5

"Ready?" Gordon asked me as we stood at the door of the dining room. I could hear our 'guest' voices from the other side, and my confidence began wavering.

"Ready." I nodded as I straightened my spine. He held out his arm to me, and his muscles flexed at my touch.

We walked into the dining room, and six pairs of eyes widened when they saw me.

"Iris!" Thomas gasped.

"I'm glad you guys could make it on such short notice." Gordon said.

"What are you doing here?" Thomas snarled, and I flinched.

"Watch the way you talk to my special guest. I will not tolerate any disrespect to her." Gordon glared at him, and I frowned, wondering why he didn't just introduce me as his wife.

"This is some kind of scheme, isn't it? You decided to hook up with the next available man to make me jealous and regret what happened at the wedding. I didn't know you were such a slut." He hissed.

Me! A slut! How dare he call me a slut after what he did?

"Listen here, you little piece of sh—"

"Please, let's not fight." I said softly, touching Gordon's shoulder to calm him down, and I gave Thomas a big smile.

"I think there's a misunderstanding. I'm not mad or jealous that you married Blair. Who am I to stand against true love? I apologise for my dramatic reaction yesterday at the wedding, and I genuinely wish you and Blair a happy marital life."

Pin-drop silence covered the entire dining room as everyone—except Gordon—gaped at me like I had grown two extra heads.

"That still doesn't explain why you're here." Thomas gritted his teeth.

"We'll get to that later, but now let's eat. The chefs spent a lot of energy preparing dinner, and it would be a shame if we didn't get to enjoy it." Gordon said as he pulled out a chair for me.

"You're plotting something, aren't you? You hate our guts, yet you want to seat and eat with us?" Paul glared at him.

"You hate mine too, yet you're here. Can I say you're plotting something too?" He replied and sighed. "Sit, let's eat. Even if we want to fight, we shouldn't do so on empty stomachs."

Everyone sat down, and the servant immediately brought out the first course.

"Your dress is really, really pretty, Iris. Is it from one of Dorgon's recent luxury collections?" Blair asked sweetly, but I didn't miss the bitter jealousy.

"Yes, it is," I replied.

"Really? You're so lucky. Dorgon's clothes are really, really expensive. It cost a fortune to have one. But I guess that's a perk of knowing the CEO." She cast a knowing look at Gordon, and I simply hummed in response.

"You know I also love this shade of green." She said, and I pressed my lips to a thin line, already knowing where she was going.

Blair hated when I wore green, claiming it was her favourite colour even when it was first mine, but because she was the favoured child, my parents banned me from wearing any shade of green.

I had chosen this dress because it was my chance to wear the colour after many years, hoping she would have matured out of that childish behaviour, but I was wrong.

"You know this dress will go very well with that pair of shoes I got last week, won't it?" Blair said and scowled when I didn’t reply.

"Out of everybody that came to the wedding yesterday, only you didn't give me a wedding gift. Sure you left before the wedding started but it doesn’t matter. No, no, don't apologise. I'm already disappointed in you. Why don't you give me that dress, and I can forget your slip up."

"I don't think I can." I mumbled.

"Why not? Blair is right. You should be ashamed that you didn't give your sister a wedding gift. It doesn't matter if you were disowned or not; it's still common courtesy." Ashley frowned.

"You have something else to wear, don’t you? Go change out of the dress and give it to her." Mother said.

"Are the Graff too poor to afford a dress from my company's collection for their new daughter-in-law that they have to rely on hand-me-downs?" Gordon scoffed at Thomas.

"No. My husband is very capable of getting me a hundred clothes from your company without flinching. I'm only giving her a chance to redeem herself." Blair quickly defended her husband.

"You don't have to be desperate; Iris will get you a wedding gift. Honestly, it's embarrassing trying to bully your sister out of her engagement gift." Gordon replied, and everyone gasped.

"What engagement?" Thomas asked.

"We couldn't just wait till after dinner, could we?" Gordon muttered under his breath and grabbed my hand. "I gathered you all here to announce some very important news. Though I know none of you care, I still think it's proper I do so. Iris and I have gotten married."

"What the fuck?" Thomas cursed, his reaction louder than anyone else's.

"You must be joking. Iris, is this true?" Mother asked.

"Yes—"

"I want to hear from my own daughter," she silenced Gordon. "Iris, is this true?"

I took in a deep breath and let it out, gathering confidence from the betrayal they all gave me yesterday.

"Yes, it's true, Mother. Gordon and I got married today." I smiled, lifting my hand so they saw the ring they hadn't noticed.

"This is bullshit! You can't marry my step-uncle! That's fucked up!" Thomas stood up.

"What were you thinking? Marrying a man twelve years older than you! No, you weren't thinking at all, or else you wouldn't have done something this foolish. I can't allow my daughter to marry a man like you." Father barked as he glared at us.

"Take it easy, father-in-law. I thought you'd be happy having a rich son-in-law at this point of your life. Or are the debt rumours not true?" Gordon mocked, a

nd grim looks crossed everybody's face.