

Now she wore flawless makeup, glowing under lights he’d never stand beneath.

She was walking toward another man.

The ceremony reached the vows.

Elliot took a black velvet folder from his best man.

In front of every camera in the room, he placed it in my hands.

“A forty percent equity stake in the Whitmore Group. It’s yours.”

“My wedding gift to Mrs. Whitmore.”

“She is priceless. No depreciation worksheet in the world could put a number on her.”

Gavin’s shoulders shook.

The phone slipped from his hand and hit the gravel.

The screen flickered.

The livestream shrank to a corner of the screen.

A breaking-news banner pushed in above it.

[Breaking: Former attorney Sloane Barrett has pleaded guilty to attempted murder against a fellow inmate. The court added fifteen years to her sentence today. She will die behind bars.]

Gavin stared at the headline.

He doubled over, his unhealed gastric ulcer flaring as a violent spasm ripped through his stomach.

He gagged, heaving dark blood onto the gray concrete.

He reached for the phone with a trembling hand.

His fingertip barely grazed the screen.

The phone died. The screen went black.

In the dead glass, a face stared back at him, hollowed out, barely human.

Sunken eyes. Hair gone gray.

Back at the estate, fireworks lit up the sky.

Confetti drifted down like snow.

I turned and tossed my bouquet into the air.

Elliot tilted my chin up and kissed the tears from the corners of my eyes.

Back at the construction site.

The foreman walked over and kicked the plastic bucket next to Gavin.

“Quit the act!”

“Get up and finish hauling this load or you don’t see a dime today!”

Gavin sagged against the pile of bricks.

He closed his eyes.

The roar of the city swallowed everything whole.

Wind tore through the construction site, lifting a cloud of gray dust into the empty air.