1. Jude
JUDE
“Hold still!”
I jolt as my maid of honor and best friend, Melissa, yanks the satin ribbons of my corset so tight it’s like she’s trying to control a sled of frenzied huskies.
“I need to be able to breathe,” I wheeze, looking at her in the mirror.
“It’s overrated,” she replies, her eyes sparkling as she ties the ribbons into a bow at the base of my spine.
“You look beautiful,” Mom says, her voice wobbling.
“Don’t, or I’ll start.” I give her a watery smile, then turn to face my three bridesmaids sitting side by side on the hotel suite’s duck-egg-blue velvet chaise, all lined up in sage-green satin like a walking ad for David’s Bridal.
“Oh my God, Jude!” Lizzie exclaims. “You look like an angel.”
“Beautiful.” Jessica grins. “Callum’s a lucky guy.”
“That dress really suits you,” Kelly says, her gaze roaming over the ruffled tulle skirt in appreciation. “Everything about it is just…” She sighs. “… perfect.”
I turn and survey myself in the mirror. The dress, the veil, the expertly applied makeup, and styled hair in a smooth chignon. It’s incredible. Extravagant. Expensive, and just so… Bridal.
I don’t look like me.
Lizzie jumps up to refill our champagne flutes, and my mother goes to retrieve our glasses from the top of a French hand-painted cabinet.
“Spill, what’s wrong?” Mel whispers, pretending to smooth some crystals on the sweetheart neckline of my bodice.
“Nothing.” I gnaw on my lip, and she pops a brow.
Mel’s been my best friend since middle school.
Nothing escapes her.
“Do you think it’s all a little… glamor on steroids?” I wince.
She levels her eyes with mine. “No. You look beautiful. It’s your wedding day, it’s going to feel different. Doing your job, you don’t get to do the whole dressing up thing. Make the most of it. Because you fucking rock this look.”
I work in an office filled with middle-aged men with names like Walt and Chuck, developing patient administration systems. They’re a hardworking and brilliant-minded bunch.
But our office hardly calls for designer gowns with beautiful embroidery and invitations mailed in personalized Habotai silk lined boxes.
Most days, I work in slacks and a T-shirt.
If I wear a skirt and heels, the guys look panicked, asking me if they missed a memo about the hospital’s CEO visiting.
“I don’t just mean the dress, I mean… all of it,” I whisper.
I’ll give it to Mel; her poker face is impressive.
She even manages to prevent her gaze from wandering around the lavish hotel suite.
I wanted to hire this cute place on a lake out of the city and just invite close friends and family.
But my fiancé, Callum, told me the only place to get married is in the city at The Songbird hotel. And my father agreed with him.
This place is stunning. And the in-house wedding planner has been nothing short of amazing.
But I feel like I’m outside of my body, watching somebody else get married.
Someone perfectly groomed and coiffed.
Mel shrugs. “Honestly? Yeah. It’s as pompous as that medical dinner you went to with Callum last month.
The one with the edible gold dusting on the desserts?
” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t want to eat my gold.
I want to wear it like a normal person, alongside some momentous bling that makes the Empire State Building resemble my pinkie. ”
She lifts my left hand and grins at the giant Harry Winston pear-shaped diamond—a family heirloom that belonged to Callum’s great-grandmother, the wife of his surgeon great-grandfather.
Medical skill runs in Callum’s family.
“You’ll have an unforgettable day, I promise.”
My thumping heart eases a little at her reassurance.
An unforgettable day.
One where I become Mrs. Jude Huntington. Wife of one of the city’s most respected cardiac surgeons. A man whose reputation is almost as prestigious as his mentor’s, the city’s—no, the East Coast’s—top cardiac surgeon. Royston Yardley.
My father.
“Thank you.” I exhale, forcing the uncharacteristic nervous flutters in my stomach to stop climbing toward my throat.
There’s a knock at the door and my father enters.
He greets the women with the grace and charm of a man who has been brought up to be undeniably at ease in social situations. Then he walks to me, taking me in.
“Sweetheart, you are a vision.”
“Thanks, Dad.” My cheeks glow under his admiration, and he pulls me into a hug, kissing my cheek.
He looks at my face, tracing over every line and curve like he’s taking a mental picture.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, his eyes creasing at the corners. “You and Callum make a fine couple.”
The pride in his eyes brings a lump to my throat. My father always hoped I’d follow in his footsteps and become a surgeon. But I don’t have the stomach for blood. My mind could keep up with the study when I went to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, but my body let me down.
