Chapter 3: The Broken Altar
Chapter 3: The Broken Altar
The silence that had gripped the estate during my arrival was nothing compared to the absolute paralysis that took hold as Ethan slowly walked down the aisle toward the back of the tent. He ignored his groomsmen, he ignored the frantic, hushed warnings his mother was throwing at him from across the floor, and he ignored the grand organ music that had just begun to play to announce the arrival of the bride's limousine.
He walked as if he were trapped in a dream, his eyes locked entirely on the three boys sitting at Table 27.
"Chloe..." Ethan’s voice was broken, a ragged whisper that sounded nothing like the confident, detached man who had signed our divorce papers five years ago without a second glance. He stopped three feet from our table, his gaze jumping from Liam, to Noah, to Caleb. "Are they... are they mine?"
"They are their own people, Ethan," I said coldly, standing up to place myself protectively in front of my sons. "But if you're asking about their paternity, yes. They are your sons. The ones your mother told me I would never be allowed to keep if I stayed in Chicago."
Ethan flinched, looking over at Eleanor, who was desperately trying to signal the security team at the edge of the pavilion. "Mother... you knew? You knew she was pregnant when you forced the separation?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Ethan!" Eleanor hissed, stepping between him and the table. "She’s a gold-digger who hid them away so she could bring them out at the exact moment it would cause the maximum amount of damage to our family’s reputation! Think about the Hastings merger! Think about Caroline!"
Right on cue, the rear doors of the bridal pavilion burst open. Caroline Hastings, dressed in a sweeping hundred-thousand-dollar French lace gown, stepped onto the runner, flanked by her father, Senator Raymond Hastings. But instead of a room full of adoring guests standing up to admire her, she was met with a crowd that was completely turned around, watching the dramatic confrontation at the back kitchen entrance.
Senator Hastings took one look at the scene, his experienced political eyes instantly assessing the absolute disaster unfolding in front of him. He looked at Ethan, who was staring at three children who looked exactly like him, and then he looked at me, recognized my face from the recent cover of Forbes' 30 Under 30 and the national marketing registries, and his jaw tightened.
"What is the meaning of this, Richard?" Senator Hastings demanded, his voice booming over the music as he marched his daughter down the aisle, completely bypassing the altar to confront the Montgomery family at Table 27. "Who is this woman, and why are there three children with your son's face at my daughter's wedding?"
Caroline looked at the triplets, her perfect bridal makeup twisting into an expression of raw horror. "Ethan? What is this? Who are they?"
Ethan couldn't even answer. He was on his knees now, completely ignoring the grass stains ruining his designer trousers, trying to look past me to get a better view of his sons. Noah, the boldest of the three, stepped out from behind my gown and tilted his head, studying Ethan's face with a curious, analytical intensity.
"You have the same eyes as me," Noah observed, pointing a tiny finger at Ethan's face. "And the same chin. Are you the guy from the old pictures in Mama's desk?"
Tears finally welled in Ethan’s gray eyes, a raw emotion breaking through his old-money shell. "Yes, buddy. I am. I’m... I’m your dad."
"He isn't anyone to you, Noah," I said firmly, my voice cutting through the emotional fog like a diamond blade. I looked down at Ethan, my expression completely unyielding. "Five years ago, Ethan, your mother handed me a non-disclosure agreement and a one-way ticket out of the city, claiming that a girl from a south-side neighborhood would only ever clutter the Montgomery lineage. You sat in your leather chair at the corporate office, looked at the floor, and let her do it because you were too afraid of losing your inheritance. You chose your money over your wife. And because of that, you lost the right to be their father."
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"Chloe, please..." Ethan begged, reaching out a hand, but stopped himself before he could touch the emerald fabric of my dress. "I didn't know about them. I swear to you, if I had known you were carrying my children, I would have burned the entire empire to the ground to keep you."
"Then you should have burned it for me when I was just your wife," I replied smoothly. "Because a man who only fights when there are heirs to be won isn't a man at all. He’s just an asset manager."
