How To Ruin A Wedding

Chapter 28 - It's Important Not to Gossip

There were several things that I could say. However, given the moment with almost all immediate Marquises looking at me, I felt it very bad and guilty to say that Kendra was having sex with a cliché hot pool boy. So, I did what only valuable lesson my mother taught me. If it wasn't what they wanted to hear, lie and keep your chin up. I smiled at looked at Aiden's mother. "She's handling some business about flowers. The wedding makes her very stressed. She told me she wished that she could come." I told the sweet-looking woman. "She was grateful that I would come in her place tonight."

I didn't bother to look at Aiden, who I was sure was staring at the side of my face. He wouldn't find evidence of my fib on my features. His mother smiled. "Well, I remember when I was getting ready for my wedding, and I still made time for my family." I almost grinned at how catty Mrs. Marquis seemed to be. I could only imagine what she was like when she was younger. She probably wasn't so graceful at her shady comments as she was now. "Nevertheless..." She trailed to change topic. "Why aren't you helping her tonight? You are the maid of honor, am I correct?"

I felt like I was under interrogation. I wasn't sweating about it, though. I almost expect these situations to happen more often than not. "Aiden presented the idea of meeting his family, and when I heard that Kendra wouldn't be able to make, I thought it'd be nice to meet all of you." I answered.

Perhaps, I had answered correctly because Aiden's mother smile grew and she stopped interrogating me for the moment. "Lovely." She replied before turning to her husband and talking to him.

I let out a long exhale. I wanted to laugh at the situation. It felt all too familiar in the sense that my mother had a likeness to Aiden's mother. It wasn't the God-awful pressure, but it was that both women had principles that mattered to them. Family as the most important thing was a better upholding principle than looks matter and what people say about you matters more. I was just saying.

"She likes you." Aiden told me when he leaned close to my ear.

I smiled at him and swooned. "Oh, my life is complete." I joked, and he let out a little chuckle.

I'll be honest, I didn't think that it would be hard to impress Aiden's mom. If she loved Kendra, then I thought the woman could be kind to anyone. "Unfortunately, she kind of likes Kendra, too." Jessica muttered beside me.

"Really? It doesn't seem like it." I remarked quietly so only Jessica would hear it. This whole dinner had already consisted of remarks to find fault in Kendra.

Aiden got a notification on his cell phone momentarily. He looked at it and frowned. Then, he stood up. "I need to make a call." He didn't ask to be excused, but he just walked away. I wondered what was up.

Jessica continued what we were talking about after she watched her brother go away. She shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, she's a little peeved that Kendra missed dinner tonight. Every since Aiden and her got engaged, it's been going downhill." Jessica explained to me. She took a pause before continuing as salads were placed in front of us. I didn't remember ordering salad, not that I didn't like salad. Green stuff was supposedly healthy. Jessica picked up her fork and began to shuffle the leaves. "You know that my mom is the reason why Aiden and Kendra were so quick to be engaged, right?"

I nodded. "Christian told me."

"Right. Well, he probably told you that Kendra has met my mother only four times." Jessica continued, and I nodded again for her to go on. "All four times were before Aiden and her got engaged."

"So?" I asked before putting some green leaves in my mouth. That seemed insignificant. Jessica spoke like it was important, like I should know why that mattered.