Chapter 17
Skyler
I stand at the altar, my feet planted on a red carpet that wasn’t supposed to be here.
My tuxedo is a masterpiece of wool and silk, tailored so tightly to my frame that every breath requires a conscious effort.
I look out at the sea of faces, and I don’t see friends.
I see the Thompson Foundation board, I see the Hendersons, I see the silent partners and the loud creditors.
I see three hundred people who are here to witness a merger, not a marriage.
The air in the ballroom is a chilled, sterile vacuum.
It smells like a funeral. My mother’s lilies are everywhere—white, waxy calla lilies erupting from silver urns like silent screams. Not a single burgundy peony in sight.
No burnt orange velvet. No cedar boxes from Jake’s workshop.
I’d seen the dumpsters earlier behind the pool house, overflowing with Harley’s dreams, but I’d turned away.
I’d told myself that peace was a more valuable commodity than aesthetics.
I look at the front row.
My mother sits like a queen who has just finished a successful conquest. She’s wearing silver silk that catches the light like a blade.
Her smile is fixed, a masterpiece of Botox and triumph.
Beside her, Robert is a limestone statue, his arms crossed, his gaze appraising the room to ensure the ROI on this event is sufficient.
And then there’s Amanda.
She sits directly behind my parents, a flash of pale blue in a room designed by her own sensibilities.
She isn’t looking at the lilies; she’s looking at me.
Her smile is small, knowing, and absolutely lethal.
It says, I told you the house always wins.
It says, Look at you, Skyler, back in the cage, trying to convince yourself you like the view.
My heart is a drum in my ears. Thump. Thump.
Thump. It’s a messy, organic sound that doesn’t belong in a room this polished.
I feel the knot in my stomach tighten, a visceral reaction to the lie I’m currently inhabiting.
I think of the gift card I gave her, the Bergdorf bag that sat in my pocket like a bribe.
I think of the grant for her clients. I bought her silence, or so I thought.
I navigated her into the country club like I was steering a difficult client toward a compromise they didn’t really want.
The doors at the back of the hall are still closed. Every second they stay shut is a second I spend imagining her running. I imagine her back at that ranch house, eating lasagna with her hands, laughing with a man who knows how to build things that don’t need silver leaf to look valuable.
The fear is a cold, oily slick in my gut.
What if she doesn’t show? What if the “reckoning” she threatened happens outside these doors?
Then, the orchestra begins.
The sound is massive, a wall of brass and strings that demands attention. The double doors swing open.
My chest floods with a relief so intense I nearly stumble. She’s here.
Harley stands in the doorway, a vision in white silk that seems to glow against the dark mahogany of the entrance. From this distance, she looks perfect. She looks like the woman I’ve been trying to force her to be for months. The guests rise as one, a coordinated wave of designer fabric.
She starts the walk.
I search her face as she approaches. I’m looking for the fire I saw at the ranch. I’m looking for the anger, the tears, the “World’s Most Adequate Social Worker” who challenged me in the kitchen.
I find none of it.
Harley’s face is a mask of marble. Her eyes are fixed on the altar, but they don’t seem to see the silver urns or the lilies or the guests. She looks detached, as if she’s watching a film she’s already seen and didn’t particularly like.
Wedding nerves, I tell myself. The coward’s specialty: reinterpreting reality until it stops hurting. She’s just overwhelmed by the scale, but she’ll thank me later. Once the honeymoon starts, she’ll see that I saved the day.
As she nears the dais, the distance between us shrinks, but the coldness radiating from her expands. She reaches the steps.
I step forward, extending my hand.
When she finally looks at me, the relief in my chest turns to lead. Her blue eyes, usually so vibrant and warm, are as hard as sapphires. There is no forgiveness there. No peace. There is only a terrifying, crystalline determination that makes my smile falter.
I take her hands. They are ice cold. They feel like the hands of a stranger I’m trying to negotiate with across a boardroom table.
“You’re here,” I whisper, a desperate attempt to break the ice.
She doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t squeeze my fingers.
She just stands there, a beautiful, white-shrouded warning sign, and waits for the slaughter to begin.
I turn to face the priest, my heart racing, my palms damp against her skin.
I’ve done it. I’ve managed the merger. Now I just have to sign the contract.
