Three Votes, I Walked Out

Chapter 3 The Guest List

The Hollis family had a lawyer. His name was Evan Cortland, and he had handled the family trust for twenty-two years. I found his name on the engagement party invitation, in the small print that nobody reads, on the line that said For questions regarding the Hollis Family Trust, please contact.

I did not call him. Not yet. I was not ready to be the kind of person who calls a lawyer.

Instead, I started with the guest list.

It was a shared document, and I had access to it because I had made it. I scrolled through the names and the plus-ones and the seating chart, and I noticed something I had missed before: an entire section of the list, forty-three names, under a heading I had not created. Cole's side, extended. These were people I had never met, never heard of, never approved, and they were all marked as "confirmed" with dietary restrictions and hotel rooms and gifts already logged in a spreadsheet I had never seen.

I opened the spreadsheet. It was called Hollis Wedding Registry - Internal. The gifts were not from a store. They were transfers. Money. Tens of thousands of dollars, deposited into an account I did not recognize, with the memo line wedding gift - Hollis family.

I sat back. I had been planning this wedding for eleven months. I had paid for the venue deposit with my own money. I had paid for the flowers, the catering deposit, the photographer. I had paid for the invitations. Cole had said he would cover the rest, but the rest had never been covered, and I had assumed it was because he was busy, because the trust was complicated, because his father was handling it.

It was not complicated. It was a funnel. The wedding was a fundraiser.

I did not know what the money was for. But I knew it was not for us.

The next morning, I went to see Nina.

She lived in a condo in the hills, the one her parents had bought her when she graduated, the one she had never paid a dollar of rent on. She answered the door in a silk robe with a coffee in her hand and a look of mild surprise.

"You're up early," she said. "Come in."

I walked into her living room. It was decorated in the same style as the bridal suite, all velvet and gold and mirrors. On the coffee table, there was a stack of wedding magazines and a fabric swatch in ivory silk. My silk.

"You've been helping Linda with her dress," I said.

Nina sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. "I've been helping Linda with a lot of things. She's launching a brand. She needed a vision."

"She needed my design."

"She needed a dress that photographed well. You designed one. It photographed well." Nina took a sip of her coffee. "I don't understand why you're upset. This is what you do. You design things. People wear them. That's the job."

I looked at her. She had been my friend for eight years. She had been there when I got my residency, when my father died, when I first met Cole. She had held my hand at the funeral. She had told me I deserved someone who saw me.

"You told me to vote out my own dress," I said.

"I told you it looked bad on you. It did. I was being honest."

"You were being honest about how it looked on Linda."

Nina set down her coffee. "Okay. Let's talk about this. You're clearly spiraling. Cole called me last night, he's worried about you. He said you're being paranoid about the guest list."

"I'm not paranoid. I found the registry."

Her expression did not change. That was how I knew she already knew.

"The registry is a family thing," she said carefully. "It's not your business. The Hollis family has their own way of doing things."

"I'm marrying into the family."

"You're marrying Cole. That's different." She leaned forward. "Listen to me. You have a good thing here. Cole is kind. His family is wealthy. You're going to have a beautiful life. Don't blow it up because you're having a bad week."

"A bad week."

"Bad month. Whatever. The point is, you're not seeing clearly. You never do when you're emotional."

I stood up. I had heard this before. I had heard it from Nina when I questioned the bachelorette. From Linda when I questioned the centerpieces. From Cole when I questioned the guest list. From Patricia when I questioned the budget. You're emotional. You're spiraling. You're not seeing clearly.

I had spent eight years letting them tell me what I was feeling. I was done.

"Who is the money for?" I asked.

Nina's face went blank. "What money?"

"The registry money. The gifts. Where does it go?"

She stood up slowly. "You need to leave."

"Who is it for, Nina?"

"Leave." Her voice was sharp now, the velvet gone. "Go home. Talk to Cole. Stop making this into something it's not."

I walked to the door and opened it and turned back.

"Two out of three," I said. "That was always the rule. You and Linda vote, and I lose. But I just realized something. You and Linda are not the majority. You're just two people who agree. I'm allowed to disagree."

Nina's mouth opened, but I did not stay to hear what she said. I closed the door and walked down the stairs and got into my car and drove.