Chapter 1 - THE WEDDING I CANCELED IN ELEVEN MINUTES
“Did you trip?”
Sloane stared at me through tears.
“What?”
“You said you never wanted this to happen. I’m asking whether you tripped, fell out of your clothes, and accidentally landed in my bed with my fiancé.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
I turned back to the wedding binder.
Photographer.
Cancel.
String quartet.
Cancel.
Hotel transportation.
Cancel.
Florist.
That one hurt.
My grandmother had loved white garden roses, and I had chosen them because I wanted one piece of her with me when I walked down the aisle.
I canceled those too.
Bennett followed me around the kitchen like a man watching someone dismantle his house brick by brick.
“Wren, stop.”
“No.”
“We can talk about this.”
“You can talk. I’m busy.”
“You cannot erase seven years in eleven minutes.”
I looked at the clock above the stove.
2:28.
“Apparently I can.”
Sloane came downstairs wearing her dress from that morning and carrying her black heels.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Please don’t tell Mom yet.”
That almost impressed me.
“You’re worried about Mom?”
“She’ll lose her mind.”
“You slept with my fiancé six days before my wedding.”
“I know.”
“No, Sloane. I don’t think you do.”
Bennett stepped between us.
“This isn’t all on her.”
“How heroic.”
“Wren.”
“You want responsibility? Congratulations. You can have all of it.”
My hands were shaking now.
Not enough to stop me.
Just enough to make the pages rustle.
I called my father next.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“The wedding is canceled.”
Silence.
“What?”
“I came home and found Bennett in bed with Sloane.”
Another silence.
Longer.
Then my father said something I would remember almost as clearly as 2:17.
“Don’t do anything permanent until we talk.”
I laughed.
“It already happened.”
“Wren, listen to me—”
I hung up.
Bennett stared.
“You told him?”
“Yes.”
“What did you expect me to do? Wait until cocktail hour?”
He ran a hand through his hair.
“There are financial consequences here.”
That sentence stopped me.
Not emotional consequences.
Not family consequences.
Financial.
“What financial consequences?”
His face changed.
Small.
Almost nothing.
But I had spent nine years in emergency nursing.
I knew what people looked like right before they lied.
“Nothing.”
I closed the binder.
“What financial consequences, Bennett?”
Sloane suddenly looked at him.
He looked at her.
There it was.
Another secret between them.
I walked upstairs.
Behind me, Bennett said my name.
I ignored him.
In our bedroom, I packed only what belonged to me.
Clothes.
Medication.
Passport.
Grandmother’s jewelry box.
And the quilt.
I picked it up from the floor.
Sloane’s heel had torn one of the blue patches near the edge.
That hurt more than it should have.
I folded it carefully.
When I returned downstairs, Bennett was waiting near the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere you aren’t.”
“Wren, there are papers we’re supposed to sign Friday.”
I stopped.
“What papers?”
He went pale.
Sloane whispered:
“Bennett.”
I turned toward her.
“What papers?”
Neither answered.
Cold returned.
Useful cold.
Then Sloane said quietly:
“You weren’t supposed to find out about us until after Friday.”
The room went completely still.
I stared at her.
“After what happened Friday?”
Bennett closed his eyes.
Sloane looked terrified.
And that was when I understood the affair wasn’t the only thing they had been hiding.
May you like
Friday wasn’t another wedding appointment.
It was the day Bennett planned to put my grandmother’s farmhouse into his company’s development deal.
