“I think I am,” he said.
“But your mother and I are going to make sure.”
Liam studied him with the seriousness only a five-year-old could manage.
“You have our eyes.”
A few guests looked away to hide their emotion.
Ethan gave a broken laugh.
“No,” he said.
“I think you have mine.”
Noah stepped halfway out from behind my gown.
Caleb followed him.
Ethan looked at all three boys, and whatever remained of the polished groom disappeared from his expression.
Caroline watched him from the foot of the altar.
Her engagement ring caught the light as she folded her hands together.
Eleanor hurried to her.
“Caroline, this spectacle changes nothing.
We can move the ceremony inside while our attorneys handle the situation.”
Caroline turned toward her.
“Those are not a situation.
They are children.”
Eleanor lowered her voice, but the garden remained quiet enough for us to hear.
“You cannot allow an unstable former wife to sabotage years of planning.”
Caroline looked at me, then at the three boys standing beside Ethan.
“What part of her behavior seems unstable?”
Eleanor had no answer.
Caroline approached Ethan.
For a moment, I expected her to demand that he choose between us.
Instead, she touched his shoulder.
“You need to learn the truth,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
He stood.
Caroline slipped the engagement ring from her finger and placed it in his palm.
“This does not mean I blame you for having children you did not know about,” she said.
“It means I will not begin a marriage in the middle of a lie this large.”
Her father stepped forward, but she stopped him with one look.
“The wedding is over,” she said.
Eleanor’s composure finally broke.
“You cannot make that decision in front of everyone.”
“I just did.”
Caroline walked toward the house without looking back.
Her family followed.
Within minutes, the guests began leaving in clusters, abandoning untouched champagne and rows of white chairs.
The wedding of the year dissolved without a ceremony.
Eleanor stood in the center of the aisle, surrounded by the decorations she had chosen and the silence she had created.
I should have felt triumphant.
Instead, I felt the weight of three small hands reaching for mine.
My sons had not come to witness revenge.
They had come to meet a father.
I told my assistant to take them into the sunroom with the snacks and toys we had brought.
She had been waiting near the vehicles, prepared for the moment the confrontation became too intense for them.
After the boys left, Ethan led Eleanor and me into the library.
The room had not changed since my marriage.
Dark shelves covered the walls.
Family portraits stared down from gilded frames.
The Montgomery men looked stern and important; their wives looked decorative and silent.
Eleanor closed the doors.
