Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Vivianne: The Wedding Day
Five in the morning, and I haven't closed my eyes once.
The taste of Paul's kiss still lingers on my lips, a phantom warmth that makes everything else feel cold by comparison. My fingers drift to my mouth, tracing where his were just hours ago.
Was he really here? Did he really promise to come for me, or have I finally cracked under the pressure, my mind conjuring rescue where none exists?
No. The champagne stain on my discarded dress proves it was real. He was here. He's coming.
Today.
I sit at my window, knees drawn to my chest, watching the estate wake beneath a sky bleeding from black to bruised purple.
The gardens spread below like a battlefield preparing for war—which isn't far from the truth.
White chairs arranged in perfect rows, hundreds of them, each one a witness to my upcoming execution.
The altar stands at the far end, draped in white silk and roses, looking more like a guillotine than a place where love should bloom.
A security guard passes beneath my window, his flashlight cutting through the pre-dawn gloom. Then another. And another. Donovan Price has them doing rounds every fifteen minutes now instead of every hour. Father's paranoia has infected everyone, turning our home into a fortress.
Or a prison.
I pull my hidden notebook from behind the radiator, its pages worn soft from my desperate sketching. The pencil trembles in my hand as I flip to a fresh page. I need to capture it before the memory fades—the Swan, as I saw it that night Father dragged me to the vault.
My pencil moves, recreating the massive ruby from memory.
The size of a quail's egg, Paul had said, but that doesn't capture its presence.
It had seemed alive in that glass case, pulsing with secrets and old pain.
The gold setting, intricate as lace, delicate as spider silk, but somehow strong enough to bear the weight of all that blood-colored stone.
But it's what lies within the ruby that haunts me.
The swan itself, frozen inside the jewel's heart. Not carved, not painted—a flaw in the stone that nature shaped into something impossible. Wings spread wide, neck extended, forever suspended in that moment between earth and sky. Between bondage and freedom.
Like me.
I add shadows, depth, trying to capture how the light had bent through the stone, how the swan had seemed to move when Father lifted the pendant.
My grandmother wore this once. Young Brigitte, in love with Anthony, who became Merlin, before my grandfather stole both her and the necklace.
Building our family's empire on theft and betrayal.
The pencil stills.
Is that what I'm doing now? Betraying my family? Or am I finally breaking the chain of women in this family who surrendered to men who saw them as possessions?
The first delivery truck rumbles up the drive, its headlights sweeping across my window.
Four forty-five. Earlier than expected. I lean forward, studying it in the growing light.
"Celestial Catering" painted on the side in elegant script.
Then another van—"Paradise Florals." Then another. And another.
Too many.
We're having five hundred guests, yes, but this is excessive even by Father's standards. Seven vans. Three trucks. More arriving.
My pulse begins to race.
I flip back through my notebook, past sketches of Paul's hands, his eyes, the way he looked at me in that garden in Paris before everything went wrong.
Past drawings of escape routes I'll never use, floor plans of the house with all its secret passages.
I find the page I'm looking for—my grandmother's face, drawn from memory and old photographs.
She was beautiful once. Really beautiful, not just the faded prettiness of old age. In the photos from before her marriage, she glowed. There was a wildness in her eyes, a freedom that got slowly extinguished year by year until only shadows remained.
I've read more of Anthony's letters hidden throughout her room. Tucked behind picture frames, sewn into the lining of old purses, pressed between pages of books she knew my grandfather would never read. Love letters that burn with passion and promise, each one a small rebellion she managed to keep.
"My dearest Brigitte," one had read. "Every sunrise I think of you.
Every sunset, I mourn another day apart.
But this war will end, my darling. All wars do.
And when it does, I'll come for you. I'll cross oceans, I'll move mountains.
Nothing will keep me from you. Not time, not distance, not the devils that walk this earth in uniform.
You are my Paris, my freedom, my home. Wait for me. Just wait for me."
But she hadn't waited. Or maybe she had, and he never came. Or maybe my grandfather made sure he couldn't come, the way Father is making sure Paul can't come for me now.
Except Paul is different.
The door to my room opens without warning. I barely manage to shove the notebook under my pillow before Mrs. Holloway enters with an army of stylists behind her.
