After I Gave My Husband Away, He Begged Me to Stay Chapter 04
Ethan hesitated.
“It’s just a legal technicality.”
“Answer me.”
“Megan’s.”
“Then what am I?”
His mouth tightened.
“My fiancee.”
“The fiancee of a married man?”
“Claire!”
Megan reached for my arm.
“Don’t say it like that. You make it sound awful.”
I stepped aside.
“If it sounds so awful, why didn’t it bother you when you signed the papers?”
Her hand stopped in midair.
Ethan pulled her behind him.
“Why are you being like this?”
“Megan is your best friend.”
“She is.”
I nodded once.
“Exactly. Which is why I won’t interfere with her marriage.”
“I canceled the wedding.”
Ethan stared at me.
“What?”
“The hotel, the planner, the photographer, the emcee. All canceled.”
His expression darkened instantly.
“Who gave you the right to cancel it?”
“I paid for it.”
“It was our wedding!”
“The groom is already married. What wedding am I supposed to have?”
He stared at me for two seconds, then reached for his phone.
“Stop doing this out of spite. I’m calling the hotel right now.”
I put the refund statement on the table.
“The ballroom has already been booked by someone else for next month.”
“They kept a thousand-dollar deposit and refunded sixty-five hundred to the original card.”
“The planner kept three hundred.”
“The photographer didn’t charge a cancellation fee.”
“The bridal shop is reselling my gown.”
Ethan picked up the statement and read it through.
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah.”
Megan sniffed.
“Claire, aren’t you just making this more humiliating for everyone?”
“Robert and Diane already told all the relatives.”
“If you cancel the reception, what are they supposed to tell people?”
I took the last photo off the wall.
“The truth.”
“The groom got married on August seventeenth.”
She went quiet.
Ethan slapped the refund statement onto the coffee table.
“Fine. Be angry.”
“We’ll talk about the wedding tomorrow.”
He bent down to steady the frame.
I kept my hand on the other side.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“I’m not living here anymore.”
Ethan frowned.
“What are you doing now?”
Megan lowered her head first.
I saw it.
“What?”
She said nothing.
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck.
“The district may do a residency check in early September.”
“So?”
“So for the next few weeks, you should stay with Ryan.”
I laughed out loud.
“Say that again.”
“They need to verify that Megan and Noah really live here.”
“Megan and Noah have to move in.”
“It’s just for the residency check. A month, tops.”
“You can pack up your things in the closet for now, and the primary bedroom…”
He stopped there.
I looked down at the floor beside me.
The new bedding I’d bought the week before was still stacked in the corner.
I had picked out the dining table.
I had paid for the curtains.
When the dishwasher broke twice, I’d been the one chasing down repairs.
Ethan had bought the condo before we were married.
Three years ago, when he got the keys, the place had been nothing but an unfinished shell.
I had put about forty thousand dollars into renovating it.
Back then, Diane had smiled so wide her face practically glowed.
“You’re going to be family anyway. What does it matter whose name is on the deed?”
Now the home I’d helped build was being handed over to another wife first.
“Fine,”
I said.
Ethan visibly relaxed.
“I knew you’d understand.”
“Pay me back for what I put into this place.”
His expression froze again.
“What renovation money?”
“Forty thousand dollars.”
I opened the spreadsheet on my phone and held it out to him.
“Materials, appliances, labor. I have the transfers and receipts.”
“My attorney will send you the itemized statement tomorrow.”
“You have seven days.”
“Claire, you’re really going to nickel-and-dime me now?”
“Aren’t you the one telling me to move out?”
“Temporarily!”
“I’m not moving out temporarily.”
I crouched down and put the screwdriver back into the toolbox.
“I’m moving out.”