Chapter 3 - The Shattered Facade
The reception pavilion devolved into absolute bedlam within sixty seconds.
The waiters began clearing untouched plates of ribeye and lobster from the tables. The bartenders immediately capped the crystal decanters of fifty-year-old scotch and pulled down the shutters of the portable bar. The string quartet packed their violins into velvet cases, ignoring Brittany’s mother, who was screaming at them to keep playing.
“This is an outrage!” Charles Frost roared, his face turning an angry crimson as he grabbed Mr. Harrison by his lapels. “I am Charles Frost of Frost Capital! You cannot shut this event down! I will sue this venue into oblivion!”
Mr. Harrison calmly unclasped Charles’s hands from his suit. “Mr. Frost, with all due respect, your name is nowhere on our billing ledger. Mr. Howard Miller is our sole client. If we continue serving alcohol or food without his active financial authorization, we are committing theft of service. Security will escort anyone who refuses to vacate the premises within twenty minutes.”
Brittany was hysterical. She dropped to her knees right there on the parquet dance floor, her massive lace train spreading around her like a crushed cloud. Tears streamed down her face, ruining her eyeliner, as she beat her fists against the wooden floorboards.
“Austin!” she shrieked, turning her head toward my son with eyes full of pure, unadulterated venom. “Do something! Call your bank! Show your father that we don’t need his pathetic money! Show him your accounts!”
Austin stood frozen in the center of the chaotic room. He looked like a man who had walked out onto a frozen lake only to hear the ice shatter beneath his boots.
“Austin?” Brittany demanded, her voice rising to a terrifying pitch as she scrambled up from the floor, grabbing him by the lapels of his tuxedo. “Austin, answer me! Tell them you have the money! Tell them about the two point five million dollar apartment on Grand Avenue!”
Austin swallowed hard. Sweat was dripping down his neck, soaking his crisp white collar. He couldn't look at Brittany. He couldn't look at her parents. He could only stare at the floor.
“I... I don't have it, Brittany,” Austin whispered.
The word was quiet, but in the sudden silence of the dying party, it sounded like a bomb going off.
Brittany froze. Her manicured fingers loosened on his jacket. “What did you just say?”
“I don't have the money,” Austin repeated, his voice cracking with pathetic desperation. “The investment firm... it was just a consulting LLC I registered online. I didn't have senior partners. I didn't have institutional clients. I... I was living off the allowance my dad transferred to me every month.”
Victoria Frost gasped, clutching her diamond choker as if she were suffocating. “What?! Charles, did you hear this?! The boy is a fraud!”
“Austin!” Brittany screamed, hitting him square in the chest with her open hand. “You lied to me?! You told me your family owned logistics fleets! You told me you were buying the penthouse on Grand Avenue!”
I stepped forward, holding the blue folder that contained the property deeds for the Grand Avenue apartment.
“Oh, the apartment exists, Brittany,” I said, my voice cutting through her hysterical screaming. “It’s a three-bedroom penthouse overlooking the river. Floor-to-ceiling windows, private elevator, marble countertops. Beautiful place.”
Brittany turned to me, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and desperate hope. “Howard... please... you bought it for us, right? It’s our wedding gift!”
I opened the blue folder, pulled out the deed, and held it up so the overhead lights illuminated the bold black text at the top.
“I did buy it, Brittany,” I said calmly. “I transferred the two point five million dollars on Tuesday. But the purchase agreement isn't in Austin’s name. And it certainly isn't in yours.”
Brittany’s breath hitched. “Whose name is it in?”
“Loretta Miller,” I answered, looking her dead in the eye. “My wife. The 'low-class nobody' you just pushed into a pond.”
Loretta stood beside Paige near the exit doors, wrapped in Paige’s dark blazer, her wet clothes still dripping onto the floor. She looked at Brittany with a cold, dignified calm.
“You see, Brittany,” I continued, closing the blue folder with a crisp snap, “I paid for the apartment because I thought my son was marrying a woman who loved him. I thought I was securing my family's future. But this afternoon, you showed me exactly who you are. And my wife and I have decided that we will not be providing a luxury penthouse for a woman who treats us like dirt.”
“You can’t do this!” Brittany screamed, taking two steps toward me, her face contorted in rage. “We’re legally married! Austin has rights! He’s your son!”
“Austin is thirty-two years old, Brittany,” I said. “He has the right to get a job. He has the right to pay his own rent. And as of five minutes ago, he has the right to figure out how he’s going to pay back the two million dollars in personal loans he owes to my holding company.”
I turned my back on them. I walked over to Loretta, wrapped my arm around her waist, and took her wet, trembling hand in mine.
“Come on, sweetheart,” I said gently to my wife. “Let’s go home.”
May you like
As Paige, Loretta, and I walked out of the grand pavilion, the screaming behind us exploded into absolute war. Brittany was shrieking at Austin, her mother was screaming at Charles, and Charles was threatening to call his attorneys.
We stepped out into the cool Nashville night air, leaving the wreckage of my son’s fake paradise behind us.
