On our wedding day, my mother-in-law had a gift envelope of ten thousand and one dollars ready for me.
"But back in our hometown, there's a rule. Before the new bride takes the money, she isn't allowed to say a single word, or all the good fortune scatters away."
I opened my mouth to speak, and she clapped a hand over it at once.
"Just hold it in a little longer. We'll all be one family soon."
At the tea ceremony, Antony Swanson's secretary knelt down beside me with a smile and called out that first sweet "Mom" in my place.
My mother-in-law beamed so wide she couldn't close her mouth.
When it came time to exchange rings, the officiant asked, "Bride, do you take him?"
I had barely lifted my head before one of Antony's female friends stepped forward first.
She gave me a helpless little smile. "You can't speak right now, so let me say this one for you."
"I do."
The whole hall broke into thunderous applause.
At the part where the groom kisses the bride, Antony's sworn sister suddenly looped her arm through his, her face flushed as she looked at me.
"You can't open your mouth right now, or the good fortune's gone."
"So this last step... let me do it for you."
The words had barely left her when Antony actually bent down and kissed her, and the two of them didn't part for a long, long time.
My mother-in-law clapped in delight.
Only after the ceremony ended did she, thoroughly satisfied, press the red envelope into my hand and prompt me, her face full of expectation. "Quick, say a few auspicious words."
I kept my face perfectly earnest. "Then I wish the four of them a wonderful life together. Nothing could be better."
1
The instant the words left my mouth, Meg Lambert's smile froze, then her face dropped like a stone.
"Cecily Fox, what's that supposed to mean?"
She snatched the red envelope right out of my hand.
"All we asked was for you to keep quiet for a bit. Was that really so much?"
"They just walked through the ceremony for you. It's not like they stole your husband."
"And if your man really can be led off by someone else, then that's your own fault for not being able to hold on to him."
"Besides, you're an orphan, a jinx with no father or mother. My Swanson family being willing to marry you is more good karma than you've earned in eight lifetimes."
Antony's brows were drawn tight too, his voice thick with impatience.
"Cecily, apologize to my mother."
"The thing I valued most about you was that you knew your place and did as you were told."
"In front of all these people, how dare you humiliate my mother like this?"
I was so angry I laughed out loud.
So in the eyes of Antony and his family, I was nothing but a girl with no one to lean on, an orphan they could squeeze however they liked.
Too bad they'd guessed wrong.
I had no parents, but money was the one thing I did have.
At eighteen I'd inherited everything my parents left behind, and over the years those assets had multiplied more times than I could count.
Everything Antony had scraped together in ten years of grinding wasn't even what I earned in one.
I'd meant to wait until the ceremony was over and give him a dowry that would stun the entire room.
Now, though, it looked like the surprise was about to turn into a shock.
I looked at Antony and smiled. "Apologize?"
"You had three women stand in and finish my wedding for me, and now you want me to apologize?"
"If you can't bear to let them go, then just marry all three of them."
Antony's face darkened.
"Cecily, when did you get so impossible to reason with?"
"Everything my mother did, wasn't it all for our own good?"
"And if I weren't so popular with women, how would I have found three people today to help you get through the whole ceremony?"
"How can you have so little gratitude?"
At that, the secretary stepped forward, her eyes rimmed red.
"Ms. Fox, Mr. Swanson and I are only boss and employee."
"To help you today, I called someone Mom in front of all these people."
"If it ends up affecting my chances of marriage and children down the road, don't you owe me some kind of answer?"
The words had barely finished when the female friend beside her curled her lip too.
"Exactly."
"Antony and I have been thick as thieves since we were kids, I've seen him bare-bottomed more times than I can count, but I just exchanged wedding vows with him. It gives me the creeps, and you owe me compensation for that."
The sworn sister looked even more wronged, her eyes turning red.
"I've never done anything that intimate with him in front of so many people."
"For the wedding to go smoothly just now, he took my first kiss. You can't just let me suffer that for nothing, can you?"
The three of them went back and forth, one line after another, as though they were the ones who'd truly been cheated.
Meg Lambert immediately pulled all three of them behind her, her face full of pity.
"Good girls. You've really been through so much."
Then she spun around, seized my wrist, and forcibly wrenched the gold dragon-and-phoenix bracelet off my hand.
Before I could even react, she reached out and yanked at my diamond earrings, and a searing, burning pain shot through my earlobes.
"Without them, you wouldn't have gotten married at all today!"
"From now on, they're the ones you owe."
"Every bit of the bride price my Swanson family gave you, pay it all back to them!"
"And that's not all. From now on, every holiday, you'll come to their door with gifts to thank them."
