Chapter 10 - The Wedding My Family Wasn’t Invited To
Adrian and I married in October.
Thirty-seven guests.
A garden behind an old historic inn.
No press.
No business partners we didn’t know.
No strategic seating chart.
Cassandra wasn’t invited.
Neither was Dad.
Mom was.
That decision took weeks.
When I told her, she cried.
“I don’t deserve it.”
“This isn’t about deserving.”
“What is it about?”
“Whether I want you there.”
“And you do?”
I thought carefully.
“Yes.”
Mom sat in the second row.
She did not wear champagne sequins.
She wore pale blue.
Simple.
Quiet.
When I walked down the aisle, she covered her mouth.
Adrian waited beneath an oak tree.
There were no promises about wealth.
No vows about social status.
He said:
“I choose the life we create when nobody is watching.”
I almost lost my composure.
Afterward, while guests danced under string lights, Mom approached me.
“You look happy.”
“I am.”
She touched my arm.
“I spent years thinking security meant staying close to power.”
I looked toward Adrian laughing with friends.
“What do you think now?”
“That sometimes security is knowing you can leave.”
Across town, Dad was apparently furious that photos of my wedding had reached mutual acquaintances.
Cassandra told me later he had called it “a pathetic little ceremony.”
I laughed when I heard that.
May you like
Because it was the happiest day of my life.
And none of his money had touched it.
