Chapter 4 - The Checkmate
The gasp that ripped through the crowd was unanimous.
Brooke Hensley lowered her bouquet, her eyes darting frantically from Julian, to the whispering guests, and finally resting on the three undeniable replicas of her fiancé sitting in my row.
"Julian?" Brooke asked, her voice trembling, echoing down the long aisle. "What is going on?"
Julian didn't look at his bride. He didn't look at his mother, who was currently slumped against the pew, gasping for air as the reality of her monumental, catastrophic mistake crushed her chest.
He only looked at the children.
"Clara..." Julian choked out, his voice cracking, entirely abandoning the altar and taking a stumbling step down the marble stairs. Tears instantly flooded his eyes. "Are they...?"
"Yours?" I finished for him, my voice perfectly calm and carrying just as clearly as Maya's had. "Yes. The fertility specialist said it would be difficult, Julian. Not impossible."
I stood up. I didn't yell. I didn't cry. I simply looked at the shattered man who had chosen cowardice over love.
"Your mother sent me an invitation so I could see what I lost," I stated, my eyes shifting to Vivian, who looked as though she were aging a decade by the second. "But I didn't lose anything. You did."
Julian sobbed, reaching a desperate, trembling hand out toward his sons. "Clara, please. Let me see them. I didn't know."
"You didn't know because you didn't follow me," I replied, my voice dropping to a lethal chill. "You chose your mother's legacy. So you can keep it."
I turned to my children, giving them a warm, reassuring smile. "Come on, little ones. The show is over. It's time to go get ice cream."
I took Maya and Leo's hands, and Lucas grabbed his brother's. We turned our backs on the altar and walked back up the aisle.
"Clara, wait! Stop!" Julian screamed, the polished heir completely breaking down, trying to push past his groomsmen to follow us.
"Julian, don't you dare!" Vivian shrieked, desperately grasping at her son's tuxedo jacket.
"Get off me!" Julian roared, violently shoving his mother's hands away with a lifetime of pent-up rage. "You did this! You ruined my life!"
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Brooke threw her bouquet onto the marble floor and turned around, fleeing out the back doors in tears.
I didn't turn around to watch the multi-million-dollar empire collapse. I didn't need to. As I pushed open the heavy wooden doors and walked my children out into the bright Charleston sunlight, the sound of Vivian Prescott's frantic sobbing and Julian's anguished screams echoed behind me, trapped forever inside the cathedral they had built.
