Page 97 of Single Dad's Fake Bride
The lawyer's words cut through my thoughts. He spoke about Sadie as if she were a chess piece I had moved strategically across a board. My hands curled into fists under the table. They didn't know her. They had never seen her stay up all night when Eloise had nightmares, never watched her read the same bedtime story three times because my daughter couldn't fall asleep.
The lawyer pulled out folders. Employment records. Timelines. He read dates and facts in a flat voice that made our entire relationship sound like a business transaction. And maybe it had started that way, but each word felt calculated to strip away everything real between Sadie and me. And there really was something real there.
My jaw ached from clenching it so hard. I wanted to stand up, to shout that they had it all wrong. Sadie wasn't some opportunist who had married me for money who "colluded with me" to "pervert the education system". She was the woman who made grocery lists in careful handwriting and left encouraging notes in Eloise's lunch box and fell asleep reading poetry with a cup of tea gone cold on her nightstand.
But I sat frozen, hands folded, watching my life be dissected by strangers.
Margot took the witness stand first. She looked composed, almost sad. Her voice carried that cultured tone I remembered from childhood dinner parties as she told them all how badly I resented the Vale name, how I had shunned the family when I was still in college.
She made my leaving sound petty, childish. She didn't mention the loneliness of growing up in a school instead of a home. She didn't talk about the cold distance our father maintained even after our mother died. She painted me as selfish, ungrateful, suddenly interested in family wealth only when it benefited me. I wanted nothing to do with the wealth. I just wanted Eloise to stay at Hawthorne and for the school to stay the way it was.
Caroline followed with similar testimony. She spoke about my rejection of the family’s values, my determination to live an ordinary life. She made ordinary sound shameful, but at least she sounded fractured by it. I could see the truth scrawled all over her face. Margot was making her do this and she wasn't happy about it. But I also knew she wasn't pleased with our father's decision to leave it all to me.
They could have the money. I just wanted Hawthorne and for Eloise to stay there.
Heat crept up my neck. They were rewriting history, turning my escape from our father's emotional desert into evidence of bad character. The boy who had cried himself to sleep in an empty dormitory room while his father worked late in his office became a rebellious son who rejected everything good the Vale family offered.
When my turn came, the witness stand felt exposed. Margot's lawyer swaggered toward me with predatory confidence. His first question about how long I had known Sadie beforeproposing made my stomach drop. Six weeks sounded pathetic when spoken aloud in this sterile room, and even that was an embellishment. She worked at Hawthorne for that long, but I'd only known her three weeks total before we made the agreement to marry.
"Would you say that's typical courtship behavior?"
Blackwood objected, but the judge let the questions drill away at me. I wanted to explain that those few meetings had revealed more about Sadie's character than most people learned about each other in months. I wanted to describe how she had listened to Eloise's stories about school with genuine interest, how she had asked thoughtful questions about my work, how she had made me laugh for the first time in years.
Instead, I sat silent while he dismantled our relationship question by question.
The inquiry about Sadie's termination twisted in my gut. I had wanted to fight for her job, to use whatever influence I might've had. But she had asked me not to make it worse. She had worried that my intervention would only fuel more gossip, make her situation more precarious. Respecting her wishes now sounded weak, calculated.
This entire thing had been designed to prove I had orchestrated everything, and it was working because it was true. But the whole truth—with nothing left out—was so much more complicated, so much more human than the cold facts he presented to the court.
My frustration built with each passing minute. This man had never witnessed the quiet moments that had shown me who Sadie really was. He had never seen her patience with Janet's difficult moods or watched her celebrate Eloise's small victories with genuine joy. He reduced our marriage to paperwork and timelines, completely missing the tenderness that had grown between us.
When Blackwood cross-examined my sisters, I watched them give polished answers about our father's intentions and the school's mission. They painted themselves as devoted daughters who understood our family legacy. They made me sound like an intruder who had never belonged.
My chest felt hollow. These women had shared my childhood, survived the same emotional wasteland I had escaped. Now they sat across from me, willing to destroy my future to preserve their version of our father's wishes.
The closing arguments blurred together. Blackwood presented certificates and documents, evidence of shared responsibilities and genuine commitment. The other lawyers countered with charts and timelines that made our love story sound like fraud.
Judge Morrison listened with the same impassive expression throughout. When he announced his decision to allow the case to proceed to full discovery, my heart sank into my shoes. This was really happening. This deposition had turned into discovery, which would turn into a full-blown trial, and there was no stopping it.
Outside the courthouse, Blackwood's composure cracked. His warning about the evidence and Morrison's reputation echoed in my ears, but all I could think about was going home to face Sadie.
"This case will come down to one man's opinion about whether your marriage is genuine," he said. "Morrison isn't known for his romantic sensibilities."
Cold dread settled in my chest. My sisters and the board had crafted the perfect trap.
"What happens if we lose?"
"You lose everything. The school, the estate, Eloise's future there. And this scrutiny could follow Sadie for years, making it difficult for her to find teaching positions."
The weight of my choices crushed down on me. I had pulled Sadie into this mess thinking I could protect everyone I loved. Instead, I had put her career at risk and exposed our private life to public judgment. And now I didn't even have a job to return to.
Without some miracle, I was going to lose the school that meant everything to Eloise. I was going to fail as her father the same way my own father had failed me. And Sadie, who had already sacrificed so much, would pay the price for trusting me.
The worst part was having no idea how to explain any of it to her when I got home.
28
SADIE
