Humiliated at the Altar, She Owned Half His Empire

1: 1

On the biggest day of her life, her future mother-in-law planted herself in the doorway, pulled out a digital scale she'd readied in advance, and spoke in a cold voice in front of every relative and neighbor there.

"I said the rule ahead of time. Our Gilbert family doesn't marry a bride over a hundred pounds. Fat weighs down a family's luck and drains its fortune. Today you step on the scale, and if you're over by even a pound, you don't come through this door."

The whole place went dead silent.

A moment ago it had been all drums and gongs, relatives everywhere, and there I stood in a custom gown with a bouquet in my hands, dressed to join the Gilbert family, only for their door to be shut in my face.

I looked at my fiancé, Julian Gilbert. He said nothing, as if he'd known this was coming all along.

"You never told me about any such rule."

"I forgot. And you might not even be over. It's just a formality, so don't embarrass my mother."

I let out a cold laugh. I didn't argue, didn't make a scene. I tore off my veil.

"If a hundred pounds isn't good enough to enter your Gilbert family's door, then my Pruitt family can't hope to marry up. The wedding's off, today."

1

"What kind of girl are you? This is the rule in Gilbert's Hollow. Everyone follows it."

"That's right. The Gilberts may have money now, but that's no reason to skip the rule."

I listened to them peck at me one after another, and Julian just stood there without a word, letting them humiliate me by saying nothing. My heart sank all the way down.

"Just bear it a little, Lindy. Stepping on a scale is no big deal. Don't you weigh yourself all the time anyway?"

I clenched my fists and looked at him.

"Is that the same thing?"

"How is it any different? It's weighing yourself either way. A few seconds and it's done."

I only ever did that to check whether my workouts were paying off during a cut. Stepping on that scale today was an insult, an insult to me and to my whole family.

"In Gilbert's Hollow, no one crosses the threshold over a hundred pounds. Over by a pound is a big deal."

"Exactly. Fat weighs down the luck and squeezes out the fortune. Can't have that. Who'd dare marry a girl like that?"

I'd never heard anything like it, and the friends who'd come with me were seething.

"Isn't this just humiliating her? Who springs a rule like this on the day you come to fetch the bride? And so what if she's over a hundred pounds?"

Most of us stand over five-five, so a hundred-something, maybe a little soft, is perfectly normal.

"Now you've got it wrong. When it weighs down the luck and drives off the fortune, who's going to answer for that?"

"Right, what do you people know. Before you come through the door, you step on the scale, period."

Julian never made a sound through any of it, keeping himself perfectly out of it.

"See, I told you. The Gilbert threshold's too high. I wouldn't dare step over it."

"Don't make a scene. It's only a custom. When in Rome, you know. And all the guests are here today. Is this any way to act?"

"When did I make a scene? And when did you ever tell me there was a rule like this?"

If he'd told me beforehand, if it were only a matter of respecting a local custom, I could have understood. But the looks on his mother's face and his relatives' made it obvious. They wanted to put me in my place, to set the terms right out of the gate.

"It's a tiny thing. You're reading too much into it."

I shook his hand off.

"You all see it. Setting terms before she's even through the door, with an attitude like that. Once she's inside she'll turn the whole house upside down."

"Setting terms? We're marrying into the family, not hiring on as the help. What terms?"

The aunt who'd ridden over with us couldn't stand it and cursed back at them.

"What's wrong with setting terms? Marry into the Gilbert family and you follow the Gilbert family's rules. Come through this door and you take our customs."

I gave a cold laugh. I really did want to know.

"And what happens if she's over a hundred pounds?"