The Watch Stopped at 3:07

On our wedding day, my wife insisted on wearing a beatup old watch with the $250,000 custom gown I had bought her. So I shut the wedding down on the spot.

My wife's face went blank with disbelief. "Over a watch?" I took out the papers my lawyer had drawn up and told her to hurry up and sign. "Yes.

Because of a watch." They all ripped into me and said I had lost my mind.

Over a piece of junk, I had voided my own marriage at my own wedding and torn up ten years with my bare hands.

My father came at me and slapped me hard across the face. "You worthless bastard.

You apologize to her right now, in front of every person here." My motherinlaw said I had returned her daughter like a defective product in front of the whole room, and wrecked the rest of her life.

I looked at the watch on her wrist, the hands stopped at 3:07, and I smiled. Then I called my assistant. "You can put it all out there now." "This marriage.

I want it erased like it never existed." Chapter 1 "Take off the watch." At the moment we were supposed to exchange rings, I took Eliza's hand and let my eyes settle on her wrist.

It was an old silver watch, the face yellowed, the hands frozen forever at 3:07.

The happy smile on Eliza's face stiffened, and she pulled her hand back without thinking. "Gray, quit it. Everyone's watching." I didn't move.

I just said it again, not loudly, but clearly enough to carry across the whole ballroom. "Take off the watch." Her expression changed completely, and for a second there was something in her eyes I had never seen before, a panic with an edge under it. "What is that supposed to mean?

You know what this watch means to me!" "I know." I let go of her hand and pulled a folder out of my jacket. "That's exactly why.

I'm having this marriage voided." Eliza stared at me, then at the folder with "Petition for Annulment" printed across the cover, and her body started to shake.

We had signed the papers at city hall three weeks earlier. Today was only the show we were putting on for everyone else. "Grayson.

Say that again." "I said, I'm voiding it." I flipped to the page I had already signed and pushed it across to her. "Because of that watch." The whole room started talking at once. "Is he insane?

The Whitmore heir is voiding his marriage over a junk watch? Is this the joke of the year?" "It's staged, right? Some stunt to spice up the wedding?" "I feel so bad for Eliza.

She married a lunatic, and on her own wedding day she gets humiliated like this." The talk was like a thousand needles, driving deep into Eliza's pride.

Her tears came up all at once. Her eyes rimmed red and her lips trembled, and she couldn't get out a single word.

Her mother, my motherinlaw, was the first one to rush at me, and she grabbed a fistful of my collar and held on. "Grayson! Are you even a man?

Over a watch, you humiliate her like this in front of all these guests?" "That watch is all she has left of a friend who died. You're jealous of a dead man now?

That's not what a man does." She swung her fists and pounded on my chest. I ignored her. I just looked at Eliza.

Ten years, from that row of lockers in the high school hallway to the gown she had on today. I thought we were each other's finish line.

But standing there, watching the way she guarded that watch, I finally understood that I had never even been her starting line. "Why?" She finally broke into sobs, her hands crushing the papers. "Over a watch?

What were our ten years worth?" "Yes." I nodded. My voice was calm to the point of cruelty. "Because of a watch." I pressed her. "Sign it.

Let's not make this any uglier than it has to be for either of us." That was what finally broke her.

Eliza shuddered, snatched up the petition, and tore it to pieces with both hands.

Chapter 2 "Grayson, I don't agree to this!" Her red eyes stayed locked on me, like an animal cornered with nowhere left to run. "You want this marriage voided, you'll do it over my dead body!" I watched her go hysterical like that, and I smiled.

I turned away, took out my phone, and called my assistant. "Nico." My voice was quiet, with a cold satisfaction running under it. "You can put it all out there now." "I'm ready." My father was the first one up onto the platform.

He had spent half his life as a military officer, and he was shaking with rage now. He swung and slapped me hard across the face. "You worthless bastard!

You apologize to her in front of every person here, and if you can't give me a reason today, I will skin you alive!" The burn exploded across my cheek.

My head snapped to the side, and I tasted blood at the corner of my mouth.

My mother came up right behind him and caught hold of my arm, tears running down her face. "Gray, tell Mom. What is going on with you two? You and Eliza grew up together.

We've all seen what the two of you have.

It can't really come down to a watch, can it?" "That's right." My father jabbed a finger at my face and roared, "Have you forgotten who used to follow you around with a bottle of water?