The priest’s voice is a drone, a rhythmic recitation of traditions that feel as dusty as the Thompson family Bible.
I stand there, nodding at the appropriate intervals, feeling like a man who has finally reached the summit.
My legs are a little shaky, the adrenaline of the entrance beginning to ebb, leaving behind a hollow, frantic exhaustion.
I steal a glance at Harley’s profile. Her jaw is set.
A stray curl has escaped her veil, resting against the pale skin of her neck, the only part of her that looks soft.
I want to reach out and tuck it back, to touch her, to remind myself that she’s real and not just an expensive prop in my mother’s latest production.
But the weight of the moment—the three hundred pairs of eyes, the silver-framed judgment—keeps my hands frozen.
“Do you, Skyler Thompson,” the priest intones, his voice booming through the silent hall, “take Harley Matthews to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
I don’t hesitate. I’ve spent months rehearsing for this, months navigating toward this specific sentence. “I do.”
My voice is clear. It’s the voice of a Thompson who has delivered on a promise.
It’s the sound of a deal closing. I feel a surge of genuine warmth, a delusion that this “I do” can wash away the dumpsters and the gift cards and the secret texts.
I look at Harley, expecting the mask to break, expecting a smile—even a small, resigned one.
The priest turns to her. “And do you, Harley Matthews, take Skyler Thompson to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
The silence that follows isn’t the romantic kind; it isn’t the pause of a woman overwhelmed by love. It is the silence of a structure about to collapse. It stretches, growing heavier with every beat of my racing heart. I see my mother lean forward in the front row. I see Robert’s eyes narrow.
“No.”
The word is small, but in the vacuum of the country club, it sounds like a gunshot.
I physically recoil, my hands dropping from hers as if her skin has suddenly turned to fire. The world tilts on its axis. I feel the blood drain from my face, the air in the ballroom suddenly too cold to breathe.
“Harley?” I whisper. It’s a pathetic sound. A plea. “What are you doing? Is this a joke?”
She doesn’t look at the priest. She doesn’t look at the crowd. She looks at me, and for the first time in weeks, the “management” mask is gone. Underneath is a woman who has found her voice, and she’s using it to tear me apart.
“No, Skyler.”
“Harley, please,” I stammer, my eyes darting to my father. Robert’s face is a mask of purple-tinged fury. This is the ultimate embarrassment. This is a branding nightmare. “Whatever this is, we can talk about it later. Just say the words. Please. Don’t do this here.”
“I gave you every chance to prevent this, Skyler. I told you that one more lie, one more ‘management’ move, and I was gone. Did you think I was joking?”
She doesn’t understand. I need her to understand.
It was never about me; it was about them.
About pushing past to save ourselves in the long run.
“I was trying to save the day!” I shout, my voice cracking.
The “management” is gone. I am just a man in a tight suit, drowning in front of three hundred people. “I was trying to keep the peace.”
“You weren’t saving the day; you were saving your standing at the country club.
” She pulls her hands away, the motion clean and final.
“You watched your father insult my career. You watched your mother throw my family’s work into a dumpster.
And you let them plan a wedding that belongs to Elaine Thompson, while I was at my father’s house thinking I had a partner. ”
My mother’s high-pitched voice rings in my ears. “This is unseemly!” I can see the pulse jumping in her neck. “Robert, do something! This girl is—”
“This girl is leaving,” Harley says.
No! All I’ve sacrificed is falling apart. My chest aches enough that I have to catch my breath. When Harley turns back to me, I feel small. Without her, I’m nothing.
“I know about Amanda,” she says.
My heart stops. Panic, raw and jagged, surges through me. She knows? How? I think of the texts, the late-night sessions at the bar where I let Amanda’s easy understanding soothe the guilt of my cowardice. I think I’m being honest, but I’m really just bleeding out.
“I can explain!” My voice cracks, a high, thin sound that doesn’t belong to a man at his wedding. “We’ve only been texting here and there, and when she flirted with me—”
“Wait.” Harley lifts a hand. The silence that follows is sharp enough to draw blood. “What are you talking about?”
The air leaves the room. I realize, with a sickening lurch in my stomach, that I just handed her a weapon she didn’t even have. I look at Amanda, who actually looks ashamed, shrinking back into the pew, but my mother steps forward, her voice like ice cutting through my humiliation.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she unhelpfully says. “Amanda was helping plan your wedding. If she and Skyler were flirting, it’s only because you’ve been so difficult.”
