PART 1
At twenty-nine, I had never managed to keep a job for more than a few weeks.
“Why should I spend my life trapped behind a desk?” I told my mother. “I’m attractive enough to marry a successful man.”
So I always believed someone like Arthur would eventually appear.
I first saw him dining alone in an upscale restaurant. His gold watch looked expensive, his navy suit appeared custom-made, and every waiter seemed to know his name.
He was older than my grandfather would have been, but I chose not to focus on that.
When his hand suddenly trembled and his wineglass slipped, I hurried over and helped him before the waiter could reach the table.
A few weeks later, Arthur sent an enormous arrangement of roses to my apartment.
Not long after that, he proposed with a diamond ring large enough to catch attention from across the room.
My parents begged me not to rush.
“He is almost eighty,” my father warned. “Do you actually love him?”
“He treats me well,” I replied. “Shouldn’t that be enough?”
The truth was, I could think of little besides Arthur’s magnificent family mansion.
It was supposedly being renovated, but he promised that once we were married, I would live there with him.
I imagined sweeping staircases, enormous bedrooms, elegant dinners, and a life where I would never have to worry about money again.
But as the wedding approached, Arthur’s situation became increasingly strange.
His Bentley was suddenly “in the repair shop.”
Then he claimed his investment accounts had been temporarily frozen.
A few weeks before the ceremony, he even asked me to lend him money for his wedding suit.
“I’m arranging a huge surprise for you, darling,” he kept saying. “I only need a little more time.”
I was not interested in surprises.
I wanted the fortune.
So I stayed patient.
Our wedding day was everything I had imagined.
The ballroom was filled with flowers, crystal lights, and elegantly dressed guests. I stood beside Arthur in my carefully chosen gown, already picturing myself entering his mansion as his new wife.
Then, in the middle of our vows, Arthur reached for the microphone.
The room became silent.
“My bride does not know one very important detail about me,” he announced.
Every guest turned toward me.
Arthur smiled.
“The truth is, I have been testing her to discover whether she truly loves me.”
My fingers tightened around the bouquet.
What?
Then Arthur looked directly into my eyes.
“Because when it comes to my fortune…”
I stopped breathing as I waited for him to finish…
PART 2
“…because when it comes to my fortune,” Arthur continued into the microphone, his voice echoing through the silent, crystal-lit ballroom, “I have given every last cent of it away.”
A collective gasp rippled through the rows of guests.
My heart didn’t just drop—it froze. My knuckles turned white around my bouquet of white orchids as the floor beneath my satin heels felt as if it were opening up to swallow me whole.
Arthur turned to face me, his aging face beaming with what he clearly believed to be supreme, poetic romance. He reached out and took my trembling hand in his.
“Three months ago,” Arthur spoke into the microphone, tears shining in his eyes, “I decided that I would not spend my final years wondering if the people in my life loved me for my bank account or for my soul. So, I established a permanent charitable trust. I transferred my mansion, my investment portfolio, my vintage automobile collection, and all liquid capital to the Children’s Hospital Foundation.”
My mother squeezed her eyes shut in the second row. My father placed a hand over his mouth.
“I sold the Bentley,” Arthur declared proudly to the entire room. “I closed my private lines of credit. I posed as a man on the brink of financial ruin—a man who couldn’t even afford his own wedding suit! And through it all, this beautiful, selfless woman stood by my side. She lent me money. She listened to my troubles. She loved me when she thought I had nothing left to offer!”
The wedding guests—composed mostly of Arthur’s wealthy, high-society friends and charity board members—erupted into a standing ovation. Applause boomed against the vaulted ceilings. People wiped away tears, whispering about the sheer, fairytale purity of our devotion.
Arthur looked into my eyes, grinning like a triumphant schoolboy.
