He Let My Bestie Test Our Marriage, So I Married His Brother Chapter 08

A light rain fell on my birthday.

I took Alex to the cemetery to visit Mom.

The stone steps were slick. Alex stayed half a step behind me without reaching for my hand. Whenever I lost my footing, he reached out to steady my elbow.

Dylan had always complained that I walked too slowly.

Alex seemed to have all the patience in the world.

A layer of damp leaves covered Mom’s grave.

Alex rolled up his sleeves and cleared them away one by one. Then he placed her restored notebook in front of the headstone.

The torn pages had been carefully bound together again. Even the dirty marks Mrs. Quinn had left across the writing had faded considerably.

I traced Mom’s name with my fingertips. My eyes burned.

“When did you get this fixed?”

“Last night.”

“Didn’t you say you’d take it in for restoration?”

“I didn’t want you to have to wait, so I stayed and helped with it all night.”

He said it calmly, but several small paper cuts marked the backs of his hands.

Alex placed a bouquet by the grave.

“Hello, Mrs. Bennett. I’m Alexander Sterling.”

“I know Elise doesn’t love me yet.”

“That’s okay. I can wait.”

My nose stung. I turned my face away.

“Alex… when did you start liking me?”

“At a college startup competition.”

He smiled faintly.

“Someone knocked over my prototype and broke it. Everyone told me to give up.”

“You were the only one who crouched down to help me pick up the pieces. You spent the entire afternoon helping me.”

It had been such a small incident that I’d forgotten about it entirely.

He’d remembered it for eight years.

“You said nobody’s hard work deserved to be trampled on just because someone else said, ‘Let it go.'”

He looked at me, his expression soft but restrained.

“Elise, I think that was the day I first wanted to stand beside you.”

My phone vibrated.

My attorney had sent me a recording from the mediation meeting.

[Jade admitted she used another patient’s prenatal test report.]

[The investigators also recovered messages between her and Dylan. You should hear this.]

I played the recording.

Dylan’s voice came through, tightly controlled.

“You weren’t pregnant. Why did you trick me into marrying you?”

Jade gave a short laugh.

“If I hadn’t lied to you, would you have married me?”

“Why did you keep taking things that belonged to Ellie?”

“Taking?”

Jade’s voice rose sharply.

“You were the one who let me try her birthday cake first. You put her ring on my finger. You married me at the courthouse.”

“All I ever did was hold out my hand. When did you ever say no?”

Only Dylan’s ragged breathing followed.

But Jade wasn’t finished.

“On the day we got married at the courthouse, I told you the baby needed you to be its legal father.”

“You could’ve said no. Instead, you sent Elise to the car for your phone and went through with the wedding.”

“You knew she’d be hurt.”

“You just figured that no matter what you did, she’d still be waiting when you came back.”

Wind swept through the cemetery, biting cold.

So it hadn’t been an accident.

That day, Dylan had believed Jade was pregnant. He’d known the marriage would be legally binding. He’d known exactly what I would see when I returned with his phone.

Rehearsing the process for me had been nothing but a convenient excuse for his betrayal.

I’d once believed he simply didn’t know where to draw the line.

Now I understood that he’d made a choice every single time.

And every time, I had been the one he sacrificed.

Alex didn’t ask if I was okay.

He just opened an umbrella and stood quietly beside me.

I wiped the last moisture from the corner of my eye and faced the headstone again.

“Mom, I got married.”

“He’s a good man.”

“This time, I chose right.”

On the way down the hill, I reached for Alex’s hand.

We reached the last stone step when he suddenly stopped.

I followed his gaze.

Under a cypress tree a short distance away stood Dylan, soaked to the skin. He held a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, seven years too late.

Seven years ago, I’d waited for him here all day.

Now he’d finally come, and I no longer needed him.

He stared at our joined hands.

The bouquet slipped from his arms and fell to the wet ground.

His eyes red, he started toward us, one step at a time.