Chapter 5

At seven the next morning, I put on my wedding dress.

Sadie watched me pull it on with a look of absolute confusion.

"You're actually wearing it?"

"I paid for it." I touched up my lipstick. "Might as well get some use."

She understood. Her eyes lit up.

"I'm obsessed with you. Let's go."

The hotel was already frantic.

I walked in and felt every pair of eyes turn toward me.

Sympathy. Gossip. The particular alertness of people hoping for a spectacle.

Conrad was standing at the ballroom entrance in his morning suit. His eyes were raw underneath — he hadn't slept either.

When he saw me, he moved quickly to intercept, voice low.

"What are you doing here? What are you planning?"

"Attending my wedding." I smiled. "Wasn't that your suggestion? Get the wedding done first, sort everything out after?"

He scowled. "Stop making this worse. You'll regret the scene."

"Will I? For who — you and Harper?"

His eyes flickered. "She's not here today. Whatever it is you're planning to do—"

"Relax. I'm not here for her."

I walked past him into the ballroom.

Ten minutes before the ceremony was due to start, the MC approached and asked if we were ready to go up.

I smiled. "One moment. I have a short video I'd like to show everyone first — a little surprise for the room."

He smiled back, happy to oblige.

Conrad didn't know what I was doing. He must have assumed I'd had a change of heart. His expression eased slightly.

Then the screen came to life.

The first image: the title deed. Open to the proprietor page.

Legal proprietor: Harper Sterling.

The second: my bank transfer records. The full purchase amount, to the penny, from my account.

The third: Harper in my wedding dress, standing in front of the bedroom mirror.

The ballroom held its breath for a full second.

Then the sound exploded.

My mother was sitting in the front row. Eyes red, spine rigid.

My father's jaw was locked, his hands white-knuckled in his lap.

Conrad came to life — lunged toward the AV desk.

"Turn it off — shut it down now—"

The screen didn't stop.

The fourth slide: Conrad's own words, in his message to me.

The flat's in her name for now — just a way to make it up to her.

The fifth: Patricia Dunmore's recorded voice, played aloud.

It doesn't matter whose name is on the deed — when you're married you'll all be one family.

Conrad agreed to marry you because you're sensible and uncomplicated.

That flat will be yours to live in anyway. What's the point of counting every penny?

The murmuring in the room rose in waves.

A relative — I didn't know whose — said out loud: "That's disgusting."

"He spent his fiancée's money on his ex-girlfriend. That's not a person."

"Is this wedding still happening?"

Conrad pushed through the crowd to me. His face was hard. He reached for the microphone.

I stepped back and hit him a second time.

The sound was very clean.

"That one's for yesterday's shortfall."

He froze.

I held the microphone. I looked out at everyone in the room.

"I invited all of you here today to witness me getting married. Last night I found out that the flat I purchased in full — every pound of it mine and my parents' — is registered in my fiancé's ex-girlfriend's name."

"My savings. My parents' money from selling their home. All of it, in the end, went toward someone else's love story."

"So the wedding is off."

"Please stay and eat — the reception is paid for and I want you to enjoy it. Your gifts will be returned to you in full. As for the groom—" I glanced at Conrad — "he can handle the rest himself."

The room detonated.

Conrad finally snapped, stepped close, hissed under his breath: "You've lost your mind."

"What I lost was five years thinking I was loved."

"You think this helps you? Going public like this?"

"It helps me plenty. It doesn't help you at all."

I threw the bouquet into his chest.

"Keep it. Give it to someone else."

Conrad's mother came screaming across the floor toward me, reaching for my hair.

Sadie was faster — she stepped between us.

"Try it."

My father was on his feet, pointing his finger directly at Conrad's face.

"Your family has no shame. You steal from my daughter and then stand there like the injured party?"

The scene fell apart completely.

But I wasn't afraid.

I was, strangely, very calm.

I stood on that stage and watched the wedding that should have been mine become a tribunal.

I'd already had the worst moment. Everything after this was just evidence.