Chapter 6 - The Guests Stop Celebrating
The champagne glasses remained lifted on some tables.
No one drank.
The guests had begun the night cheering for beauty, wealth, and a new beginning. Now they sat trapped inside a question no one dared ask aloud.
What was in the envelope?
The floral arrangements looked suddenly excessive.
White roses towered over plates of untouched food.
Crystal chandeliers reflected across the marble floor.
The microphone stand near the reception area stood unused.
Grace walked past it without looking.
She did not need amplification.
The room was already listening.
Connor still held the partially exposed report.
Alyssa stood beside him, bridal veil shaking with each breath.
Betsy hovered close, desperate to intervene but afraid of drawing more attention.
Grace spoke softly enough that people leaned in.
“I came here for one reason.”
Connor’s voice was strained.
“To humiliate me?”
Grace looked at him.
“You did that when you recognized the envelope.”
His lips parted.
No reply.
A murmur rippled through the room.
Alyssa turned toward the guests.
“Stop staring!”
That only made them stare harder.
Grace almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Alyssa’s panic was not just fear of scandal.
It was fear that whatever protected her story was thinning.
Connor looked at the report again.
Then at Alyssa’s pregnant stomach.
The question moved across his face before he spoke.
He did not ask it.
Not yet.
The prompt of the moment held that line back.
No unborn baby’s biological father.
No full report.
No medical procedure.
No legal consequences.
Only suspicion growing where celebration had been.
Betsy grabbed Connor’s arm.
“Do not do this here.”
Connor looked at her.
“Do what?”
Betsy froze.
He had caught her.
Because she knew which question he meant before he asked it.
Grace watched mother and bride exchange a glance.
There it was again.
A shared fear.
Connor finally saw it.
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And for the first time, he looked less like a groom and more like a man standing in the center of a trap he helped build.
Read Chapter 7 👉 Because the guests did not know the report, but Connor saw that Alyssa and Betsy were afraid of the same hidden question.
