Chương 1
""Natalie stepped into the hallway and stopped so abruptly that the door bumped against her shoulder.
For one second, neither of us spoke.
Her lipstick was darker than mine, a wine-colored shade she had once claimed made her look severe, and there was a faint pink mark along the side of her neck that her foundation had not completely covered.
Her eyes dropped to my bouquet.
I watched the calculation happen behind them.
“Claire,” she said, too brightly.
I smiled.
It frightened me how easily the smile came.
“There you are.”
She touched her hair, then glanced toward the chapel doors as if we were two sisters who had accidentally met on the way to a family photograph.
“You’re supposed to be with Jenna.”
“I was looking for the bathroom.”
“The bathroom is downstairs.”
“I know that now.”
A tiny line appeared between her eyebrows.
Behind her, something moved inside the private room.
Grant had heard my voice.
I could almost feel him deciding whether coming out would look more suspicious than staying hidden.
Natalie took one step toward me.
“You okay?”
My baby shifted again, a movement so faint I might have mistaken it for nerves a month earlier.
I loosened my grip on the roses before I broke a stem.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason.”
She smiled.
My sister had always been good at smiling when she wanted something.
As children, she could steal the marshmallows from my cereal, deny it with white powder stuck to her fingers, and somehow leave our mother irritated with me for making a fuss.
At thirty-two, she had improved the technique.
“You look pale,” she said.
“I’m wearing bridal makeup.”
“I mean more than usual.”
“Pregnancy.”
Her gaze flicked to my stomach.
That one movement nearly undid me.
Not because she looked guilty.
Because she looked annoyed.
The private-room door opened wider.
Grant came out adjusting one cuff.
He had taken off his jacket, and his tie sat slightly crooked beneath his collar.
For almost six years, I had been able to identify his moods by small things other people missed.
The jaw that tightened when he was embarrassed.
The quick blink when he was lying.
The way he rubbed his thumb against the side of his index finger when he was trying not to show anger.
Now his thumb moved against his finger.
“Hey,” he said.
He recovered fast.
His whole face softened into the expression I had loved in photographs.
“There’s my bride.”
I had imagined hearing those words all morning.
They landed like something dead between us.
“You’re not supposed to see me,” I said.
Grant laughed.
“Pretty sure that ship sailed.”
He came toward me with his arms slightly open.
I stepped sideways as if protecting the bouquet.
His arms lowered.
“Careful,” I said.
“The roses are already getting crushed.”
“Right.”
He looked at Natalie.
She looked at him.
It lasted less than a second.
I had missed that glance for three years.
Now it seemed enormous.
From inside the chapel came a swell of strings, followed by scattered laughter when somebody apparently dropped something.
Life was continuing twenty feet away.
Two hundred people were sitting beneath flowers my mother had spent six months choosing while the man I was supposed to marry and the sister who had helped zip my dress waited to see whether I knew they had been planning my financial captivity.
Grant leaned closer.
“You sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I’m pregnant, Grant, not terminal.”
Natalie gave a little laugh that came out late.
Grant did not.
“You’ve been stressed.”
“So has everyone.”
“Maybe we should take five minutes.”
The suggestion was gentle.
That made it worse.
Five minutes alone with him would become concern, questions, hands on my shoulders, a glass of water, maybe my mother summoned to explain that weddings overwhelmed people.
He would study my face until he knew what I knew.
“No,” I said.
His eyes sharpened.
Then I smiled again.
“I’ve spent thirty-eight thousand dollars on flowers, and I refuse to let them wilt while you give me a breathing exercise.”
Natalie laughed for real that time.
Grant’s mouth twitched.
“Fair.”
The coordinator appeared at the end of the hallway carrying a headset, a clipboard, and the expression of a woman being personally betrayed by time.
“Claire, thank God.”
“I’ve been here.”
“I know, but your mother says you disappeared, the officiant needs to know whether you’re using the revised vows, and somebody moved the unity candles.”
She looked at Grant and frowned.
“You are extremely much not supposed to be here.”
“Apparently I’ve ruined everything,” he said.
“Not everything.”
I heard myself say it.
Grant looked at me.
I adjusted one rose.
“Just the superstition.”
The coordinator pointed toward the chapel with her clipboard.
“Groom.”
Grant hesitated.
I could see that he wanted to stay.
He wanted to know why I was calm.
He wanted to inspect the calm and find the crack in it.
“Go,” Natalie told him.
That was a mistake.
It sounded familiar.
Intimate.
Not like a sister addressing her future brother-in-law, but like someone accustomed to telling him what to do when they were alone.
Grant noticed my expression.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I kissed his cheek.
His skin smelled like the cedar cologne I had bought him for Christmas.
Underneath it was Natalie’s perfume.
For a second, nausea rose so hard I had to swallow against it.
“I’ll see you at the altar.”
His hand settled at my waist.
I made myself stay still.
“Can’t wait.”
Neither could I.
Grant followed the coordinator toward the chapel.
He looked back once.
Natalie waited until he disappeared through the doors.
Then she exhaled.
“You scared me.”
“Why?”
“I thought you were going to have some pregnancy thing.”
“Some pregnancy thing?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, actually.”
She rolled her eyes, and the gesture was so ordinary that rage moved through me with startling clarity.
May you like
I had spent years making excuses for that eye roll.
Natalie was blunt.
