Chapter 6 - THE BACKUP BRIDE
"What's this?" I asked.
Victoria looked at Laura. "Does she really not know?"
"Last chance," Laura said. "Get out."
Victoria lifted the envelope with two fingers and tipped a cream-colored invitation onto my lap. The paper was thick, embossed with the Bennett crest. Under the date were the words I remembered from my own wedding day.
The marriage of Alexander Bennett and—
Not Erin Hart.
Victoria Claire Vale.
My throat closed.
"We were supposed to get married in that ballroom," Victoria said. "The flowers were ordered. The orchestra was paid. His mother invited half the people who own this city."
"Stop."
"I left two days before."
I remembered Alex calling me from the estate at two in the morning. We'd been friends for years, orbiting the same charity events. I'd loved him quietly and stupidly for longer than I wanted to admit.
He'd said, I should have chosen you when I had the chance.
He asked me to meet him. Diane greeted me at the door with tears in her eyes and a ring in her hand. A wedding in forty-eight hours, she'd said, would be romantic. People would talk, yes, but people always talked.
I'd asked Alex one question: Are you sure?
He'd kissed my forehead. I've never been more sure of anything.
I wanted to believe him so badly that I let the question end there.
"The gown was mine," Victoria continued. "Two sizes too big on you, right? I saw the pictures. Mrs. Vega had to pin it down your back."
The photograph came back all at once: me standing on a box in a half-lit dressing room, wearing a stranger's dress; Diane telling the seamstress to work faster; Alex not looking at me when I walked down the aisle until somebody nudged him.
"You knew?" I said.
"Of course I knew. I didn't come back because I wanted him. I came back because I found out he'd married you in my place."
"That was three years ago."
"And look how long it took him to get over me."
Laura stepped between us. "This is over."
Victoria leaned around her. "You waited three years for him to run when you needed him. I made one phone call. Eleven minutes, Erin. Eleven minutes and he was beside me."
I didn't know how she knew that number. My pulse thudded against the bandage.
"Take your invitation," I said.
"Keep it. You should know what you're losing."
Something hot and ugly rose in my chest. I grabbed the invitation and stood too quickly. The room lurched. Victoria reached for the paper; I jerked it away.
"No," I snapped. "You've been keeping my husband. I'm here to take back what's mine."
Her fingers closed around my forearm. Her nails dug in.
The door banged open.
"Victoria?" Alex said.
She let go of me and stumbled backward into his chest.
"I came to apologize," she sobbed, "and she tried to hit me."
"What?" I said. "She grabbed me."
Alex's face changed. Not because he believed her, exactly. Because it would be easier if he did.
"Erin, apologize," he said.
Laura made a sound halfway between a laugh and a cough.
"I'm not apologizing," I said.
"She's carrying my child. You could have hurt her."
"So am—" I stopped myself. I wasn't giving him my news like this. Not with Victoria watching.
"See?" Victoria whispered. "She's jealous."
Alex scooped her into his arms. He didn't ask if she could walk. He didn't look at the bandage on my forehead.
"Her kindness is why I take care of her," he told me. "You could learn something from that."
He carried her out.
The door eased shut behind them. I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited until my hands stopped shaking.
Laura picked up the invitation. "We can make a copy."
"Don't lose it," I said.
"I won't."
She turned it over.
May you like
On the back was a printer's proof number, a date, and a handwritten instruction in Diane Bennett's unmistakable sloping script.
IF VICTORIA DOESN'T RETURN, FIT ERIN. NO REFUNDS.
