Chương 4
I had seen her do that at seventeen when she came home after curfew and listened for our father’s footsteps.
It was the same girl inside a different face.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
My laugh escaped before I could stop it.
It was quiet and ugly.
“From Grant?”
She swallowed.
“From embarrassing yourself.”
That hurt more efficiently than cruelty.
It was our mother’s language.
I wondered whether Natalie knew that.
Maybe all families passed down certain recipes without realizing it.
Meatloaf.
Debt.
Shame.
“Go inside,” I said.
“Not until you tell me what you’re planning.”
“I’m going to walk down the aisle.”
“And then?”
“You’ll see.”
She reached for the bouquet.
I jerked it away.
The roses struck my waist.
A thorn pushed through the wrapping and nicked the base of my thumb.
“Give me the bear.”
Her voice was almost a whisper.
I looked at the bead of blood forming on my skin.
“You said you didn’t know what it was.”
“I figured it out.”
“How?”
“Because Mom just told me.”
“Mom told you it played the heartbeat.”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t tell you it could record.”
Natalie froze.
I raised my eyes to hers.
The fear was no longer hidden.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Claire, you have no idea what you’re doing.”
“I think that sentence has expired.”
She moved closer.
For one alarming second, I thought she might actually grab me.
Jenna stepped away from the sound booth before I could call her.
“Everything okay?”
Natalie laughed too loudly.
“Yes.”
“No,” I said.
Jenna stopped beside me.
She was five foot three in shoes and had the physical intimidation factor of a librarian returning an overdue book, but Natalie stepped back anyway.
Maybe because Jenna knew.
Maybe because secrets changed the size of people.
The coordinator reappeared and stared at all three of us.
“I am begging everyone in this hallway to stop creating new problems.”
“Sorry,” Jenna said.
“I’m not,” Natalie said.
The coordinator pointed at Natalie.
“Inside.”
Natalie stayed where she was.
“Now.”
Something in the woman’s tone finally worked.
Natalie looked at me one last time.
“Claire, whatever you’re about to do, you can’t undo it.”
“I know.”
That was the first thing anyone had said to me all morning that felt completely true.
She walked into the chapel.
Jenna waited until the door closed.
“How bad?”
I looked at the bag containing my phone.
“Did you listen?”
“Only enough to confirm the file worked.”
Her face had gone pale.
“How much did you hear?”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Which thirty?”
“The part about the baby.”
My throat tightened.
Jenna had known Grant almost as long as I had.
She had helped him choose my engagement ring because he could not remember whether I wore yellow gold.
At our engagement party, she had toasted him for making me less likely to answer work emails at midnight.
Now she rubbed the side of her thumb against the seam of her bag.
“I need you to tell me something,” she said.
“What?”
“Are you actually going through with the ceremony?”
“No.”
The answer surprised both of us.
Until I said it, some part of me had still been moving according to the old schedule.
Walk.
Stand.
Smile.
Survive.
Jenna nodded once.
“Okay.”
“But I am walking down that aisle.”
“That sounds significantly less okay.”
“I need them all in one room.”
“You have them all in one room now.”
“I need Grant where he can’t rewrite what happened.”
“He’s going to try anyway.”
“I know.”
“And Natalie.”
“I know.”
“And your mother.”
I looked toward the closed doors.
“I don’t know about her yet.”
Jenna’s expression softened.
I hated it.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m about to fall apart.”
“I was actually looking at your thumb.”
I glanced down.
Blood had smeared across the white ribbon around the bouquet.
“Oh.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a thorn.”
“Yes, Claire, I have encountered roses.”
She dug through her bag.
Even now, her bag contained everything.
Mints, tissues, two pens, a phone charger, aspirin she would forget I was not supposed to take without checking, and apparently a tiny packet of adhesive bandages.
She wrapped one around my thumb.
It had cartoon lemons on it.
I stared.
“You brought lemon Band-Aids to my wedding?”
“They were on sale.”
A laugh broke out of me.
It lasted maybe two seconds.
Then it became something dangerously close to a sob.
Jenna gripped my wrist.
“Hey.”
I looked up at the ceiling until the feeling passed.
“No crying.”
“You’re allowed.”
“No.”
“You paid someone a shocking amount of money to waterproof your mascara.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“I know.”
The chapel beyond the doors shifted with murmurs.
People were getting restless.
My guests probably assumed the pregnant bride needed a bathroom or a chair or five minutes to manage swollen feet.
Nobody knew I was standing outside deciding how much of my private humiliation I was willing to turn public.
That was the part I had not planned in the hallway.
Evidence was one thing.
Exposure was another.
If I played everything, the room would hear Natalie talk about three years of betrayal.
They would hear Grant discuss my pregnancy like an asset on a balance sheet.
They would hear my mother named as a participant before I knew whether the accusation was true.
Once released, those words would belong to everyone.
Phones would come out.
Someone would record it.
By tonight, pieces might be online.
By Monday, employees at Whitmore Foods could be discussing the CEO’s pregnant daughter, her cheating fiancé, and a fight over control of the company.
My father had spent forty years building a business that employed more than eight hundred people.
I did not want revenge badly enough to set fire to their livelihoods.
That frightened me.
Because five minutes earlier, I might have.
Jenna watched my face.
“You changed your mind.”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
May you like
“I need the first part.”
She understood immediately.
