Chapter 5 - THE BRIDE WHO WALKED TOWARD THE TRUTH
Seven days later, the Mercer estate on Long Island looked like something built for a movie.
White chairs faced the ocean.
Thousands of late-season flowers curved around a simple wooden arch.
Guests arrived from across the country.
Sloane stood upstairs in a private suite while stylists adjusted her dress around the six-month belly.
She had chosen a gown with an empire waist.
Convenient.
Brynn did not come.
Sloane called her three times.
No answer.
“Where is she?” Sloane demanded.
Her mother shrugged nervously.
“She said she had food poisoning.”
“On my wedding day?”
“You can be angry tomorrow.”
Sloane stared at her reflection.
She had spent eleven months getting here.
Eleven months learning Julian’s grief.
His habits.
His fears.
What he protected.
What he missed.
At first, she had actually liked him.
That was the part she never admitted.
Julian was kinder than she expected.
He listened.
He remembered things.
He never treated her as decorative.
For a time, Sloane thought perhaps she could simply marry him.
Then she saw the first draft of the agreement.
Pages protecting billions.
Pages defining property.
Pages that reminded her of every dinner at which her father promised everything was fine while creditors waited outside.
Sloane saw the document as an insult.
Then she saw the family clause.
An idea became a possibility.
Possibility became a plan.
By the time guilt appeared, she had already paid Keene.
After that, she told herself there was no road backward.
A knock came at the suite door.
Julian’s mother entered.
Margaret Mercer was seventy and still carried herself with the quiet authority of someone who never needed to raise her voice.
“You look beautiful,” she said.
Sloane smiled.
“Thank you.”
Margaret looked at her stomach.
Something in the older woman’s face made Sloane uneasy.
“Is Julian all right?”
“He’s downstairs.”
“I mean emotionally.”
Margaret took a long breath.
“My son has survived things money could not repair.”
Sloane swallowed.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
The question landed strangely.
Before Sloane could answer, music began outside.
Margaret stepped aside.
“Then I hope you remember that.”
She left.
Sloane stood alone.
For the first time, she felt afraid.
Not nervous.
Afraid.
At the bottom of the lawn, Julian waited.
He wore a dark suit.
No smile.
Owen stood twenty feet away among the guests.
So did Julian’s attorney.
Tess Callahan was not there.
Julian had invited her.
She had refused.
“This isn’t my moment,” she told him when he came to Aster Row two days earlier.
“You started this.”
“No. She started it.”
“You saved me.”
Tess looked uncomfortable.
“I handed you a napkin.”
“You risked your job.”
“That doesn’t mean I want a front-row seat when her life falls apart.”
Julian studied her.
“You feel sorry for her?”
“No.”
Tess shook her head.
“But I don’t want to become someone who enjoys seeing another person destroyed.”
That sentence stayed with him.
Now the music changed.
Sloane appeared.
Guests stood.
She walked down the aisle with her father.
Julian watched the woman he had almost married approach carrying a child who had never existed.
His throat tightened.
He did not hate her as much as he expected.
Hatred would have been easier.
What he felt was grief.
Sloane reached the front.
Her father kissed her cheek and stepped away.
May you like
The officiant smiled.
“Friends, we are gathered—”
