Chương 1
"The folded paper in Daniel Mercer’s tuxedo pocket had the name Claire Holloway printed across the top, and for one irrational second I hated the neat black letters more than I hated the woman who had been crying outside.
“Give me that.”
Daniel’s hand moved to his jacket before I could reach it.
“Emily, not now.”
“Especially now.”
Someone knocked again, harder this time, and my sister’s voice came through the bridal-room door.
“Em, they’re waiting.”
I kept my eyes on Daniel.
“What did you just say to me?”
His jaw tightened.
“I would never hurt you.”
Four words.
Exactly four.
The warning from his grandmother came back so clearly that I could feel her dry fingers squeezing mine.
If he says those four words to you, don’t believe him.
Daniel reached for me again.
“I mean it.”
I stepped backward, and the train of my dress caught beneath my heel.
For three months I had worried about tripping during the processional, and now the absurdity of that fear almost made me laugh.
“Show me the document.”
“It’s private.”
“You’re standing in front of me in a tuxedo I helped pick out, two minutes before we exchange vows, telling me a document with another woman’s name on it is private.”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“I haven’t told you what I think.”
That stopped him.
Outside the room, I heard chairs shifting and the faint scrape of the string quartet repeating the final measures of the same song.
My sister knocked once more.
“Emily?”
“I’m fine.”
The lie came automatically.
Daniel glanced toward the door.
“We can handle this after.”
“You keep saying after like there’s definitely going to be an after.”
His face changed then.
It was small, just a tightening around his mouth, but I had lived with that face for four years.
I knew the expression he wore when the airline lost our luggage, when our kitchen pipe burst, when his company announced layoffs.
This was different.
This was the face of a man trying to calculate.
“Claire was someone I dated before you,” he said.
“How long before me?”
“A while.”
“That isn’t a date.”
“Emily.”
“How long?”
He rubbed the side of his nose.
“We broke up five years ago.”
Daniel and I had met four years and eight months earlier.
I did the arithmetic before I could stop myself.
“Three months.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Three months before we met?”
“Yes.”
“And she came to our wedding because?”
“She’s upset.”
“I noticed.”
“She’s had a difficult year.”
“So you invited her?”
“No.”
“Does your mother know she’s here?”
His silence answered before he did.
I walked to the door and opened it.
My sister Rachel nearly fell into the room.
Behind her stood my mother, the wedding coordinator, and Daniel’s mother, Susan, who looked at her son and went completely still.
That was the second moment I knew something was wrong.
Not suspected.
Knew.
“Where is your grandmother?” I asked Susan.
Her eyes flicked toward Daniel.
“What?”
“Evelyn.”
“She’s in the chapel.”
“I need to speak with her.”
“Emily, people have been seated for almost forty minutes.”
The wedding coordinator gave Susan a startled look, probably because delaying the bride was supposed to be her department.
My mother touched my bare arm.
“Honey, what happened?”
I looked at Daniel.
“Ask him.”
Rachel’s expression hardened immediately.
“What did he do?”
“Nothing,” Daniel said.
“That was fast,” Rachel replied.
“Rachel, please.”
“No, I’m interested in how we got from nothing to you hiding in the bridal room with my sister.”
Susan stepped forward.
“This is wedding nerves.”
I turned toward her.
“Who is Claire Holloway?”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Rachel looked from Susan to Daniel.
“Oh, hell.”
My mother whispered my name.
Daniel shut the door behind him, leaving all six of us crowded together among garment bags, makeup cases, bottled water, and a tray of sandwiches nobody had touched.
“Claire is an old girlfriend,” he said.
“Apparently everyone knows that except me.”
“I don’t,” Rachel said.
My mother shook her head.
Susan stared at the carpet.
I pointed at Daniel’s jacket.
“He has a document with her name on it.”
Susan’s head snapped up.
“What document?”
Daniel’s hand covered his pocket again.
For the first time, he looked angry rather than frightened.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want this happening here.”
Rachel folded her arms.
“Excellent point, Daniel, because the location is clearly the problem.”
“Can everybody stop talking for one second?”
Nobody did.
My mother asked whether I wanted water.
The coordinator asked whether she should tell the officiant there would be a delay.
Susan told Daniel to come into the hallway.
Rachel told Susan he wasn’t going anywhere.
I stood among them and stared at the tiny pearl buttons on my sleeve.
My grandmother had sewn buttons like those onto my mother’s wedding dress, though these were fake and closed with a hidden zipper.
I had spent six hundred dollars extra for decorative buttons.
That fact seemed suddenly offensive.
“Stop.”
They did.
I looked at Daniel.
“Give me the paper.”
“No.”
One word, and somehow it hurt more than everything else.
I nodded.
“Then the wedding is paused.”
Susan made a small sound.
“Emily.”
“Paused.”
The coordinator was already reaching for her phone.
Daniel caught my wrist as I moved past him.
Not hard.
That almost made it worse because the gesture was familiar, something he had done a thousand times while crossing streets or moving through crowds.
“Please don’t embarrass us.”
I stared at his hand until he released me.
“Us?”
His cheeks flushed.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
I walked into the hallway.
The coordinator hurried toward the chapel while Rachel followed me, lifting the back of my dress so I wouldn’t drag it across the floor.
My mother came behind us.
Daniel and Susan stayed in the room.
May you like
Halfway down the hall, I heard Susan hiss something at him.
I caught only three words.
