Chapter 1

Thirty minutes before the wedding reception, the screen in the banquet hall flickered black.

A second later, the wedding photos that had been playing on loop were replaced by hospital security footage.

Jayden Grant was carrying Sophia West into the emergency room with his jacket wrapped around her. He pressed his forehead against hers, and his face showed a kind of panic I hadn't seen from him in a long time.

Over two hundred guests fell silent at once.

The emcee gripped the microphone so hard his knuckles turned white. He glanced at me and whispered, "Mr. Grant wants to postpone the ceremony. Ms. Lane, are you going to wait for him?"

I looked down at the latest invitation proof resting in my palm. Two names were printed side by side in gold foil.

[Lydia Lane and Jayden Grant]

This was the ninety-ninth draft, and the ninety-ninth one to be thrown away.

I slid the ring off my finger and placed it in a shipping box I had prepared long ago.

A note was already tucked inside.

[Jayden, the wedding is off. Here's the ring. Throw out the invitations.]

The emcee was still waiting for my answer.

I lifted my head and smiled at the room full of guests.

"I'm done waiting."

*****

When I said those words, I thought I would cry. But I didn't.

The crystal chandeliers in the ballroom spilled light across white floral arches, and a hundred and twenty thousand Ecuadorian roses bloomed in perfect fullness.

When they were flown in fresh that morning, Jayden had sent his assistant with a message for me that Sophia was newly back and wasn't doing well emotionally, so I shouldn't take it personally that she needed to see him at the last minute.

I had taken it personally. Every single time.

The first postponement came because Grant Group was hemorrhaging capital. He held my hand and promised that once the company stabilized, he would give me the grandest wedding the city had ever seen.

The second time, it was his mother Lilian's heart. He told me she couldn't handle the excitement, and he asked me to be mature about it.

The third time, Sophia was finalizing her divorce overseas. He picked her up from the airport and didn't come home until three in the morning, with perfume on his shirt that wasn't mine.

After that, every reason circled back to Sophia.

Sophia's depression was flaring up again. Sophia was afraid of the dark. Sophia was having nightmares. Sophia would spiral if she saw anyone else getting married.

And I was always the one expected to understand. Always the one who had to be reasonable.

I went from sobbing and pleading and trying to hold him back, to standing there calmly, apologizing to guests on his behalf. Everyone in the Grant family was convinced I had been worn down into the perfectly compliant future Mrs. Grant.

Jayden thought so, too.

Ten minutes ago, his assistant, Alex Cole, had found me backstage. "Ms. Lane, Mr. Grant needs you to keep the guests settled. Ms. West is having an emergency, so the ceremony will be pushed back two hours."

I looked at him. "And if he's still not back after two hours?"

Alex blinked. He probably hadn't expected me to push back.

He fell back on Jayden's usual line. "You've always understood Mr. Grant better than anyone."

I stood in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection.

I had altered the wedding dress myself and hand-sewn three thousand pearls along the hem. From the first sketch to the final fitting, it took eight months.

Jayden came once. He spent the entire time texting Sophia, and when I turned to show him the embroidery on the back, he never looked up.

He said, "Looks great. Lydia, Sophia needs me for something, so I'm heading out."

After that day, I went through everything again on my own—the timeline, the guest list, the floral contracts, the lighting, the staging, and the menu tastings.

Because it was the ninety-ninth time.

I used to believe that if I was thorough enough, attentive enough, he would eventually see me.

Now I finally understood. When a man didn't want to look, a woman could stand right in front of him and still be nothing but scenery.

I sealed the box and handed it to Alex. "Get this to the ER at St. James Hospital."

Alex's face fell. "Ms. Lane, that's not what Mr. Grant meant."

"I know." I looked him in the eye. "Now it's what I mean."

A low murmur rippled through the banquet hall.

Lilian sat in the front row, her expression dark enough to curdle milk. She gripped the back of her chair, pushed herself up, and kept her voice low. "Lydia, there are guests here. Don't make a scene and embarrass everyone."

I stepped off the stage and held the microphone out to her.

I said, "Mrs. Grant, what's embarrassing isn't a canceled wedding. It's a groom who carried another woman to the hospital and left his bride behind to save face for him."

Her face went white in an instant, and someone in the crowd gasped.

I didn't argue.

I told the event coordinator to shut down the ceremony, cut the processional music, and close the champagne tower.

My studio's accountant started logging the guest reimbursements right there on the spot, like hotel rooms, flight changes, and gift bags.

The emcee turned to me. "So the costs—"

"Bundle it all and send it to Jayden." I handed him the signed cancellation form. "The venue contract, the custom florals, the cancellation penalties, and the hotel damages. Don't miss a single line."

Lilian couldn't hold back anymore. She walked straight up to me. "Lydia, don't you forget. Without the Grants, your family would have lost every shred of respectability a long time ago."

I looked at the emerald bracelet on her wrist.

The first year of the engagement, she had lent me that bracelet for a photo shoot and taken it back the second the cameras stopped.

A girl from the Lane family couldn't pull off anything that expensive, she said. It would wear her, not the other way around.

My eyes had stung, and Jayden told me, "That's just how my mom talks. Don't take it personally."

So I swallowed it. I kept swallowing it, all the way until today.

I kept my voice low. "I haven't forgotten. And every bit of dignity the Grants owe me, I'm taking back. One piece at a time."

Lilian almost laughed. "And what makes you think you can?"

I didn't answer because my phone buzzed.

It was a message from Michael Hughes. [The dissolution agreement, the breach-of-contract list, and the IP materials are all ready. Say the word, and I file tonight.]

I typed back two words: [File it.]

The package arrived at St. James Hospital just as Sophia stepped out of the ER observation room.