Chapter 1

Twenty minutes before our wedding, my fiancé’s girl best friend tied my late mother’s veil around her thigh and dared him to find it blindfolded.

When Daniel’s blindfold slipped, he saw exactly whose legs his hands were touching.

He didn’t stop.

“Higher!” one of the groomsmen shouted.

Laughter filled the groom’s suite.

I stood outside the half-open door, watching the man I had loved for eight years kneel between Sloane Hayes’s parted knees.

Sloane had been Daniel’s best friend for eighteen years. She was also his “best woman” and the person he always defended with the same six words:

Sloane didn’t mean any harm.

Now my mother’s pearl-edged veil was wrapped around her thigh while Daniel searched beneath her raised skirt.

“Come on, Danny,” Sloane said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You know me better than that.”

Daniel smiled.

His fingers moved higher.

I pushed the door open.

“Take your hands off her.”

The laughter stopped.

Daniel turned. The blindfold hung around his neck.

“Elena? You’re supposed to be downstairs.”

He sounded surprised, not ashamed.

“Give me back my veil.”

“Oh, relax,” Sloane said. “It was a wedding game.”

“You stole it from the bridal suite.”

Sloane rolled her eyes. “I borrowed it.”

Daniel stepped between us.

“It was a stupid prank. Don’t turn it into something else.”

“Your blindfold came off.”

“So?”

“You knew it was Sloane.”

“I was looking for the veil.”

“Under her dress.”

His jaw tightened. “Because she put it there.”

Around us, the groomsmen lowered their phones but kept watching.

Sloane sighed.

“This is why we didn’t invite you to the bachelor party. You make everything Daniel and I do sound dirty.”

I held out my hand.

“Give it back.”

“Fine.”

Sloane stood and unwound the veil. One end fell to the floor.

When I reached for it, her heel came down on the lace.

The fabric tore between us.

A pearl rolled beneath the sofa.

No one laughed this time.

My mother had restored that veil during the final weeks of her life, sewing each pearl by hand even when she was too weak to walk alone.

So I’ll be with you when you walk down the aisle, she had whispered.

Sloane stepped back. “It was an accident.”

I bent for the torn lace, but Daniel caught my wrist.

“Elena, stop. You’re scaring her.”

I pulled my wrist free.

“She destroyed the last thing my mother gave me.”

“We’ll have it repaired.”

“It can’t be replaced.”

“Then I’ll buy you a new one.”

I looked at him.

“Can you buy me a new mother too?”

Daniel closed his eyes.

“Not this again. Two hundred people are waiting downstairs. Don’t destroy our wedding over a piece of fabric.”

Behind him, Sloane folded her arms.

“I told you I didn’t mean any harm.”

There it was again—the excuse Daniel had used for every boundary she crossed during our eight-year relationship.

One of the groomsmen cleared his throat.

“Come on, Elena. Sloane’s always like this. You knew what you were marrying into.”

He was right.

I knew exactly what I was marrying into.

A woman who treated my mother’s veil like a prop.

Friends who turned my humiliation into entertainment. A man who expected me to forgive him before he apologized.

Something inside me went still.

I had spent eight years forgiving Daniel before he apologized. I would not spend a marriage doing the same.

For the first time, I stopped trying to make him understand.

I gathered the ruined veil and removed my engagement ring.

Daniel watched me place it on the table.

“What are you doing?”

“Canceling the wedding.”

Silence swallowed the room.

“You’re throwing away eight years over a veil?”

“No.” I looked at the man I had almost married. “I’m leaving because you watched her humiliate me—and helped her do it.”

I would not wait for him to choose me.

I chose to leave.

“If you walk out now,” Daniel called, “don’t expect me to chase you.”

That threat had worked before. He would withdraw, I would panic, and somehow I would apologize.

Not this time.

“For once,” I said, “I’m counting on it.”

As the elevator doors closed, I looked back.

Daniel had not followed me.

He was kneeling beside Sloane, checking the red mark on her thigh.

He never looked up.