“What do you need tonight?”

Celia’s voice was calm, but I could hear the concern beneath it.

“I need you to protect everything that belongs to me. And I need you to make sure Fletcher cannot turn what happened today into a financial problem tomorrow.”

There was a pause.

“Did you sign a prenuptial agreement?”

“Yes. Six months ago.”

“Good. Do you have a copy?”

“In my office. Along with the financial disclosures.”

“Then don’t sign anything else. Don’t agree to any settlement, don’t transfer money, and don’t let him access your business accounts. I’ll review everything first thing tomorrow.”

I closed my eyes.

“There’s something else.”

“Go ahead.”

“Fletcher has been using my company credit card for certain expenses. I authorized it when we were planning the wedding, but I never agreed to make him an authorized user permanently.”

“Then we’ll review those charges too.”

I thanked her and ended the call.

For the first time that day, I felt like I could breathe.

But the evening was far from over.

At 6:12 p.m., someone knocked on my H๏τel room door.

Carmen checked through the peephole.

“It’s Patricia.”

Fletcher’s mother.

Carmen turned toward me.

“Do you want me to send her away?”

I looked at the mirror.

My hair was still pinned in the elegant style my mother had created that morning. My makeup was slightly faded, but my eyes were dry.

“No. Let her come in.”

Patricia entered carrying her expensive leather handbag.

She didn’t look at me immediately.

Instead, she glanced around the suite, at the discarded veil, the empty champagne glᴀsses, and the wedding dress hanging over the back of a chair.

Then she sighed.

“Ivy, I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

I almost smiled.

“Hello to you too, Patricia.”

“This is a family matter. It should never have become a public spectacle.”

“Your son left his wedding to take my sister to a rooftop bar.”

“She was distressed.”

“She was drinking cocktails twenty minutes later.”

Patricia тιԍнтened her grip on her handbag.

“Bridget has always been sensitive. Fletcher has a good heart. You know that.”

“I know he has a habit of abandoning me whenever Bridget calls.”

“That is an unfair characterization.”

“Is it?”

She sat down without being invited.

“Marriage requires compromise, Ivy. You cannot expect to be the center of his universe every minute.”

I stared at her.

I hadn’t asked Fletcher to make me the center of his universe.

I’d asked him to stand beside me at the altar.

Once.

For a few minutes.

On the day we’d spent eighteen months planning.

“I wasn’t asking for every minute,” I said. “I was asking for one afternoon.”

Patricia shook her head.

“You’ve always been rather compeтιтive with Bridget.”

That sentence made Carmen stand up.

“Excuse me?”

I raised my hand.

“Let her finish.”

Patricia continued.

“Bridget has struggled emotionally. Fletcher has always been there for her. You knew that when you entered this relationship.”

There it was.

The explanation they had used for years.

Bridget needed help.

Fletcher needed to provide it.

And I needed to understand.

I stood and walked toward the window.

“Patricia, do you know what Fletcher told me when I asked him to come back?”

She didn’t answer.

“He called me rigid. He said I was making everything bigger than it needed to be.”

“He was under pressure.”

“And I wasn’t?”

My voice remained steady.

“I was standing in a wedding dress in front of one hundred and forty guests. My parents were there. His entire family was there. The officiant was waiting. The music was ready. And the man I was supposed to marry was ordering drinks with my sister.”

Patricia looked away.

“I think you should go.”

She stood abruptly.

“You’ll regret making such a dramatic decision.”

“Maybe. But at least it will be my decision.”

She reached the door, then turned around.

“One more thing. Bridget is devastated. She thinks you’ve destroyed her relationship with Fletcher.”

I stared at her.

“Bridget has a boyfriend, Patricia.”

Her face changed.

Just slightly.

But enough.

“Ryan is here,” I continued. “He was at the wedding. He was waiting for her while she was drinking with my fiancé.”

Patricia said nothing.

“Perhaps you should ask why Bridget needed my future husband to rescue her from a locked rental car when her own boyfriend was sitting downstairs.”

For the first time, Patricia looked genuinely uncomfortable.

Then she left.

At 7:03 p.m., my phone began vibrating.

Fletcher.

I ignored it.

Then Bridget.

I ignored that too.

Then a message appeared from an unknown number.

You need to stop punishing Fletcher because I needed help. He was only trying to be a good person.

I knew immediately who had sent it.

Bridget.

I typed one sentence.

You didn’t need help. You needed attention, and he was willing to give it to you at the expense of his own wedding.

I put the phone facedown.

Three minutes later, Carmen walked back into the room holding her phone.

“You need to see this.”

It was a pH๏τograph.

Someone had posted a picture from the rooftop bar.

Fletcher was sitting beside Bridget.

His jacket was hanging over the back of his chair. His tie was loosened. Bridget was leaning toward him, laughing, one hand resting on his forearm.

Two cocktails sat between them.

The caption read:

Some people know how to show up when it matters. Family first. Always.

I stared at the pH๏τograph.

Not because I was surprised.

Because I recognized the restaurant.

It was the rooftop lounge at the Westbridge H๏τel.

The same H๏τel where our wedding was taking place.

The same H๏τel where I had been waiting in a bridal suite four floors below.

They hadn’t even bothered to leave the building.

I enlarged the pH๏τograph.

In the background, I noticed something.

A reflection in the glᴀss behind Fletcher.

A man standing near the elevator.

Ryan.

Bridget’s boyfriend.

And he wasn’t looking at Fletcher.

He was looking directly at Bridget.

Carmen leaned over my shoulder.

“Oh, this is going to get interesting.”

