The Wedding Was A Game And Her Father Was The Prize Chapter 05
“Germany? Claire Sutton, what the hell are you going to Germany for?”
Nolan finally cracked, the question ripping out of him.
The only answer was the flat, dead tone of a call disconnected from the other end.
Nolan stood in the middle of Logan’s crowded terminal, phone still pressed to his ear, unable to move.
The boarding calls looped overhead.
He redialed. A voice told him the number was no longer in service.
Bianca hovered beside him, urgent.
“Nolan honey, she’s just throwing a tantrum.”
“Let’s fly to Aspen first. She’ll be alone in Germany with nobody to run to. Give her two days and she’ll come crawling back on her own.”
Nolan didn’t answer. He was staring past her, into the shifting crowd.
The terminal was full of moving people, and none of them were her.
For a second, something hollowed out beneath his ribs.
Then he pushed the feeling down.
Claire had loved him for five years.
For five years, no matter how he and Bianca had gambled with her, no matter how many times they’d made her the punchline, she had always come back.
Germany? She was a scholarship kid in a country where she knew no one. She wouldn’t last.
This time would be no different.
He slid the phone into his jacket pocket, his face cold.
“Let’s go.”
Bianca’s tears vanished into a bright smile.
She looped her arm back through his, and they boarded the flight to Aspen.
As the plane climbed, Nolan stared out at the churning cloud cover, and the unease inside him only grew.
He opened his camera roll.
The wedding footage was still there.
Claire in her white gown, the lace veil half lifted, that bright red USDA stamp burning across her face.
She had stood there, in the middle of all that laughter, and she hadn’t cried. She hadn’t made a scene.
She had simply steadied her blind father, and walked him out of the church, one step at a time.
“Have a lovely honeymoon.”
Those words had lodged themselves in his chest like a splinter he couldn’t pull out.
Aspen was buried in snow.
In their suite, Bianca was cheerfully taking photos, drafting an Instagram Story.
The caption read.
γWon this husband in a bet. Turns out he’s pretty useful πβ¨γ
Nolan saw the preview just as she was about to hit post, and his face changed.
“Delete it.”
Bianca looked up, put out.
“Why? We’re literally married.”
“Nolan, don’t tell me you’re actually taking Claire Sutton seriously?”
He stared at her, disbelieving.
“Bianca, I signed that paperwork because I lost a bet. I did it to keep your parents off your back.”
“Claire is my wife.”
The look in his eyes startled her.
“You’re snapping at me? She’s the one being petty. She’s the one who refused to come to Aspen with us.”
“And, hello, you used to think it was funny too.”
That silenced him.
She was right.
He used to think it was funny.
When Bianca swapped Claire’s cereal for dog kibble, he had stood right there, watching her choke it down, and had handed her a glass of water with a smile.
When Bianca stuffed her birthday gift box full of Monopoly money, he had watched Claire go white and only murmured, “Bianca doesn’t mean anything by it.”
When the three of them had planned that skydiving trip after graduation, they had talked Claire into jumping first.
Then the two of them had sat in the cabin, filming her at her absolute worst, betting on whether she’d break down and cry the moment her feet hit the ground.
He had always known she was hurting.
He had just relied on the fact that she loved him. So he had never really cared.
Now, thinking of all of it, he couldn’t sit still.
He grabbed his coat and headed for the door.
Bianca scrambled after him.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to Boston.”
“We just got here! I keep telling you, she’s just being dramatic!”
Nolan didn’t slow down.
For the first time, something sharp and clear was rising in him.
Fear.
What if she wasn’t.
What if this time, Claire really was done with him.