Page 136 of The Wrong Groom

“You’re done,” he tells Travis. “Now, I want to see at least ten feet between you and Alexis, or⁠—”

“Oh, I’m not done,” Travis interrupts with a sneer, reaching toward me. I flinch away from him, but his hand comes to rest on my thigh. My skin crawls, and Gabriel’s eyes ignite with fresh rage. “If I were you,” Travis continues, “I’d think long and hard about whether you want this to become a scene.”

For a tense second, I’m scared that Gabriel is about to throttle him. The tension in the office is thick, palpable. But Gabriel stands perfectly still.

“You don’t have the power you think you have.” His voice is calm, deadly. Anger simmers just beneath the surface, but he keeps his tone measured.

Then he turns to me, something softening in his eyes. “Alexis, you deserve to understand what’s really happening here.”

I swallow hard, my heart racing. “What do you m-mean?”

“This man”—he gestures roughly toward Travis—“has been blackmailing me. He found evidence of tax evasion in Vérité’s records, and threatened to implicate you in the scheme if I didn’t file for divorce.”

The room seems to shrink, the walls closing in around me. Tax evasion? I glance at my parents, hoping that they’ll look just as shocked as I feel, but they don’t. My mother has gone pale, and my father’s expression is wooden, his lips pressed to a thin line.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Travis hisses.

“I’m protecting her,” Gabriel says evenly, his voice ice-cold.

“You’re fucking her over.”

“No, I’m not.” Gabriel crosses his arms across his chest. “For the past few weeks, I’ve been working with a team of lawyers to fix this mess. Alexis was never responsible for the tax scheme. We’ve put together legal cover for her. It’s solid. Indisputable.”

Travis’s eyes widen. His smug demeanor falters for the first time, like the ground beneath him has shifted and he’s struggling to maintain his balance.

“You can’t threaten her anymore,” Gabriel says. There’s a fierceness in his tone that sends a shiver down my spine. “So back the fuck off.”

Chapter 44

Alexis

A long silence falls over my father’s office. I’m reeling, clutching the chair for support. My stomach, already agitated from this morning’s bout of nausea, feels twisted, shaken.

“Is… is this t-true?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. I turn to my parents.

My father’s face is as expressionless as ever, but his jaw is clenched tight, as though he’s battling some internal war. My mother, though, is pale, her hands trembling ever so slightly at her sides.

“Don’t bother with them,” Gabriel says bitterly. There’s fury in his eyes as he stares down my father. “They were using you. The whole time.”

“What?” I try to meet my mother’s gaze, but she won’t look at me.

“They appointed you CFO. Had you sign documents that were part of the tax evasion scheme. You didn’t even know what they were. That way, if they ever got discovered, they could pin the whole mess on you. You’d take the fall.”

My mouth falls open, my blood running cold. “You… you can’t be serious.”

“I am.” His tone is apologetic, like he knows that he’s breaking something inside me with this truth.

“How… how could you do that to me?” I whisper, turning to my parents. Neither of them answer.

This whole time, I thought they were distant and cold because they didn’t know how to navigate their grief over Noelle’s death, or because they saw me as a means to achieve social standing and were disappointed in my failures. Now, though, the realization crashes over me that I’m nothing but a pawn to them. A tool, disposable, ready to be tossed away whenever it suited their needs.

They don’t give a shit about me. Not as a person, not as a daughter, not even as a status symbol.

“My lawyers found evidence that proves Alexis is innocent,” Gabriel says, his voice hard as he stares down my parents. “You’ll never be able to pin it on her if you go down for it.”

Then he turns to Travis.

“So. You’re more than welcome to go public with the shit you dug up on Vérité. It won’t hurt anyone but those two.”