Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Photograph
I had imagined many ways my daughter’s wedding week could go wrong.
Rain.
A sick caterer.
A damaged dress.
A drunken uncle.
I had never imagined standing behind a locked iron gate holding photographs of the groom kissing a pregnant woman while his own father told me to stop the marriage.
Greg lunged toward Richard.
“You had me followed?”
Richard did not move.
“I had a problem investigated.”
“I’m your son!”
“That stopped being a useful defense when you began lying to everyone.”
Greg looked toward me.
“Andrea, this is not what it looks like.”
There are sentences so predictable they almost become insulting.
I held up the photograph.
“You’re kissing a pregnant woman outside a hotel.”
“She’s a friend.”
Margaret muttered, “That must be a very friendly hotel.”
Greg glared at her.
Richard continued.
“Her name is Natalie Price.”
Greg turned.
“Stop.”
“No.”
For the first time, Richard’s polished expression cracked.
“You’ve spent your entire adult life assuming someone would clean up after you. I’m finished.”
Greg laughed bitterly.
“This from you?”
“Yes. From me.”
That answer seemed to wound him more than denial would have.
I looked at Richard.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because Samantha deserves to know what she is marrying.”
“You knew before today?”
His silence answered.
My anger shifted.
“How long?”
“Three days.”
“And you waited?”
“I needed confirmation.”
“You could have stopped this earlier.”
“Yes.”
At least he did not pretend otherwise.
“Does Samantha know?”
“No.”
I pulled out my phone.
Greg stepped forward.
“Do not call her.”
I looked at him.
That was the moment I stopped seeing him as Samantha’s fiancé.
He was simply a man standing outside my gate trying to control what my daughter was allowed to know.
I called her.
She answered immediately.
“Mom?”
“Come to the vineyard.”
“I’m not coming back there if you’re going to humiliate us again.”
“Greg is already here.”
Silence.
“With his father.”
Another silence.
“And I have photographs you need to see.”
Twenty-six minutes later, Samantha arrived.
She stepped from her car still wearing the floral dress she had worn that morning.
Her face was swollen from crying.
Greg moved toward her.
“Samantha, before anyone says anything—”
“Don’t.”
She looked at me.
I passed the photographs through the gate.
One.
Two.
Three.
Her hands began shaking.
By the fourth, she stopped breathing normally.
At the final photograph, she whispered, “She’s pregnant.”
Greg said, “It isn’t mine.”
Samantha looked at him.
“You know exactly what I’m asking.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Is the baby yours?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Samantha—”
“Is. The. Baby. Yours?”
“No.”
Richard spoke.
“A paternity test was scheduled yesterday.”
Greg spun toward him.
“You had no right!”
Samantha stared at Greg.
“Why would anyone schedule a paternity test if there was no possibility?”
Greg said nothing.
Her knees seemed to weaken.
I unlocked the pedestrian gate myself.
Not for Greg.
For my daughter.
Samantha stepped through and collapsed into my arms.
That should have felt like vindication.
It did not.
There is no victory in watching your child discover that the person she trusted has been lying to her.
She cried against my shoulder.
Then, through tears, she said something that hurt worse than everything Greg had said.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
I held her tighter.
“I know.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Behind us, Greg shouted.
“Samantha, don’t let her manipulate you!”
She slowly turned.
The grief on her face changed.
“What did you just say?”
“She planned this.”
I almost admired the desperation.
Greg pointed toward me.
“She canceled everything because she wanted control. She never liked me.”
Samantha wiped her face.
“My mother gave us an eight-million-dollar house.”
Greg stopped.
“She paid for our wedding.”
He opened his mouth.
“She let you insult her in her own home.”
“Samantha—”
“And this morning, I told her she wasn’t good enough to attend a wedding on her own property.”
Her voice broke.
“I said that because of you.”
“I never told you to phrase it like that.”
That sentence finished something.
Samantha stared at him.
Then she removed her engagement ring.
Greg’s confidence disappeared.
“Don’t.”
She held it through the gate.
“You wanted a wedding without my mother?”
“Samantha.”
“You got one.”
She dropped the ring.
It landed in the gravel between them.
Nobody moved.
Greg stared down at it.
Then Samantha asked, “What is Vineyard Legacy Holdings?”
His head snapped up.
Richard closed his eyes.
That reaction told us everything.
Greg looked toward his father.
“You showed them?”
“I showed Andrea enough.”
“Enough for what?”
Richard’s voice became cold.
“Enough to prevent you from stealing what another family spent forty years building.”
Samantha looked sick.
“Stealing?”
Greg shook his head.
“It wasn’t stealing.”
“What was it?”
“A business strategy.”
I had heard enough.
“Get off my property.”
Greg looked at me.
“I’m outside your property.”
“Then stay there.”
I turned toward the farmhouse.
He shouted after me.
“You think you won?”
I stopped.
“This isn’t a game.”
“You canceled the wedding. Congratulations. You embarrassed your own daughter.”
Samantha turned.
“No, Greg.”
Her voice was suddenly steady.
“You embarrassed me.”
He stared at her.
She walked toward me.
Then Richard said something behind us.
“Greg.”
We stopped.
“You should also tell them about the insurance policy.”
I turned around.
“What insurance policy?”
Greg’s face changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
Richard reached inside his jacket.
He produced one final document.
“Six weeks ago,” he said, “Greg attempted to purchase a five-million-dollar life insurance policy.”
Margaret asked, “On whom?”
Richard looked directly at Samantha.
“On his future wife.”
No one spoke.
Then Richard added:
“And according to the application, the beneficiary wasn’t Greg.”
He looked toward the vineyard.
May you like
“It was Vineyard Legacy Holdings.”
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