“No!” I shout, but the word dies in the vaulted ceiling. The damage is done. I’ve just confirmed her worst fears in front of every business partner my father has ever known.
Harley lets out a dry, hollow laugh. “Wow. I was referring to your previous engagement, Skyler. But it seems I’m behind on the times, aren’t I?”
“Harley, it isn’t like that,” I stammer. My hands are shaking so hard I have to clench them into fisted balls at my sides.
“It is.” She looks from me to Amanda, her gaze a clinical assessment of our collective failure. “She planned your wedding twice. Unfortunately for both of you, this is her second time planning a broken engagement.”
“This is highly inappropriate,” my mother says, her voice trembling with the effort to maintain the Thompson veneer.
Harley ignores her. She’s looking at Amanda, and I see a flicker of something pass between them with terrifying, wide-eyed clarity.
Harley reaches for her left hand. I watch, paralyzed, as she tugs at the emerald.
It’s stubborn, catching on her knuckle, a final piece of the shackle refusing to let go.
When it finally slides off, she takes my hand.
She pries my fingers open—I’m too weak to resist—and places the ring we once loved in my palm.
“Your mother wanted silver,” she whispers. The words are only for me, a final, biting intimacy. “She got it. I hope it’s enough to keep you warm.”
“Harley, please,” I stammer, my voice breaking. I reach for her, a pathetic, desperate grab for the life I’m losing. “I love you. I’m doing this for us.”
“No, you’re doing this for you, Skyler. Now you don’t have to choose because I’m making the choice for you.”
And then, she turns.
She doesn’t run. I wish she would run. Because if she ran, then I could interpret it as an impulse she might regret later. Regret means she’ll apologize and I’ll take her back, but she doesn’t. She calmly walks.
I watch the white silk of her train glide over the carpet.
The guests are a blur of high fashion silhouettes pulling back as she passes, as if her independence might be contagious.
I see Bill Davis, the Hendersons. Their judgment is a physical weight, pressing down on my shoulders until I can’t breathe.
I glance to the back of the room where Jake Matthews stands.
It’s then I realize he hadn’t walked his daughter down the aisle because he would never give her away to me.
He isn’t wearing a tuxedo, and his tie is crooked, but he looks like a king.
In his hand, he’s clutching a splintered piece of cedar.
And as I watch the white silk retreat down the aisle, it’s the most beautiful and terrible thing I’ve ever seen. I want to move. I want to run after her, to grab her, to tell her I’ll burn the house down. I’ll leave the firm.
I’ll do anything.
But I can’t. My legs have turned to water. The Thompson spine, the structural column of my identity, has finally buckled.
I collapse.
My knees hit the altar steps with a thud that vibrates through my bones. I am a heap of expensive wool on a floor that costs more than a mortgage. I watch her back as she nears the doors. She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t hesitate. She walks out of the mahogany tomb and into the rain.
The doors close. Thud.
The ballroom erupts. It’s a sea of whispers, gasps, and the sharp sound of my mother’s chair scraping the floor.
“Skyler!” Elaine is there, her hand on my shoulder, her voice hissing in my ear. “Get up! You are making a scene! Robert, do something!”
I don’t look at her. I look at the floor. The parquet is polished to a mirror finish. I can see my reflection in it—distorted, warped, a man in a tuxedo with no soul.
I look up, my vision blurred by tears that feel like acid. I see my father standing over me, his face a mask of disgust. I see Amanda, still sitting there, looking at me like I’m a ghost she’s finally stopped mourning.
And then I see it.
A single, broken piece of cedar on the floor. It must have fallen from Jake’s hand when they walked out the door. A splinter of the world Harley wanted. I want to reach out and touch it.
I am a thirty-year-old man on his knees at a country club. I have the ring. I have the firm. I have the Thompson name.
But I have absolutely nothing.
The weight of it—the realization that I traded the only thing that made me human for a seat at table seven—finally crushes the last of my breath.
I stay there, head bowed, while the lilies continue to smell like a funeral.
My funeral. My life, my integrity, my future, all shredded like a gold-embossed gift card, leaving behind only the cold, silver silence of a man who finally realized he was a puppet far too late to cut the strings.