Chapter Twenty Four
Present Day
The ground seemed to tilt. I gripped the rough hedge beside me, thorns biting into my palm, the sharp, clean pain a welcome anchor against the dizzying nausea that rose in my throat. The laughter of the groomsmen—Theo’s laughter, joining theirs—faded into a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
Convenience. The word played on a loop, a scalpel dissecting every memory of the week.
The way he’d looked at me by the window wasn’t wonder; it was appraisal.
The way he’d said “I’ve got you” in the bath wasn’t a promise; it was a line.
The photographs at the gallery weren’t a testament; they were a collection.
A hobby. I had been a fascinating subject, a familiar body readily available, a plot twist in his sister’s wedding week. Nothing.
I stood up on trembling legs, my heel catching on the gravel.
I left my shoes there, stepping barefoot onto the cool grass.
The distant music from the reception hall was a grotesque, jaunty soundtrack to my obliteration.
I walked, a ghost through the fairy-lit garden, past clusters of laughing guests who blurred into smears of color.
My only thought was a frantic, animal need: Out. Get out.
Finding Sloane on the dance floor felt like moving through deep water. I tugged on her arm, and when she turned, her radiant smile melted into stark alarm. “Gin?”
She took one look at my face—the tears I could no longer hold back, the shattered expression—and her own joy drained away, replaced by a protective ferocity.
She whispered to Jasper, her hand closing tightly around mine, and led me out of the pounding beat and into a silent, coat-room adjacent space.
“You look destroyed,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Imogen, what happened?”
The words stuck in my ravaged throat. I couldn’t give voice to the humiliation. To repeat the phrase would make it real in a new, unbearable way. “I have to go,” I managed, the sound breaking.
“Back to the hotel?” she asked, guiding me to sit on a plush bench, her own skirts pooling around her.
“Home.” The sob escaped, harsh and ugly. “I’m so sorry, Sloane… I didn’t want to make this about me. I just… I can’t. I’m a joke. I’m nothing. A fucking wedding convenience.” The dam broke, and the cursed words spilled out. “I can’t be here.”
Sloane’s face didn’t just fall; it crumpled.
Her wedding day, her perfect joy, now fractured by the collateral damage of us.
She saw the war between her loyalty and her love, and it hurt her, too.
She pulled me into a hug so fierce the lace of her bodice scratched my cheek, her familiar perfume—jasmine and champagne—smothering me.
“Listen to me,” she said, her voice fierce against my ear. “He’s wrong. You know he’s wrong, Gin. Don’t you let him make you small. Don’t you dare.”
But the words were just noise. The truth was the laughter still echoing in my head.
“Can you promise me,” I begged, pulling back to look at her, “that you’ll enjoy the rest of your night? Go on your honeymoon and don’t worry about me? I’ll be fine.”
It was the biggest lie I’d ever told, but I needed it to be true for her.
Her eyes swam with tears, mirroring my own. “I’ll try,” she whispered, the words heavy with the knowledge that this moment would now be part of her wedding story. She held my face. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” The hug lasted an eternity and ended too soon. I was unmoored.
Leaving the hall, I was a phantom. The music swelled again—a romantic, upbeat song—as I slipped out a side door. The cool night air hit my heated skin like a slap. I called an Uber, shivering in my bare feet and satin dress on the curb.
The car arrived, a silent, anonymous capsule. As it pulled away from the country club, I turned my phone off and shoved it back into my clutch.
The Uber driver made cheerful small talk about weddings; I made a sound that might have been agreement.
The hotel room was a crime scene of our intimacy. The silence was absolute, accusing. The stupid chaise seemed to mock me. His scent—soap and him—still lingered faintly in the air.
Mechanically, I moved. I unzipped the beautiful blue dress, letting it pool on the floor like a shed skin.
I stepped out of it, kicking it aside. In the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of my reflection—smudged mascara, the elegant updo now a tragic mess, the ghost of his mouth on my neck.
I scrubbed my face until it was raw, pulled the pins from my hair.
I dressed in the simplest clothes I had: jeans, a sweatshirt. Armor.
I booked the red-eye flight, the last bus out of town. I zipped my suitcase, the sound final in the quiet room. A single, silver bobby pin glinted on the carpet by the bed. I left it there.
I took one last look around the penthouse suite that had felt, for a few delirious days, like a world we’d built. Then I closed the door on it, and on him, for what I knew in my shattered heart would be the very last time.