Page 122 of The Fiancée Farce
Mr.Barnes looked confused. “Son, now’s really not the time to be airing grievances. I didn’t even ask if anyone objected.” He laughed uncomfortably, eyes scanning the room before coming back to Tucker. “So unless you have a legitimate reason why these two shouldn’t be wed—”
“Funny you should use that word,legitimate.” Tucker tapped atthe screen of his phone. “Because what my cousin and Tansy are trying to pull is . . . what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh right.Fraudulent.”
“What the fuck is happening right now?” Kat whispered. “Tansy?”
She sucked in a desperate breath, chest burning.
“This is absurd,” Katherine cried out. “Tucker! Madison, dear, do something about this!”
Madison sat in the front row beside Bitsie, hands resting primly in her lap, lips pursed delicately, staring off to the left, avoiding everyone’s eyes, looking almost contrite. And yet damnably silent.
Beside her, the rest of the Van Dalens’ expressions ranged from outright smug to infuriatingly beatific. Like they weren’t watching what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of Tansy’s life,Gemma’slife, fall apart. Like they weren’t part and parcel to it.
Tansy didn’t know what Tucker was doing, what he had up his sleeve, but it wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.
She dragged in another mouthful of air, trying and failing to stop the vicious roiling inside her stomach as bile rose up her throat.
“I mean, this is ridiculous.” Katherine climbed past the man sitting next to her, stepping out into the aisle. “Bitsie, control your son. He’s ruining my daughter’s wedding day.”
Funny how she was Katherine’s daughternow, when she was marrying into the Van Dalen family.
Bitsie rolled her eyes. “Pipe down, you insufferable sycophant. By God, do youevershut up?”
Another gasp rose up in the audience, Katherine’s the loudest among them all. “Inever—”
“Well, now you have.” Bitsie smiled tightly. “Now be quiet. My boy has something to say.”
“Erm.” Mr. Barnes cleared his throat, looking far out of his depth as he placed a hand over the mic on his jacket. “Personal grievances really should’ve been handled prior to the ceremony . . .”
“This is no mere personal grievance, sir. See, my integrity precludes me from staying silent on this any longer.” Tucker turned to Gemma and shook his head. “I can’t let you do this, cousin.”
Gemma rolled her eyes. “Oh, spare us. You don’t know the meaning of integrity.”
His eyes narrowed into vicious little slits. “Mr.Barnes, the relationship between my cousin and Tansy is nothing but a lie. Prior to my wedding, Gemma and Tansy had never even met each other. They certainly hadn’t been dating for six months.” His gaze slid over to Tansy, the corner of his mouth rising in a mean smirk that made her shiver. “In fact, that lie was concocted by Tansy, and my calculating, conniving cousin saw an opportunity to snow not just the family but everyone. Including you, sir.”
Voices rose, meshing and blending together. White noise in Tansy’s ears.
“Bullshit.” Gemma dropped Tansy’s hand and crossed her arms. Tansy immediately missed her touch, was adrift without it. “This is nothing but a desperate last-ditch effort to screw me out of my inheritance because the people who call themselves my family are bitter about the fact that my grandfather left me controlling interest of the company and not them.”
Mr.Barnes tugged on his collar, loosening his tie. “Now, there’s no need to make a scene—”
“If I had a dollar for every time I heard that,” Gemma muttered, just loud enough for Tansy to catch, but no one else.
“I had a feeling you’d deny it,” Tucker said, holding up his phone. “Which is why I brought with me proof that this entire relationship is nothing but a farce orchestrated tofraudulentlyinherit our honorable and esteemed grandfather’s majority shares of VDP. Since, as we all know, Gemma needed not only to marry prior to the annual general meeting in order to satisfy the conditions of our grandfather’s will, but it needed to be alegitimatemarriage, meaning not merely of convenience.”
For the first time since Tucker had stood, Mr.Barnes looked something other than uncomfortable. He frowned. “That’s a bold claim, young man.”
“A bullshit claim,” Gemma said. “He doesn’t have proof. He doesn’t have jack all. It’s his word against ours, so if we couldpleaseget this show back on the road—”
“You want proof?” Tucker held the phone up over his head in a dramatic display as he approached the altar, stopping directly in front of Mr. Barnes. “I have here over two dozen text messages, DMs, and audio recordings that prove that everything I’ve said today is true.” He turned to Gemma and smirked. “It brings me no pleasure to do this, Gemma. But it’s therightthing to do.”
He must’ve pressed a button, because Gemma’s voice, crackly and far away, came from the phone in his hand. Mr.Barnes’s mic picked it up, transmitting the recording for everyone in the room to hear.
I’ve known Tansy a month. Of course I’m not in love with her.
The ringing in Tansy’s ears became a roar, blunting the sound of everything around her, the dissonant overlap of voices, gasps, stifled laughter.
It was like she was sixteen again, standing in the hallway of her high school, humiliated.