Who sat up with you three days and three nights when you were sick? That girl, right there in front of you!

You treat her like this, so where the hell is your conscience?" Eliza was whimpering, crying so hard in my mother's arms that she nearly passed out. "Gray, you hate this watch, don't you?

I'll take it off.

I'll take it off right now, just don't throw me away…" She fumbled at the strap on her wrist, crying, her hands clumsy and slow, like it was taking everything she had. "Don't bother.

It's too late," I said coldly. Those words hit harder than the slap had. Eliza's hands stopped. She looked at me like she couldn't believe it.

My father's blood pressure was climbing through the roof. He seized my collar and forced me down in front of Eliza. "Apologize! You animal.

You're marrying her today whether you want to or not!" I kept my back straight and refused to open my mouth.

Down in the guest seats, the shock had already turned into anger. "This Grayson really is an animal!

The girl was ready to give in and he's still this cold and heartless." "The Sandersons must have done something awful in a past life, getting stuck with a piece of garbage like him." "Scumbag!

Worldclass scumbag!" When force got him nowhere, my father softened his voice. "Son, Dad knows you're not a man who makes trouble for nothing. There has to be another reason.

Say it out loud and we'll all work it out together. Don't break Eliza's heart." Every eye in the room was on me, waiting for my explanation. I smiled instead.

I looked up at Eliza's face, wet and lovely with tears, and said it slowly, word by word. "I don't want to be married to her. I'm bored.

Is that not allowed?" That was like throwing a bucket of cold water into hot oil. The whole room blew up.

Eliza leaned on my mother's shoulder, her body gone boneless, and the light in her eyes went out completely. "Grayson, you don't have to love me, but you can't humiliate me like this." Her voice was barely there, full of despair. "Ten years together, and it's worth nothing to you?" "You're a heartless bastard!" The way my mother looked at me changed too, from heartbreak to total disappointment.

My father's fists were clenched, the veins standing out, like the next second he would come up and strangle me. I didn't look at either of them again.

I just straightened up slowly and fixed the collar he had pulled crooked.

Chapter 3 Then, in front of everyone, I gave Eliza one contemptuous glance and said the last thing I had to say. "Then I'll see you in court." The wedding turned into an enormous farce.

My father announced on the spot that he was standing with Eliza, and that if I didn't come around today, I could forget about ever touching a single thing that belonged to this family.

The next day, headlines like "Whitmore Heir Voids Marriage Over a Watch, Ten Years Gone" and "The Heartless Whitmore Boy Breaks a Devoted Woman's Heart" exploded onto the number one spot on every trending list there was.

Some guest had filmed the scene at the wedding, and the footage of me standing there cold and contemptuous while I humiliated Eliza got cut into a thousand memes that tore across the internet.

Once again my name was shorthand for scumbag of the century. "Who does he think he is? Wrecking an engagement over a junk watch. Textbook richboy manchild!" "Poor Eliza.

Ten years of her life thrown to the dogs, and she still had to be humiliated in public." "I heard the watch was left to Eliza by a friend who died.

Grayson is jealous of a dead person. That is petty beyond belief!

And he calls himself a man?" The allknowing crowd on the anonymous boards dug up my office address and my home address too, and every day someone threw paint and eggs at the door.

Whitmore Group runs department store chains and a few dozen hotels. All of it lives on ordinary people swiping their cards.

Overnight, several hundred million dollars of its market value evaporated. My father moved fast and called a press conference.

As chairman, he announced that the company was cutting itself completely free of anything I did personally.

I was suspended, removed from the board, and my distributions from the family trust were frozen too.

He said it once more for the record: everything Grayson Whitmore did was his own doing and had nothing to do with this family.

Relatives and friends who used to court me blocked and deleted me one after another, terrified of being connected to me at all.

I was the man the whole country wanted to see stomped into the pavement. And right then I was stretched out comfortably in a topfloor hotel suite, watching Eliza's interview on TV.

It was live on a national morning show.

She had on a plain white dress, her face pale, her eyes red and swollen to slits, the picture of a devoted woman who had been wronged beyond words and was staying strong anyway. "Please stop attacking Gray." She spoke straight into the camera, her voice catching. "I believe he just lost his head for a moment.

Our ten years were not fake. There has to be some misunderstanding in all of this." "He just… cares about me too much.

