Chapter Seventy-Three
Seventy-Three
Quaddra proved to be a true romantic at heart, suggesting that they hire out the Legion of Honor as the venue for their wedding.
That was where he and Mary had gone on their first-ever date, even though Mary had always insisted that it hadn’t been a date ‘per se’.
He’d also suggested that they got the Malay couple, who ran the restaurant that they’d gone for dinner afterwards, to prepare the wedding buffet and dinner.
In short, Quaddra wanted to give his wedding guests a quick snippet of his and Mary’s first-ever night out.
Mary had found the idea adorable, and if that really was what Quaddra wanted, she’d be fine with it, but she did argue that hiring out such a public venue, like the Legion of Honor, would, no doubt, attract its fair share of unwanted attention, like tabloids and paparazzi, something that neither of them were very keen on.
In the end, Quaddra agreed with Mary, and they decided to use the grounds of Quaddra’s mansion for their wedding.
It had been a simple but very classy ceremony, four months after they got back from Europe, and with only a handful of guests.
Mary had invited Harvey and Cory, the owners of the gallery that she worked at, but unfortunately, they couldn’t attend, as they were holidaying in Europe at the time.
Mary also invited Betsy, who had flown over from LA specially.
Unsurprisingly, Quaddra had asked his childhood friend, Tyler, to be the best man at their wedding, and to keep things simple, Mary had asked Kristie, Tyler’s wife, to be her bridesmaid.
Since Kristie and Mary met, all those months ago, at Quaddra’s cheese and wine party, they had become quite good friends, but that hadn’t been the real reason why Mary had asked Kristie to be her bridesmaid.
Kristie was Megan’s best friend, who was Quaddra’s ex-girlfriend.
True, since that same cheese and wine party, Mary had also managed to win Megan over, somewhat, but Megan clearly still had feelings for Quaddra, and she could still be a real bitch when she wanted to.
Having Kristie as her bridesmaid had been a tactical move by Mary, not a friendly gesture.
With the wedding finally out of the way, Mary was free to properly begin implementing the rest of her plan… and since Quaddra had pushed for a speedy wedding, she also decided to move things forward a bit.
Mary and Denise had run this same con three times before.
It was a long-game con that if done properly would pay very well – in the past fourteen years, they had both made several millions each – but sending people to prison for something they hadn’t really done had a special way of pissing them off.
For that reason alone, once the con was over, both Mary and Denise would always move cities – states, preferably.
They’d also undergo a full looks and identity change – something that didn’t really pose that much of a problem when you were a millionaire – documents could be bought, and so could privacy – but what really set their con apart from most regular cons was that theirs had a legal side to it.
They weren’t simply stealing the money and running, like regular criminals.
The money was awarded to them by a judge – it was all completely above board and legal – and it was that legal side of the con that Mary and Denise both knew had a very short shelf life.
In the US, people could easily get divorced twice, with a very hefty settlement, and no one would bat an eyelid, even if both divorces came in a relatively short amount of time.
The statistic was that over 55 percent of marriages in the USA, within three to five years, would end up in divorce.
A third divorce was still doable, but was much riskier, and that had been why Denise had said that if they were to run their con again, especially inside the USA, it was her turn to play the wife, but Mary wasn’t exactly worried.
Yes, this would be her third wedding, but only her second inside the USA.
The first time that Mary had gotten married, she was over five thousand miles away, in London, England.