"Time to begin, miss." The sorrow she tries to hide bleeds through anyway. She's been with this family long enough to know what this day really means.
The stylists descend like vultures—cheerful, chattering vultures who seem genuinely excited about transforming me into the perfect bride.
They arrange their tools of torture across my vanity: curling irons that will burn my rebellion into submission, makeup brushes that will paint over my despair, hairpins that will pierce through any remaining hope.
"Such beautiful skin." One coos, running fingers along my cheek. "Like porcelain."
Yes, I think. Porcelain. Beautiful, delicate, empty. Easy to shatter.
"And this hair!" Another lifts the heavy mass of it. "We'll do an elegant updo, very classical. Mr. Harrington will love it."
Mr. Harrington—Prescott—will love it. Not a single person asks what I might love. But then, dolls don't get preferences.
They sit me in the chair, and the mirror shows them beginning to erase me. Foundation to cover the shadows under my eyes from sleepless nights. Concealer to hide the place where I've been biting my lip bloody with anxiety. Blush to approximate the glow of a happy bride.
Outside, more vehicles arrive. A van with no logo—suspicious. Two men in catering uniforms who move with too much precision, too much awareness. Not caterers at all.
Hope blooms in my chest, dangerous as a flame near gasoline.
"Hold still, dear." The makeup artist chides as I crane to see out the window. "We need these lashes to be perfect."
Perfect. Everything must be perfect for my sale—no, my wedding. Must remember to use the right words, even in my own mind. Father has ears everywhere, and sometimes I wonder if he can hear my thoughts, too.
Mrs. Holloway hovers near the door, ostensibly supervising but really standing guard.
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror, and it's there—she knows something.
Maybe not the specifics, but she knows today is different.
A tension in her shoulders, a watchfulness that wasn't there during yesterday's preparations.
"Your grandmother—" She speaks suddenly, causing the stylists to pause. "—would want you to have this."
She pulls something from her pocket—a small silver hair comb, art deco style, with tiny sapphires that match my earrings. My grandmother's earrings.
"She wore it at her wedding." Mrs. Holloway ignores the stylists' protests as she slides it into my half-finished updo. "Said it was her 'something blue.' Though between you and me, miss, I think she'd understand if you decided you needed something else. Something... different."
Our eyes meet again. She knows. Somehow, she knows.
"Thank you." The whisper is all I can manage.
The stylists resume their work, chattering about the weather (perfect), the flowers (exquisite), the reception menu (divine).
Their words wash over me like white noise as the estate transforms through my window.
The sun is properly rising now, painting everything gold and pink, making it all look like a fairytale.
But I know better. Fairytales have happy endings. This is something else entirely.
Unless Paul keeps his promise.
Unless I'm brave enough to run when the moment comes.
The stylists step back, admiring their work. In the mirror, a perfect bride stares back—beautiful and empty as a museum piece. But underneath the makeup and the carefully arranged hair, my pulse beats wild as a caged bird's.
Today, one way or another, this cage opens.
Today, I either fly free or die trying.
Because I've decided: I won't say "I do." No matter what Father threatens, no matter what Prescott promises, no matter if Paul doesn't come. I won't speak those words that will seal my fate.
The swan in the ruby knew what I'm only now learning—sometimes being frozen between two states is better than surrendering to the wrong one. Sometimes the flight itself, even if it never ends, is better than the cage.
More vehicles arrive below. More strangers in uniforms, more boxes being unloaded, more preparation for this grand performance where I'm both the star and the sacrifice.
But they don't know the script has changed.
They don't know the cavalry is already here, hidden among the caterers and florists and photographers.
They don't know that Paul de Gaulle keeps his promises.
The stylists pack up their tools, pronouncing me ready for the next phase—the dress. But I'm not ready. I'll never be ready for the dress that will be my shroud, for the veil that will be my blindfold, for the rings that will be my shackles.
Yet I smile at them, thank them, play the part of the grateful bride.
Because in a few hours, when Prescott waits at that altar and Father walks me down that aisle, when five hundred of society's finest gather to watch me be sold—
That's when the real show begins.