The Bride Finds Out
Chapter 07 - The Bride Finds Out
Audrey found Claire in the garden an hour later, still in her wedding dress, mascara streaked from tears that had nothing to do with joy.
"I need to understand what's happening," Audrey said, settling onto the stone bench beside Claire with the specific, exhausted bewilderment of a bride whose celebration had been hijacked by a family secret she'd never once been told existed. "Are you really my aunt."
"Half-aunt, technically," Claire said gently. "Your grandfather was my biological father. I was given up at birth, and he arranged for my care privately. I didn't know any of this myself until three years ago."
Audrey absorbed that, tears still falling. "Does this mean the wedding's ruined."
"Your wedding isn't ruined," Claire said. "What your father was trying to do to your grandmother, that's what was wrong tonight. The wedding itself is still exactly as beautiful as you planned it to be."
"He's been lying to all of us," Audrey said slowly, understanding building behind her exhaustion. "About the mansion, about money, about everything."
"I think he's been lying for a long time," Claire confirmed. "I don't think you're responsible for any of it, Audrey. I think you're simply one more person in this family who deserved the truth considerably sooner than you received it."
Audrey was quiet for a long moment before speaking again. "My grandmother. Is she going to be okay."
"I intend to make very sure of that," Claire said. "She's the reason I came tonight instead of simply filing the court documents and letting attorneys handle everything from a distance. I couldn't stand the thought of her sitting on that floor, alone, being pressured into signing away her own home by her own son."
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Audrey reached for Claire's hand, a specific, tentative gesture of connection between two women who had been strangers an hour earlier and were now, suddenly, family.
"I'm glad you stopped him," Audrey said. "Even though it happened in the middle of my wedding. I think I'd rather know the truth about my own family on the hardest possible day than spend the rest of my life believing a lie on an easier one."
