Chapter 4 - The Altar Abandoned
The grand lawn of Cliffside Resort was designed to look like an oil painting. Two hundred white Chiavari chairs were arranged in perfect concentric arcs facing an eight-foot circular arbor wrapped in imported white garden roses, white orchids, and cascading eucalyptus. Beyond the cliff’s edge, the Pacific Ocean rolled against the rocks three hundred feet below, turquoise and glittering under the morning sun.
It had cost one hundred and forty thousand dollars to make the world look this pure.
In the luxury bridal villa, Sutton Whitmore was having a panic attack in an antique French armchair.
"He’s not answering!" she shrieked, hurling her diamond-encrusted iPhone against the upholstered headboard of the king-sized bed. "Why isn't he answering? He was supposed to be in the groom’s suite at nine for the boutonniere photos!"
Briany, wearing her dusty-rose bridesmaid dress with the tags still tucked into the armpit so she could return it to Nordstrom on Monday, picked up the phone from the carpet.
"Sutton, calm down," Briany urged, her own voice shaking. "His best man, Tyler, said Alden’s car wasn't in the resort lot this morning. But he’s probably just... you know, picking up his parents from the Monterey airport. You know how particular his dad is about rental cars."
Althia sat at the vanity, her hands trembling so severely she could barely hold the mascara wand. The conversation from the hospital was still echoing in her ears.
*Federal defense contractor.*
*Grand larceny.*
*Surveillance footage.*
"Sutton," Althia whispered, her voice cracked. "We need to talk to Raymond Keller at the front desk. We need to tell him there was a mix-up with the credit card before—"
"I don't care about the stupid card!" Sutton yelled, turning on her mother with bared teeth. "Fallon is bluffing! She’s always bluffing! She’s a coward who hides behind her spreadsheets! She wouldn't dare call the police on us! She’s just trying to steal my spotlight like she always does because nobody has ever looked at her the way people look at me!"
The double doors of the bridal villa swung open with a heavy, resonant thud.
Both women jumped.
Alden stood in the entryway.
He wasn't wearing his wedding suit. He was dressed in dark selvage denim, a gray cashmere crewneck sweater, and a black leather jacket. In his right hand, he carried a sleek leather document folio.
Sutton let out a gasping sob of relief and rushed across the hardwood floor, her arms outstretched. "Alden! Oh, thank God! Where have you been? Do you know what Fallon did? She called Mom from the hospital and threatened to—"
Alden didn't step forward. He took a single step back onto the exterior stone breezeway, holding up his left hand, palm outward.
"Don't touch me, Sutton."
The words weren't loud, but they carried the cold, absolute finality of a closing vault door.
Sutton stopped dead in her tracks, her silk slippers skidding slightly on the floor. Her smile faltered, her painted lips trembling. "Alden... honey? What are you talking about? The ceremony is in two hours."
"There is no ceremony," Alden said.
The silence that fell over the villa was instant and suffocating. The makeup artist, who had been packing her brushes into a leather kit in the corner, immediately froze.
Althia rose from the vanity, her face contorting into an expression of desperate authority. "Alden, don't be ridiculous. Every bride gets wedding-day jitters. If this is about Fallon’s little accident—"
"It wasn't an accident, Althia," Alden interrupted, his eyes shifting to her with a look of such profound contempt that the older woman took an involuntary step backward. "Your daughter tripped Fallon deliberately. She kicked her good ankle and shoved her down twelve stone steps because Fallon’s brace didn't match the wedding photographs."
"That's a lie!" Sutton cried, her voice climbing an octave into a shrill, hysterical pitch. "I stumbled! The hem of my gown caught on the riser! Ask Briany! Briany was filming!"
Alden opened the leather folio, pulled out an eight-by-ten glossy photograph, and tossed it onto the glass coffee table between them.
The image was a high-resolution still frame captured from the resort’s ceiling-mounted security camera above the grand staircase. It showed Sutton’s face clearly—her mouth twisted into a deliberate smirk, her left foot hooked behind Fallon’s calf, her right hand planted firmly between Fallon’s shoulder blades.
There was no trip. There was no stumble. It was an unmistakable, textbook assault.
Sutton looked down at the photograph, her breath hitching in her throat as if she had been struck in the solar plexus.
"Where... where did you get that?" she whispered.
"The resort general manager was more than happy to pull the security archives when two Monterey County sheriff’s deputies arrived at his office forty-five minutes ago," Alden said evenly.
Briany let out a small, terrified squeak and dropped Sutton’s phone onto the sofa.
"Deputies?" Althia’s voice failed, coming out as a strangled croak. "Alden, please. You love Sutton. You’re going to be family. We can handle this privately. We can reimburse Fallon for the medical bills—"
"With what?" Alden asked, his gaze piercing right through her. "With the four thousand dollars you stole from her savings account when she was eighteen? With the home equity loan you defaulted on last month? Or with the forty-eight thousand dollars you charged to her corporate card while she was lying unconscious on the floor?"
He reached back into the folio and pulled out a stack of folded documents, dropping them beside the photograph.
"What is that?" Sutton cried, tears finally cutting dark tracks through her foundation.
"Those are the itemized vendor releases," Alden said. "I’ve officially informed the resort, the caterer, the florist, and the musicians that the wedding is canceled. I’ve signed the releases for my portion of the terrace deposit. Everything else—the ballroom rental, the seventy-five-dollar-a-head open bar, the vintage champagne towers, the balance on your dress—is entirely in your name and your mother's name."
"You can't do this!" Sutton screamed, lunging toward him, her manicured nails clawing at his chest. "You can't leave me here! My friends are outside! The Van Der Bilt family is on the terrace! My whole life is out there!"
Alden caught her wrists in mid-air. He didn't squeeze, but his grip was ironclad. He looked down at her, his eyes clear and entirely detached from the woman he had loved for two years.
"Your life is a fraud, Sutton," he said quietly. "You don't want a partner. You want an audience and a bank account. And I am neither."
He released her hands. She stumbled back, collapsing onto the Persian rug in a heap of white silk and crushed tulle.
"Alden!" she wailed, pounding her fists against the floor like a six-year-old child. "Alden, please!"
He didn't look down at her. He turned to Althia, whose face had aged ten years in the span of five minutes.
"The sheriff’s deputies are waiting in the main administrative lobby," Alden said. "They’re reviewing the credit card authorizations now. If I were you, I’d figure out who you’re going to call for bail, because Fallon’s legal counsel isn't offering a settlement."
Without another word, Alden turned on his heel and walked out through the double doors, leaving them open to the morning wind.
Outside, on the sun-drenched lawn overlooking the Pacific, the first group of wedding guests—dressed in linen suits, pastel silks, and wide-brimmed hats—were taking their seats, laughing and lifting glasses of sparkling water toward the sea.
May you like
None of them noticed the two marked sheriff’s cruisers slowly rolling up the private cobblestone drive, their light bars dark, but their engines humming with quiet, inescapable purpose.
***