Instead, I loved the figures and statistics that came with patient care. So I switched to a doctorate in healthcare administration, alongside a night course in software development. A move that made things tense with my father for months.
Then I developed a patient record software that has been adopted by hospitals across the country. I met Callum at a medical conference. And finally, my father looked at me with something other than the disappointment of wasted potential in his eyes.
He reaches into his inner jacket pocket and pulls out a blue velvet box garnished with a silk ribbon.
“Callum requested I deliver this.”
He smiles as the girls break into a collective, excited gasp at the sight of the Beaufort Diamond box.
“He did?” I take the box. Velvet glides like butter under my fingertips.
“Chose it all by himself.” He smiles. “I’ll be ready whenever you are, Sweetheart.”
“We’ll come and get you,” Jessica says as he leaves, closing the door softly behind him.
I stare at the jewelry box before untying the ribbon. It seems wrong disturbing its perfect billowy loops that are just so.
Maybe it’s a necklace. I admired one in the window as we walked past their flagship store on Fifth Avenue last month. Callum must have remembered.
I flip open the lid.
My heart sinks.
“What is it?” Mel asks, peering inside the box. She frowns at the diamond drop earrings set in sparkling platinum.
“They’re beautiful,” Mom exclaims as I lift one out and stare at the twinkly strand of cushion cut stones.
“Cal’s so romantic. Beaufort Diamonds!” Kelly sighs wistfully.
I lay the diamonds back inside the box and touch the pearl earring I’m wearing.
“But I have Grandma’s. The ones Grandad gave her on her wedding day. The ones you wore when you married Dad. I told Cal that,” I mumble.
“He’s been busy planning the wedding and with his work. He probably just forgot,” Mom replies.
The slightest pinch at the corners of her eyes is the only crack in her otherwise perfect performance.
She was so happy when I told her I wanted to wear Grandma’s pearls.
My mouth goes dry as she gently removes the pearl stud and replaces it with the diamonds.
The cold strand immediately feels too heavy.
“They’re beautiful.” Mom smiles.
Shame curls itself around my windpipe. If this wedding dress wasn’t already tight enough to make breathing difficult, then this would do it.
Cal sent me a stunning and very expensive gift.
I know how much Beaufort Diamonds cost. It’s thoughtful of him.
And I’m being completely unreasonable to feel anything other than grateful.
“They are,” I agree, admiring them in the mirror, noting the way I haven’t quite mastered masking my disappointment as well as my mother has.
I stand still as she swaps the other earring for me. The diamonds glisten in my reflection. They match the grandeur of this elegant suite. They fit with the opulence of this entire wedding.
They’re exactly the type of earring the wife of a surgeon would wear.
“May I?” Mel asks.
Mom hands her both pearls, and Mel steps forward.
“Here.” She eases one of the earrings through a piece of folded tulle trim on the sweetheart neckline, repeating the same on the other side with the other earring. “Now you can wear both.”
“Mel,” I utter, my throat thickening as I look at how perfectly they fit in their new position.
“Enough getting all emotional. Save it for after the photos. This makeup was mad expensive, and I look too hot to ruin it,” she replies, forcing the glassiness back from her eyes and beaming at me.
I could marry her instead. Right now. All because of this one simple act.
Mom takes my hand and squeezes it.
“Are you ready?”
“I’m… not ready, I need… one sec.”
My breasts hitch up toward my chin as I attempt to take a deep breath. It’s fine. I mean, I can breathe. I just can’t get those deep full-lunged breaths in. The ones you need when your heart’s racing and your palms are sweating like Niagara Falls.
“Take all the time you need, Sweetheart. The best man will let us know when they’re ready for us.”
“Oh?”
I didn’t ask why we were brought into a room down the corridor from the ballroom where the ceremony will take place. I assumed it was so I could do a last-minute dress and makeup check. But Mom, Mel, and the bridesmaids left ten minutes ago.
“Is there a hold up?” I ask my father.
A million thoughts stampede through my mind at once.
The five-tier cake with snow white frosting could have tilted.
The string quartet could have had a last-minute instrument tune.
The hand-painted silk aisle runner that was flown in from Italy could have snagged as the guests walked over it to get to their seats.
Any number of things could have gone wrong with the extravagant things Callum planned. And he’s a perfectionist. He won’t want me walking into the ceremony unless everything is exactly as he planned.
I smile internally. It’s him all over.