Blurb：
Annie Shelton's perfect wedding to Graham Shelton turns into a financial nightmare when her mother-in-law, Judith Shelton, from Promise Creek, unleashes a horde of greedy relatives. The $350,000 invoice from The Silvanus Pavilion details the destruction—hundreds of lobsters, king crabs, and stolen gilded plates. As Graham struggles with betrayal, Annie's cold revenge begins. A tale of family drama, wealth, and the high cost of marriage. Will Annie confront Judith and save her future with Graham?Content：
§01The number on the invoice was the only thing in focus.
$350,000.
It stared back at me from the crisp, linen-textured paper, a figure so absurd it felt like a misprint, a cruel joke.
The polished smile of the manager of The Silvanus Pavilion didn't waver.
“Is everything in order, Mrs. Shelton?”
Mrs. Shelton.
The name felt foreign on my tongue, a costume I had put on for a party that had just ended in disaster.
I lowered the invoice, the grand, ridiculously opulent ballroom swimming back into view.
Empty tables stood as silent witnesses, draped in white linen that now looked like funeral shrouds.
The air, once filled with laughter and the clinking of champagne flutes, now hung heavy with the cloying scent of wilting flowers and stale victory.
My victory.
Marrying Graham Shelton.
I looked at the breakdown, my finger tracing the obscene lines of text.
One hundred bottles of Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon, consumed.
Three hundred Maine lobsters, devoured.
One hundred Alaskan king crabs, cracked and emptied.
It went on.
Thirty custom gilded plates, listed under ‘Damages & Replacements’ for $30,000.
Fifty pairs of sterling silver goblets, same category, 2000-50005,000.
The list scrolled down into a hell of artisanal cheeses, imported flowers, even the damned potted ferns from the lobby.
My husband, Graham, materialized beside me, his face pale and slick with sweat.
He tugged at the collar of his bespoke tuxedo, a garment that now looked two sizes too small for his discomfort.
“Annie, what’s wrong?”
I didn’t answer.
I just handed him the paper.
His eyes scanned it, widened, and then he let out a small, strangled noise.
“This… this can’t be right,” he stammered, looking at the manager as if the man himself had committed the crime.
“Our agreement was for a hundred guests, max. This is… this is insane.”
The manager’s smile remained, a mask of professional courtesy.
“Your mother, Mrs. Judith Shelton, made some adjustments to the final arrangements, sir. She invoked the ‘family celebration’ clause and extended the hospitality to a few more… relatives.”
A few more.
That’s what he called the horde that had descended upon our wedding reception like a swarm of locusts.
The distant, grasping relatives from Promise Creek, that decaying town in the heart of the manufacturing heartland Graham had tried so hard to escape.
The ones who looked at my family’s generosity not as a gift, but as a long-overdue debt payment.
Graham fumbled for his phone, his hands shaking.
He dialed his mother.
The phone call was a masterclass in delusion.
“She’s so rich, and she had the nerve to ask us for a ten-thousand-dollar contribution for the wedding?” Judith’s voice, sharp and grating even through the phone’s speaker, filled the cavernous silence of the ballroom.
“That wasn’t a request, Graham. That was an insult. She was trying to see how much she could humiliate us.”
Graham flinched, his eyes darting towards me.
I remained perfectly still, my face a carefully constructed mask of neutrality.
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The End