That's why he's so sensitive about that watch." "I'll wait for him to think it through. We are not going to be apart.

We are going to spend our whole lives together." Every word of it was airtight.

She had made herself into the devoted, forgiving saint, and at the same time nailed me to the pillory as the man who got jealous out of love and made a mountain out of a molehill.

The reporters in the studio applauded her generosity, and the live comment feed was a solid wall of gushing. I looked at that flawless face on the screen and laughed out loud.

Then I called her. She picked up fast, and put it on speaker right there on camera. "Gray?" Eliza's voice was full of surprise and hope. "You finally reached out!

Have you thought it through? I don't blame you for the wedding.

We can start over—" "Don't flatter yourself." I cut off her onewoman performance and gave a small laugh. "A reminder for you. Nine tomorrow morning, in court.

Don't be late." The moment I stopped talking, I could hear her suck in a breath on the other end. The whole studio broke into an uproar.

Right after that came an even uglier wave of hate aimed at me. "Human garbage! Animal! After everything Ms.

Sanderson has been through, he's still this coldblooded!" Eliza's crying came through the receiver, broken and raw enough to tear a person apart, Chapter 4 "Gray… do we really… have to go this far?" I let out a short laugh and answered her, not loud, but loud enough for every person there to catch every word. "Of course." "Not only am I having it voided.

Every piece of property, every share, every fund I put in your name, I am taking back down to the last cent." "From here on, you go your way and I go mine." The next day I showed up at the courthouse.

The reporters swarmed in like sharks that had smelled blood and closed in around me until there was no way through. "Mr. Whitmore, is it true that you are ending it with Ms.

Sanderson, after ten years of love, over a watch?" "There's a rumor you already have someone new and the watch is only your excuse. Is that true?" "You humiliated Ms.

Sanderson in public like that. Doesn't your conscience hurt?" A forest of microphones was almost poking me in the face.

Down at the bottom of the steps a few workedup people from the internet were packed in, and they threw eggs and rotten vegetables at me.

Sticky egg ran down through my hair and gummed my eyes shut. My face didn't move. Security cleared a path, and I walked into the courtroom with all of it still on my head and face.

Eliza was already there, in black today, her face worn out, the tear tracks at the corners of her eyes plain to see.

When she saw me, she called out in a hoarse voice. "Gray…" I ignored her and walked straight to my side of the room.

The hearing opened, and I stated what I wanted, plainly: "I, Grayson Whitmore, ask the court to declare my marriage to the respondent, Eliza Sanderson, void from the beginning, on the grounds of fraud." The judge asked, "Your grounds?" Before I could answer, Eliza broke first.

She slapped the table and cried out: "I don't agree! Grayson, you tell me why! We loved each other, we really did! Is it because I wouldn't take off that watch?

It's all I have left of my best friend! If something had happened to you, I would have spent my life remembering you too!

Why can't you understand that!" Her devotion, the way she wouldn't let go, had plenty of people in the gallery wiping their eyes.

I gave a faint smile instead, met every pair of eyes in the room, and said it calmly. "Yes. Because of that watch.

There is no other reason." She froze, like she hadn't expected me to be that blunt. "Really… just because of that?" "What kind of reason is that? It's absurd!" Mrs.

Sanderson shrieked from the gallery. "Over a junk watch, you've ruined my daughter's whole life!

You animal!" My father sat on the other side with a hand pressed to his chest, so angry his lips shook as he pointed at me. "You ingrate!

You've dragged this family's name through the mud!" The gallery went completely wild. "He's insane! Grayson has absolutely lost it!

Getting jealous over a watch and wrecking his own engagement, that's a sickness!" "Eliza must have been blind. How could she fall for someone like that!" "Scumbag!

A disgrace to society!" It took the bailiff shouting over and over to push the noise back down. The egg was still hanging in my hair in strands, gluing my eyes half shut.

I was a mess. The judge brought down the gavel with a slight frown. "Order! Petitioner, the reason you have given does not prove fraud.

Do you have any other evidence beyond that?" I glanced down at my phone. The screen was still dark. It wasn't time yet.

All I could do was shake my head. "No." "In that case." The judge picked up the gavel, ready to rule. "For lack of evidence, this court denies the petitioner's—" "Wait!" One second before the gavel came down, my phone screen finally lit up.

The stone that had been hanging in my chest for so long crashed down and landed