Chapter 1

At the wedding celebration we had waited three years to have, a private recording of my husband and his best friend suddenly played over the speakers.

On it, he sounded certain I would never leave him.

A moment later, he ran after her in front of twenty-eight guests.

That recording was never supposed to be part of the ceremony.

The officiant had just asked me to open our vow book when Brooke Vale’s voice filled the ballroom.

“If Mara ever stops being the understanding wife, you know where to find me.”

The guests turned toward the sound booth.

I looked at Grant.

Three minutes earlier, he had been holding my hand, promising that this long-delayed celebration would make up for everything we had missed.

Then his laughter came through the speakers.

Low. Relaxed.

Far too intimate.

“She won’t,” Grant said on the recording. “Mara always stays.”

My hand rested on the linen vow book.

The first page held the promise we had written at the courthouse three years ago. Grant’s father had just been hospitalized, so we canceled our wedding and signed the papers in front of four witnesses.

Grant had squeezed my hand and promised we would have a real wedding someday.

The second page belonged to our first anniversary.

The third belonged to our second.

Tonight, he was supposed to fill the final blank page.

Brooke stood in the front row, the color draining from her face.

“Turn it off!” Grant shouted at the sound technician. “Now!”

The recording stopped.

Brooke covered her mouth as tears spilled down her cheeks. “You brought that to your wedding?”

She was asking Grant.

Not me.

Grant released my hand and stepped toward her. “Brooke, I don’t know what happened. That wasn’t—”

“I shouldn’t have come.”

She rushed toward the exit. Her white wrap slipped from her shoulders and landed in the aisle. No one picked it up.

Grant glanced at the doors, then back at me.

I knew that pause.

For the past eighteen months, he had looked at me the same way whenever Brooke called after midnight, needed him without warning, or claimed she could not handle something alone.

He was waiting for me to make the decision for him.

Go. She needs you more than I do.

This time, I said nothing.

“Mara, I’ll be right back.” He lowered his voice. “She can’t handle everyone staring at her. Let me calm her down, and then we’ll talk.”

“Our wedding isn’t over.”

His jaw tightened. “Someone played the wrong recording. Don’t make this more humiliating than it already is.”

“For whom?”

He did not answer.

Brooke called his name from outside.

Grant ran after her.

The ballroom doors closed behind him.

The candles still burned, and no one had touched the champagne.

Near the back of the room, Theo Reid set down his glass.

He was the man I had wanted in college—and the guest Grant had objected to inviting most.

Theo did not come toward me.

I was grateful. I did not want another man cleaning up the wreckage my husband had left behind.

The officiant spoke quietly. “Mara, would you like me to ask everyone to wait in the lounge?”

I looked down at the blank page in our vow book.

Grant had always said we had only postponed our wedding.

I had believed that if I gave him enough time, he would eventually keep his promise.

I closed the book.

“No.” I faced our guests. “The ceremony is canceled. Dinner and drinks have already been arranged, so please stay if you’d like. But no one needs to wait for the groom.”

Several people tried to stop me and offer comfort. I kept walking.

At the sound booth, the technician handed me a black memory card.

“Mr. Ellis gave me this tonight,” he said. “He told me to play the file marked ‘VOWS_FINAL’ before the vows. I didn’t change anything.”

I took the card.

“Was that the entire recording?”

He hesitated, then turned his laptop toward me.

There was another folder on the card.

It had been created seven months ago.

And the recording we had just heard was not the only file inside.