Chapter 3 - THE GHOST OF FATHERHOOD
The wedding ceremony was a corpse that refused to be buried.
The string quartet had stopped playing,
and the priest stood at the altar looking at his Bible as if the words had suddenly turned to Latin.
Ethan was still standing there,
his eyes locked on Caleb.
Caleb,
the one who looked most like him,
was currently playing with the emerald ring on my finger.
Ethan’s hands were shaking,
the white rose on his lapel wilting in the cold air.
He ignored Caroline.
He ignored his mother.
He walked down the three steps of the altar and toward us.
"Ava,"
he said,
his voice barely a whisper.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
I stood up,
letting the boys stay seated in the plush chairs.
"I stood in your office for three hours five years ago, Ethan."
"I had the ultrasound in my purse."
"Your mother told me you were in a meeting."
"Then she told me you had already signed the papers and were leaving for London."
"She told me you never wanted to see me again."
Ethan’s gaze snapped to Eleanor,
who was standing like a pillar of salt near the aisle.
"Mother?"
"She was a distraction, Ethan!"
Eleanor shouted,
her composure finally evaporating.
"You had a legacy to build!"
"A Hastings marriage was the only way to save the firm!"
"You lied to me,"
Ethan said,
the realization hitting him like a physical blow.
"You told me she had an affair."
"You told me the baby wasn't mine."
The crowd began to buzz with a new level of intensity.
Lies,
betrayal,
manipulation—the Montgomery brand was being stripped bare in front of every person who mattered.
Caroline Hastings turned and looked at her father.
The Senator didn't wait for a signal.
He walked to the altar,
grabbed his daughter’s arm,
and began to lead her away.
"This wedding is over,"
he barked.
"Montgomery,
consider our contracts void."
Caroline didn't cry.
She looked at me with a strange expression—not hatred,
but a terrifying kind of envy.
She was escaping the cage I had already been through.
As they vanished toward the mansion,
the guests began to scatter like autumn leaves in a storm.
Waiters stood with trays of hors d'oeuvres that no one would ever eat.
I looked at Ethan,
the man I had once thought was my entire world.
He looked small.
He looked like a child who had just realized his mother had stolen his future.
Noah tugged at my hand.
"Is that the man, Mama?"
Ethan knelt down,
his expensive tuxedo trousers hitting the stone floor.
"I'm your..."
He stopped,
the word father catching in his throat like a shard of glass.
"I'm Ethan,"
he finished lamely.
Liam looked at him with a level of scrutiny that would have intimidated a CEO.
"You made our mama cry,"
Liam said.
"We don't like people who make her cry."
Ethan flinched as if the five-year-old had struck him.
I felt a strange sense of peace.
The revenge was not in the money or the seats.
It was in the fact that my sons didn't need him.
I had raised them to be strong,
and they were.
"The SUV is waiting,"
I said,
gesturing to my security detail.
"Ava, wait!"
Ethan stood up,
reaching for me.
My lead guard,
a mountain of a man named Elias,
stepped between them.
"Don't,"
I said.
"You chose your mother five years ago, Ethan."
"I’m just making sure you live with that choice."
I led the boys back toward the convoy.
Behind us,
Eleanor Montgomery was screaming at a waiter to bring her a drink.
But the waiter was already walking away.
May you like
The Montgomery era was over.
And the Vance dynasty was just beginning.
