Chapter 4

“Keep the ballroom,” I said. “There will be no wedding, only dinner. Daniel and Celeste are not invited.”

The hotel manager paused. “What if they continue telling people it’s their wedding?”

“What they choose to believe isn’t my responsibility. The hotel only needs to follow the changes I authorized.”

I asked her to email me the final arrangements.

The ceremony, vows, floral arch, music, and Daniel’s farewell video were canceled.

The ballroom would open at five for the family and friends originally invited to my wedding.

No groom. No bride.

And no one would use the room I paid for to celebrate Daniel’s morning marriage.

The manager reminded me that canceling the ceremony wouldn’t recover the eight thousand dollars in nonrefundable costs.

“I understand.”

After the call, I stared at the confirmation on my screen.

Eight thousand dollars could have paid for a long vacation or replaced every piece of furniture Daniel had helped choose.

Instead, it was the price of deciding how my relationship ended.

The doorbell rang.

Nora stood outside with her coat unbuttoned and her car keys still in her hand. She checked my face, then looked past me into the apartment.

“He’s gone?”

“At seven forty.”

“And Celeste?”

“Still helping him decide which wedding counts.”

Nora didn’t ask whether I was sure or remind me that six years deserved another conversation.

She went to the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, and placed one in front of me.

“What do you need?”

The question nearly broke the control I had held all day.

“Stay tonight,” I said. “I’ll handle everything else.”

My phone vibrated. Daniel’s name appeared on the screen.

The moment I answered, he said, “You banned Celeste and me from the evening event?”

“It isn’t your event.”

“My parents and friends will be there.”

“They were invited to our wedding. That wedding is canceled. They can decide whether they still want to attend dinner.”

He exhaled sharply. “So you’re going to put everyone in one room and publicly judge us?”

“I told them the wedding was canceled.”

“You also said you’d explain in person.”

“Someone has to explain why one man scheduled two brides on the same day.”

“I already told you I was trying to minimize the damage,” he said. “If you canceled everything, people would only need to change their plans. Keeping the ballroom turns this into a public execution.”

“You planned to seat those same people there and show them a video of you abandoning me.”

“That was private.”

When he controlled what appeared on the screen, it was private. If I told the truth, it became public punishment.

Celeste’s voice came through from beside him.

“Tell her half those guests are there for you. She can’t stop them from celebrating us.”

Daniel didn’t correct her.

“Mara,” he said, “we only need the ballroom for a few minutes after the morning ceremony. It will give my parents a chance to accept Celeste. Then we’ll leave.”

First, they had planned to humiliate me at five.

Now that the plan had failed, they wanted to turn my dinner into their wedding reception.

“You won’t enter the ballroom.”

“Don’t make this irreversible,” Daniel warned. “When you calm down, you’ll regret letting everyone see you like this.”

“You should worry about what they’ll see when they look at you.”

I ended the call and muted his number.

Nora sat across from me. “Would canceling everything be easier?”

Of course it would.

I could switch off my phone and leave town. Daniel and Celeste could take over the empty venue, then tell everyone I had run away because I couldn’t accept losing him.

That was exactly what they expected.

“They already planned how I was supposed to disappear,” I said. “I’m not following their script.”

My phone lit up again.

This time, the message came from Celeste.

Keep your dinner.

The brass clock will still be at my wedding.

Below it was a photograph.

My mother’s clock sat in a storage room beside Celeste’s veil, its hands stopped at ten.

I looked toward my mantel.

Only a clean rectangle remained where the clock had stood.