At 8:15 p.m., Ryan called me.

I almost didn’t answer.

“Hi, Ryan.”

“Ivy, I’m sorry.”

His voice sounded exhausted.

“For what?”

“For today. For not realizing what was happening sooner.”

I sat down.

“Did you know where Bridget was?”

“I found out when I saw the picture.”

“Were you at the wedding?”

“Yes. I was sitting with her friends.”

He hesitated.

“Can I tell you something without you thinking I’m making excuses for her?”

“Go ahead.”

“Bridget told me Fletcher had promised to spend the afternoon helping her with a personal emergency. She said you knew about it.”

I went completely still.

“What?”

“She told me you were fine with it. That you had agreed to delay the ceremony.”

I felt something cold settle in my stomach.

“She told you that?”

“Yes. And when I asked why she needed Fletcher instead of me, she said I was being controlling.”

I closed my eyes.

Then Ryan said something that made me sit upright.

“Ivy, there’s something else. I don’t think that rental car story was true.”

“What do you mean?”

“I called the rental company. I was trying to figure out where her car was because she wouldn’t answer me.”

“And?”

“They told me there was no roadside ᴀssistance request. No lockout report. Nothing.”

My fingers тιԍнтened around the phone.

“Are you saying she never locked her keys inside?”

“I don’t know what happened. But I found out something else.”

“What?”

“Bridget reserved a table at that rooftop bar three days ago.”

Three days.

I looked at Carmen.

She had heard every word.

“Are you sure?”

“I saw the confirmation email on her tablet. It was for two people. Four-thirty in the afternoon.”

I couldn’t speak.

Ryan continued.

“I don’t know what was supposed to happen today, Ivy. But I know she didn’t accidentally end up there.”

The call ended several minutes later.

I sat motionless.

For years, I had believed Bridget was simply someone who needed more attention than most people.

I had never considered that she might be deliberately creating situations to get it.

At 9:06 p.m., Fletcher finally came downstairs.

He entered the bridal suite without knocking.

His face was flushed.

His shirt was untucked, and his expression was somewhere between anger and desperation.

“Where have you been?”

I looked at him.

“Getting ready to leave.”

“You can’t just disappear.”

I almost laughed.

“That’s interesting coming from you.”

He ignored the remark.

“Listen, I know today was difficult. But we need to talk like adults.”

“We are talking.”

“No. You’re shutting me out.”

“You left me at the altar.”

“I didn’t leave you at the altar. I stepped away to help someone.”

“For forty-five minutes?”

“Bridget was upset!”

“And then you went drinking with her.”

He rubbed his forehead.

“Ivy, please. I made a mistake.”

I stood.

“Then answer one question.”

“What?”

“Did you know about the reservation at the rooftop bar three days ago?”

His expression changed.

Only for a second.

But I saw it.

“What reservation?”

“Four-thirty. Two people. At the H๏τel rooftop.”

He looked at me.

Then toward Carmen.

Then back at me.

“Who told you that?”

I felt my heart sink.

Not because he had admitted anything.

Because he hadn’t denied it.

“Fletcher, did you know?”

He exhaled.

“Bridget wanted to talk to me about something important.”

“On my wedding day?”

“She didn’t want to upset you.”

I stared at him.

“So you planned to meet her during our ceremony?”

“It wasn’t supposed to take this long.”

“Was I supposed to stand downstairs while you finished your drinks?”

“That’s not what happened!”

“Then tell me what happened.”

He stepped closer.

“Ivy, you’re twisting everything.”

I took a step back.

“Don’t.”

His expression hardened.

“You’re really going to throw away four years over this?”

“No, Fletcher.”

I looked directly into his eyes.

“I’m throwing away four years of explaining why you never chose me.”

He opened his mouth.

But before he could answer, his phone lit up.

A message appeared on the screen.

I didn’t intend to read it.

But the name was unmistakable.

Bridget.

And the preview contained only one sentence.

Did you tell her about the money yet?

Fletcher immediately turned the phone facedown.

My stomach тιԍнтened.

“What money?”

“Nothing.”

“Fletcher.”

“It’s complicated.”

I stared at him.

“Then explain it.”

He looked toward the door.

For the first time since I had known him, he seemed genuinely frightened of what I might discover.

And then he said something I never expected.

“Bridget and I were supposed to tell you after the wedding.”

I felt the room tilt.

“Tell me what?”

He swallowed.

“About the money I borrowed from your company.”

Silence.

“How much?”

He didn’t answer.

“How much, Fletcher?”

His eyes dropped.

“Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”

Carmen gasped.

I couldn’t move.

Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

Money from the company I had spent seven years building.

Money I had never authorized him to borrow.

And then he added:

“Bridget was supposed to help me explain it.”

I looked at him.

“Why would Bridget be involved in my company’s money?”

He closed his eyes.

And that was when I understood.

The wedding hadn’t merely been interrupted by my sister’s emergency.

There was something happening behind my back.

Something Fletcher and Bridget had been planning together.

I reached for my phone.

“Celia?”

My attorney answered immediately.

“I’m here.”

I looked at Fletcher.

“Change of plans. I need you to investigate an unauthorized transfer of two hundred and eighty thousand dollars from my company.”

Fletcher’s face went white.

Then my attorney asked the question that changed everything.

“Ivy, before I do anything, I need to know one thing. Was the money transferred to an account belonging to your sister?”

I looked at Fletcher.

He said nothing.

But his silence was enough.

And suddenly, the canceled wedding was no longer the biggest problem in the room.

The betrayal had started long before I put on the dress.

END OF PART 2