Chapter 15
Sara didn’t sleep much. The honeymoon villa felt too large without the fantasy inside it. She packed before dawn while Abbie sat on the bed eating chocolate-covered strawberries from the newlywed tray.
“These are excellent,” Abbie said. “Shame they were sent by an institution that has witnessed crimes.”
Sara folded the pale gold dress into her suitcase. “The resort didn’t cheat on me.”
“The resort enabled ambiance.”
“Please don’t fight the building.”
“I’ll put it on the list under Brayden, Brooklyn, and anyone who ever described that man as a wife guy.”
Sara smiled faintly.
Her phone hadn’t stopped buzzing since the dinner.The gossip account had posted the clips.
Other accounts had reposted them. Guests had uploaded angles of the montage, the champagne, Abbie telling off Brooklyn, and the ring dropping into Brayden’s glass.
Brooklyn’s comments had turned vicious before she shut them off.
Brayden’s last post, the honeymoon reel from the cove, had become a public execution.
This aged like milk in the sun.
Imagine telling your wife to wear white while your mistress has your room key.
Sara looked TOO calm. I know he was scared.
Brooklyn’s girls-support-girls era ended fast.
Abbie for president.
The sponsor had paused the campaign before midnight.
Brayden’s influencer friends were posting vague statements about not knowing the full context.
Two of the guests who had tagged him in every wedding post had quietly deleted the videos by breakfast. Brooklyn had turned off comments.
Sara’s mother had sent one text at 2:11 a.m.
We love you. We are proud of you. Come home when you are ready.
Sara had cried over that one. Not loudly. Not the ugly, ripping sobs from the day before. Just a few quiet tears that dropped onto the phone screen while Abbie pretended not to notice and aggressively rearranged shoes.
Now morning spilled pink over the terrace.
The wedding dress still hung from the wardrobe door.
Sara stood in front of it for a long moment.
Yesterday, it had looked like a symbol of everything she had lost. Today, it looked like a beautiful dress that had been present for a lie.
That was all. Fabric didn’t carry shame unless she gave it some.
Abbie came to stand beside her. “You want me to burn it?” she asked.
Sara smiled. “No.”
“Cut it short? Dye it black? Make Brooklyn watch?”
“No.”
“What’s the plan, then?”
Sara touched the pearl buttons along the back. “I’m taking it home.”
“Sentimental?”
“No.” Sara let her hand fall. “It’s mine.”
Abbie nodded, understanding.
A knock sounded at the villa door.
Abbie’s head snapped toward it. “If that’s Brayden, I’m using the champagne bucket.”
Sara checked the peephole. Dominic stood outside with two coffees and no expectation on his face. She opened the door.
“Good morning,” he said.
The words shouldn’t have felt intimate. They did.
“Good morning.”
He held out one of the coffees. “I guessed vanilla latte. Abbie told me I had a seventy percent chance of not embarrassing myself.”
Abbie appeared over Sara’s shoulder. “I said sixty-five.”
Dominic inclined his head. “I rounded up for confidence.”
Sara accepted the cup, warmth spreading through her fingers. “Thank you.”
He didn’t look past her into the villa. He didn’t ask if she had slept. He didn’t mention Brayden, Brooklyn, the montage, or the internet. He stood there in the soft morning light, giving her the mercy of an ordinary kindness after an extraordinary humiliation.
“I’m heading to my cousin’s brunch in a few minutes,” he said. “I wanted to say goodbye before you left.”
Sara’s chest tightened. “You don’t have to say it like forever.”
His gaze held hers. “I’m hoping it isn’t.”
Abbie made a sound behind her that might have been approval or indigestion from stolen strawberries.
Sara stepped onto the small patio outside the villa, letting the door fall halfway closed behind her.
The resort was waking up around them. Somewhere down the path, staff rolled luggage carts.
A boat horn sounded faintly from the dock.
The island looked clean in the morning, as if it hadn’t hosted a public betrayal hours earlier.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be right now,” Sara said.
Dominic rested one shoulder against the white stone wall, leaving space between them. “You don’t have to decide today.”
“I’m not his wife anymore.”
“No.”
“I’m not exactly free either.”
“You’re freer than you were yesterday.”
She looked down at the coffee. “You helped me.”
“You did the hard part.”
“You gave me the receipts.”
“You already had them. You just needed somewhere to put them.”
Sara smiled a little. “That sounds very tech founder.”
“I was trying to make it sound romantic.”
“It needs work.”
His smile warmed slowly. “I’ll improve.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She knew without looking.
Brayden had left seven voicemails and more texts than she could count. Apologies. Excuses. Requests. One message that only said, Please don’t let them make me the villain.
As if villains were made by audiences and not choices.
Dominic noticed, but he didn’t ask. Sara stepped closer. Not because Brayden had hurt her. Not because cameras were watching. Not because she needed to prove she had already moved on. She wanted Dominic because he had never once tried to make her pain about himself.
She rose onto her toes and kissed him. For half a second, he let her set the terms entirely.
His mouth was warm and still beneath hers, waiting, giving her room to change her mind.
She didn’t. She touched the front of his shirt, felt his breath shift, and kissed him again with all the hunger she had been too wounded to name.
Then his hand came to her waist. Careful. Certain. Not claiming. Anchoring.
The kiss deepened just enough to make the morning tilt. Sara felt the heat of him, the restraint he was using, the strength he kept leashed because her choice mattered to him more than his desire. That made her want him more, not less.
When she drew back, his eyes were darker.
Abbie opened the door behind them. “I support this development, but our boat leaves in twenty minutes and I refuse to be stranded on Adultery Island.”
Sara laughed. A real laugh.
Dominic brushed his thumb once over Sara’s knuckles and released her hand.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
“When?”
“Tonight, if you want.”
“I want.”
His smile was not for a camera. No one else needed to understand it.
Sara left the resort at dawn with Abbie beside her, her wedding dress packed carefully in a garment bag, her ring no longer on her finger, and her phone turned face down in her purse. She had stopped answering to Ellis before the paperwork ever caught up.
Guests watched from breakfast tables and villa balconies. Some whispered. Some smiled. One woman lifted a mimosa in silent salute.
Sara didn’t lower her head. At the dock, she looked back once. Brayden stood near the far end of the path in yesterday’s dinner clothes, wrecked and pale in the morning sun. Brooklyn was nowhere beside him. That seemed right.
Sara boarded the boat without him.
As the island pulled away, Abbie leaned against her shoulder.
“You okay?”
Sara watched the resort shrink behind them, all white stone and pink flowers and broken vows.
“No,” she said.
Abbie squeezed her hand.
Sara lifted her face to the wind. “But I will be.”
She had been young enough to believe him, but she had never been weak enough to keep protecting him.