Chương 4
He placed it on the windowsill.
“I can’t marry you today.”
“Nathan, please.”
“I don’t know what I would be promising.”
“I love you.”
“I believe that.”
The words hurt her more than disbelief would have.
“I also believe you let me build a life with someone you invented whenever the truth became inconvenient.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Alan moved toward him. “This is a family matter that happened a decade ago. Sloane was a minor. She has been an extraordinary partner to you.”
Nathan looked at him. “You told everyone the surgeon who saved my life wasn’t family while she stood five feet from your daughter.”
Alan’s jaw flexed.
“You do not get to explain extraordinary partnership to me.”
Sloane reached toward Nathan, then stopped before touching his sleeve.
“Are you ending this?”
“I’m stopping the wedding.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
The answer left her standing in the center of the room with her hands suspended near her waist.
A knock sounded at the door.
Marisol’s voice came through. “I’m sorry. Nathan’s brother says a guest posted part of the confrontation online. He wants to know whether he should try to get it removed.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Alan swore.
Hannah looked at the door. “What part?”
“The accusation and Nathan’s response. Not what happened in here.”
“How many views?” Sloane asked.
“I don’t know.”
Alan reached for the handle.
Nathan blocked him.
“Before anyone goes out there, we agree on one thing. Nobody blames Hannah for appearing at a wedding she was invited to.”
Alan stared at him.
“Say it,” Nathan said.
“You cannot order me—”
“Then I will walk into that room and say exactly what happened.”
Alan glanced at the door. His business instincts returned before his paternal ones. Hannah saw him calculate guests, clients, donors, photographs, and the speed of gossip.
“She was invited,” he said.
“Louder.”
“She was invited.”
“By my mother.”
“Yes.”
Nathan looked at Sloane.
She swallowed. “Hannah was invited by Evelyn.”
“Good.”
Alan shook his head. “This is absurd.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “This is the first practical thing anyone has said.”
Nathan picked up the ring from the windowsill but did not put it on. He closed it in his palm.
“When we go back out, I will tell them the ceremony is postponed because of a private family matter. Sloane, you can stand with me or stay here. I won’t answer questions.”
“I’ll stand with you.”
“Alan, you will not speak.”
“I am the father of the bride.”
“Today that has not helped.”
Denise covered her mouth again, though this time Hannah suspected she was hiding something close to a laugh. It vanished before Alan could see it.
Nathan turned to Hannah.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do this.”
“I should have known who treated me.”
“You knew my name. You didn’t know my family.”
“I told Sloane about you.”
Hannah looked toward her sister.
Sloane’s shoulders drew inward.
Nathan continued. “Not immediately. Later. I told her there was a resident who stayed after her shift because I wouldn’t let anyone change the dressing near my eye. I said Dr. Whitaker made me count backward while she did it. Sloane said the name was common.”
“It is,” Sloane whispered.
Nathan stared at her.
Hannah remembered him in the burn unit, swollen beyond recognition, refusing to look at photographs of himself. He had called everyone “doctor” because names required effort. Months later he had brought coffee for the entire team and gotten every order wrong.
She had not thought of that morning in years.
“I wasn’t the only surgeon,” she said. “You had a team.”
“You were the one who told me my face didn’t owe anybody familiarity.”
Alan frowned, as if the statement itself were offensive.
Nathan looked at Hannah for another moment, then opened the door.
The guests were seated badly now. People who had been assigned to separate tables had gathered in small groups. A man near the bar hid his phone as the family emerged.
Nathan walked to the center of the room.
His scar was nearly invisible from a distance. Hannah knew exactly where the tissue tightened when he spoke.
“The ceremony is postponed,” he said. “There is a private family matter we need to address. Hannah Whitaker attended today as an invited guest of my mother. She did nothing wrong by being here.”
A hundred faces turned toward Hannah.
She hated him for the kindness of naming her.
She hated Alan for making it necessary.
Sloane stood beside Nathan in her fitted gown, pale and rigid, a bride reduced to the role of witness at her own wedding.
“We appreciate your understanding,” Nathan continued. “Please enjoy the meal if you would like to stay. Transportation will still run on schedule.”
It was such a practical ending to an impossible announcement that several guests nodded automatically.
Then Nathan walked away from Sloane.
He did not make a scene. He did not throw the ring or shout. He crossed the polished floor, spoke briefly to his brother, and left through the terrace doors with his mother.
Sloane watched him go.
Alan immediately began speaking to the nearest guests, offering vague assurances. Denise remained near the library, one hand on the doorframe.
Hannah picked up the ivory invitation from the head table.
The paper had been folded where Nathan’s hand tightened around it.
She slipped it into her clutch.
Sloane saw.
“You keep everything,” she said.
Hannah looked at her. “Apparently.”
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“I know.”
The honesty startled them both.
Sloane glanced toward the terrace, where Nathan had disappeared among the vines.
“Then why did you?”
Hannah looked at the white flowers, the abandoned champagne, and the place cards bearing names she did not know.
“Because Evelyn told me you made him happy.”
“That’s it?”
“No.”
May you like
“What else?”
Hannah could have said she had wanted to see whether Sloane looked like the girl from the car. She could have said she had searched wedding photographs online before accepting, studying the face of the sister she had avoided for a decade. She could have admitted that curiosity had been stronger than good judgment.
