The Wedding House He Built for Her, Not for Me Chapter 05

The Wedding House He Built for Her, Not for Me Chapter 05

Garrett slammed his hand against the edge of the dining table. “Clara, outside. Now.”

He gripped my arm and dragged me out to the balcony, slamming the glass sliding door shut behind us, though the muffled laughter of Valerie and Mrs. Taylor still bled through.

His voice was dripping with absolute ice. “Did you seriously have to humiliate me tonight?”

I looked at him calmly. “Am I the one being humiliated here?”

“I already told you, Mrs. Taylor is sick,” Garrett said, his hands coming down hard on my shoulders. “Do you really have to pick a fight over something this trivial?”

“What about me?” I asked.

He went completely rigid.

I pulled out my phone and held it up to his face, displaying the picture of the warehouse. “My mother’s painting. Why did you tell them to throw it away?”

Garrett glanced at the screen, a flicker of guilt crossing his face before he quickly covered it up. “The frame was falling apart. I was going to have someone re-frame it for you.”

“Then why is the project title called Valerie’s Former Residence Replicated? Why does the wedding itinerary revolve entirely around her? And why does Mrs. Taylor think this house belongs to the two of them?”

Garrett remained silent for a long moment before letting out a dry, humorless laugh. “You certainly did your homework.”

I kept my eyes locked on his, refusing to look away.

It was as if he finally gave up trying to paint over the cracks, his demeanor settling into a cold, flat calm.

“Clara, the history between Valerie and me is a lot more complicated than you think. She was supposed to marry me years ago, but then an accident happened, and Mrs. Taylor has always carried a grudge against me for ruining her life.”

“And?” I prompted.

Garrett’s hands slid down from my shoulders, his fingers lightly wrapping around my wrist.

“So stop making a scene. The wedding is going forward exactly as planned, you’ll have this house to live in, and I will give you the legal status of my wife.”

“Legal status?” I repeated.

He looked at me, his eyes carrying a bizarre trace of pity that I couldn’t quite decipher.

“You look a lot like her, you know. Especially when you’re being quiet. The very first time I saw you, that similarity was the only reason I noticed you.”

So that was the big secret.

Inside the glass door, Valerie was carefully adjusting the sunflower canvas to make sure it hung perfectly straight.

Garrett’s voice dropped near my ear like a heavy weight. “If you didn’t look so much like her, I probably never would have pursued you in the first place.”

Oh. I see.

As I pulled my hand out of Garrett’s grasp, Valerie pushed the sliding glass door open.

Acting as if she hadn’t caught a single word of our conversation, she smiled brightly and asked, “Mrs. Taylor mentioned she wants to see the master bedroom. Is that okay?”

Garrett looked at me, entirely confident that I wouldn’t dare cause a scene in front of an elderly guest. “Clara, let’s go back inside.”

I nodded slowly. “Alright.”

He let out a visible sigh of relief.

I walked straight into the master bedroom, marched over to the sunflower canvas, and ripped it off the wall with a sharp tug.

The room fell completely silent.

Garrett’s face darkened. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I set the painting face down on the carpet. “This isn’t what belongs on this wall.”

Mrs. Taylor blinked in utter confusion. “Then what belongs there?”

Valerie’s face drained of color as she stepped forward. “Clara, please don’t do this.”

I kept my eyes fixed entirely on Garrett. “You just said that if I didn’t look like her, you never would have noticed me.”

Mrs. Taylor’s hand trembled, nearly dropping her glass.

A flash of genuine panic broke through Garrett’s eyes, but he suppressed it just as quickly. “That’s not what I meant. Stop taking things out of context.”

I smiled faintly. “Then please tell me, what exactly did you mean?”

Valerie reached out and tugged at his sleeve. “Garrett, forget it. Clara isn’t in the right state of mind to listen to reason right now.”

Garrett looked at me, his voice dropping to a forced, lower register. “Clara, we’ll talk about this later tonight.”

“There is no later,” I said, reaching into my purse to pull out a legal document, which I dropped flat onto the bedside table. “This is a formal cancellation notice for the wedding. I’ve already sent copies to the coordinators, the venue, and both of our families. I will personally cover all the non-refundable deposits.”

Garrett stared at the document as if he couldn’t comprehend the words on the page. “What are you talking about?”

“The wedding is off,” I said.

His knuckles cracked as his fists clenched tight. “Clara Lennox, don’t you dare use our wedding as a threat.”

I cast one last glance at the blank patch on the wall.

“It’s not a threat. It’s an announcement.”

“What is going on here? Isn’t this supposed to be your wedding with Valerie?” Mrs. Taylor demanded, her face pale as she sank heavily into a nearby armchair.

“Mrs. Taylor, let’s go out to the living room and have some tea,” Valerie urged, quickly guiding the older woman out the door.

By the time Mrs. Fowler rushed over after receiving the news, the townhouse was in absolute chaos.

She burst through the front door and grabbed my hands immediately.

“Clara, how could you make a massive decision like this without consulting anyone? Garrett is buried in work at the firm and can’t handle every little detail. Can’t you be a little more supportive?”

I looked at her and said, “I’ve been supportive for two years.”

Mrs. Fowler’s anger flared. “Being supportive means humiliating our family in public? How are our friends and business partners going to look at the Fowler family after this?”

Garrett stepped up to me, his tone taking on an uncharacteristic gentleness. “Clara, call the vendors and pull the cancellation notice back. I’ll overlook everything that happened today and chalk it up to a temporary emotional breakdown.”

I stared at him. “You still think I’m just throwing a tantrum.”

He rubbed his temples, letting out a heavy sigh. “Isn’t that exactly what this is? I know you’re in love with me, Clara.”

I actually let out a genuine laugh.

Even at this point, his ego was so massive that he believed I was just playing hard to get because I couldn’t bear to lose him.

I slowly slid the engagement ring off my left ring finger and dropped it directly on top of the cancellation paperwork.

Garrett’s gaze locked onto the ring, freezing completely.

“Garrett, I am not a placeholder for Valerie Hayes, and I have absolutely no interest in living in a monument built to honor your old romance.”

He reached out to grab the ring, his fingers brushing against the back of my hand, but I stepped back, evading his touch entirely.

Garrett’s hand hung uselessly in mid-air.

In that exact moment, it seemed to finally click in his head that I wasn’t crying, nor was I begging him for an explanation.

I was simply walking away.

Garrett stood in front of that empty bedroom wall, staying awake through the entire night.

Everyone else had long since cleared out of the townhouse. The sunflower canvas lay abandoned on the carpet, and he had squeezed the diamond ring in his fist so hard that his palm was raw and blood-red.

He dialed my number over and over again, but the automated voicemail prompt was the only thing that answered him.

When he opened our chat, his last text sat beneath a small, cold notification: [Message could not be delivered.]

Garrett stared at those words, his throat tightening.

He drove out to the corporate warehouse in the middle of the night, digging through the dark storage rooms until he found the magnolia painting.

Under the dim warehouse bulbs, the crease across the canvas looked like an unhealed scar running straight through the flowers.

Garrett reached out to touch it, a thick layer of dust coating his fingertips.

He suddenly remembered the very first time I had shown him my mother’s artwork. I had carefully wiped down the frame and told him with a bright smile, “This is the piece of spring my mom left behind just for me.”

Back then, he had merely muttered a distracted response while keeping his head down, replying to a text from Valerie.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

It was a text from Valerie: [Garrett, Mrs. Taylor feels terrible about what happened. Please don’t blame Clara, I’m sure she only did it because she loves you too much.]

Garrett stared at the phrase loves you too much, and for the first time in his life, he didn’t text her back.