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Except for the immediate family of the groom, everyone who attended that wedding had a reasonably good time.
After the spectacle ended, Owen and I got quietly busy planning our own wedding.
There was enough to organise that neither of us had much space to think about Marcus.
Occasionally Reid would call with updates.
After the wedding, Marcus went into a long, sullen decline. Even his parents kept a low profile for months — too embarrassed to be seen much.
They became the family everyone else was quietly relieved not to be.
Life went on. It always does.
After a few weeks, Gerald and Patricia rallied and threw themselves into matchmaking for Marcus.
Marcus himself eventually accepted the situation. He started being more generous — financially, socially — and managed to hold a few women's interest.
But his parents couldn't change. They still believed there was a woman out there who would ask for nothing and somehow elevate the family along with the deal. So every match fell apart just as Marcus was beginning to think it might work.
Eventually the matchmakers stopped returning their calls, all of them.
The three Kingsleys descended into internal warfare.
Reid, delighted, kept me updated in real time.
"We were technically married for one day, so technically I reached out as a concerned former spouse. I told him if he came around, I'd take care of him."
"He said absolutely not."
I laughed until I couldn't breathe.
Our wedding came. Owen and I.
Marcus managed to obtain a staff uniform from somewhere and had been lurking in the crowd for quite some time.
At the most emotional moment of the ceremony, he produced a megaphone.
"Vera Thorne! You were engaged to me! And behind my back you were carrying on with my own friend!"
"I want everyone here to know what kind of person you really are!"
Marcus had destroyed his own wedding. He wasn't going to let me have mine in peace.
From across the room I could see the envy and the bitterness in his eyes.
But I'd prepared for this.
Before Marcus got anywhere near me, the groomsmen had him pinned.
The interruption barely registered. Our ceremony continued without a pause.
The livestream cameras, though, caught every second of the scuffle and scattered it everywhere.
The internet found Marcus.
They found him quickly.
And once they started digging, they found the footage from his wedding day.