Chapter 1

While we were planning the wedding, Anne Delgado insisted we split every cost down the middle.

She laid her hand flat on the stack of receipts and gave me her reasons, and they were airtight.

"A wedding is about two people. Yes, you're marrying into my family, but it wouldn't be fair for me to carry all the costs alone."

I looked at her, and I didn't argue.

Seven years together. I didn't want to make an ugly scene over money.

She opened her laptop right away and pulled up a detailed spreadsheet, every figure precise to two decimal places.

Once everything was itemized, my share came to a hundred and eight thousand, eight hundred.

I paid it, and I thought that was the end of it.

Until the wedding, when the officiant reached the vows and turned to her.

"Miss Delgado, do you take Mr. Henson to be your husband, for richer or for poorer?"

With every eye in the room on her, Anne paused, thought for a moment, then pulled out a pocket calculator.

"The venue just told me they added two more tables last minute."

"Thirteen guests on my side, seven on yours."

In the dead silence, the calculator reading off each total sounded impossibly loud.

Finally, she held up her yellow payment code right in front of my face.

"Per head, I covered four thousand six hundred sixteen dollars and forty-six cents for you."

"Transfer it first. We'll get back to the ceremony after."

When I didn't move, her childhood friend, the one who called himself a men's independence expert, stepped in to back her up.

"It's all about equality between men and women now. Splitting the bill isn't about the money. It's about respect."

The best man's tux he was wearing was worth a hundred and eighty thousand.

Ninety thousand of it had come out of my pocket.

I swallowed the "I do" sitting in my throat.

Scanned the code, transferred the money, clean and quick.

Then I turned, pulled that stack of bills back out, and threw it down in front of the two of them.

"Since you love keeping accounts, let's settle every last one of them properly."

1.

Shock flashed across Anne's face. She grabbed my hand at once, her voice dropping low.

"This is not the time for you to throw a tantrum."

"There are people everywhere watching. Let's finish the wedding first."

Her grip was hard, her knuckles digging into the bone, the pain climbing up from my wrist.

So she knew perfectly well what mattered and when.

She'd chosen, at the worst possible moment, to humiliate me anyway.

I shook her hand off and gave a cold laugh.

"When I settle accounts, it's throwing a tantrum. When you do it, it's business?"

She furrowed her brow, her whole face disapproving.

"That's different."

"We went over the earlier bills together and you signed off on them."

"Dragging up old accounts now, if that isn't throwing a tantrum, what is it?"

Jackson Swanson stood beside her in his sharp suit, chin up, arrogant.

"Anne, he just wants to use the wedding to make a scene. Don't indulge him."

"The most important thing for a man is independence. A leech who does nothing but latch on and drain you doesn't deserve to marry into the Delgado family."

I looked him up and down.

The best man's tux on him cost thirty times what my suit had.

The day of the fitting, he'd spotted that one and wanted it instantly.

Anne swiped her card without so much as a glance at it.

"The price doesn't matter. What matters is that you like it."

When she handed me that bill, my chest gave a jolt.

"The best man's tux costs more than the groom's? Who's getting married here, him or me?"

She gave a distracted little sound and just pressed me to sign, quickly.

"This isn't the time to argue over that."

"Jack picked it for the style, not the price."

"You only get one wedding. Don't get hung up on saving a little money."

My pen hovered over the signature line, and my mind went back to all the suits she'd vetoed.

"This one's too flashy. We're getting married, not entering a beauty pageant."

"This one's over budget. Something practical and affordable is always the safest choice."

After all that looking, she settled on a plain, unremarkable Mandarin-collar jacket.

The tag was only six thousand.

Anne briskly transferred three thousand to me and then whisked Jackson off to pick out jewelry.

"Your outfit's so grand, you need a watch to balance it out."

That night, when we got back, she pushed the receipt in front of me.

"The best man's accessories. Look them over, and if there's no problem, give me the money now."

I took it and glanced at it. The number of zeros after the total in the bottom right corner was too many for me to even count.

The anger inside me started to swell.

I flung the receipt back in front of her.

"Who exactly are you marrying?"

She rubbed at the space between her brows, her eyes saying I was being a child.

"Jack barely managed to squeeze out the time to be the best man. Why do you keep nitpicking over this?"

"Ferdinand Henson, don't be so cheap."

I let out a laugh.

The entire cost of the wedding, less than ten percent of it had gone to anything for me.

And now she was blaming me for not being generous enough.

In the end, I gave her the money anyway.

I just wanted to see exactly how much she was willing to spend on Jackson.

But just now, even during the vows, she hadn't forgotten to run the tab.

The calculator reading off those totals, everyone below heard every word of it.

Each number it spat out landed like a slap across my face.

Making all my patience up to now look like nothing but a joke.