Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
MOLLY—THE WEDDING
“You look beautiful.”
Jessica says it for the fourth time, and for the fourth time, I smile as if I believe her. I don’t feel beautiful. I feel like a fraud.
My reflection stares back at me from the full-length mirror in the bridal suite.
The dress is everything I imagined when I ordered it eight months ago.
A fitted lace bodice, a soft sweetheart neckline, and a long satin skirt that sweeps across the floor.
Tiny pearls shimmer along the veil pinned beneath my curls.
I look exactly like a bride. I just don’t feel like one.
Beyond the closed door, guests fill the chapel. Their muffled voices drift through the walls, interrupted occasionally by laughter or the scrape of chairs against the floor. Nearly a hundred people have driven here to watch me marry Carter.
My parents flew in. Jessica bought a dress she couldn’t afford. My coworkers decorated the reception hall last night. Carter’s aunt made one hundred favors by hand. His mother paid for the flowers, and I spent almost a year’s savings on the dress, the photographer, and half the catering bill.
Everything is ready. Everyone is waiting. All I have to do is walk down the aisle. I press my palm against my stomach, trying to quiet the sick feeling twisting inside it.
So how did I end up here? Carter called thirty-seven times in two days. On the thirty-eighth, I answered.
He apologized, although it took almost twenty minutes for him to use the actual word.
At first, he explained that the woman in our living room was an old friend.
Then she became someone from work. Then he admitted they’d kissed, but only because we’d been “distant” while I was distracted by the end of the school year and the wedding.
According to Carter, he’d been feeling neglected. According to him, nothing happened that couldn’t be forgiven and canceling the wedding would embarrass both of our families and waste tens of thousands of dollars.
He reminded me about the nonrefundable deposits. The airline tickets. The catering. The gifts already sent to our house. He cried.
I had never seen Carter cry before. It didn’t matter that his tears appeared only after I said I was leaving him. It didn’t matter that his apology always circled back to how much the cancellation would cost him.
I wanted to believe him. More than that, I want to believe the past three years of my life haven’t been a lie. So I agreed to go through with the wedding. I moved back into the house yesterday.
My eyes burn. I blink quickly and look toward the window.
“You don’t have to go through with this,” she says.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I told Carter I would.”
“You’re allowed to change your mind.”
“Everyone is here.”
“They’ll understand.”
“Will they? Because I don’t think his mother will understand after she paid for the flowers. My parents bought plane tickets. My aunt came from Florida. Your dress cost three hundred dollars.”
“I’ll wear it to the grocery store if that makes you feel better.”
A startled laugh escapes me. Jessica doesn’t smile.
“I’m serious,” she says. “I will stand in the produce section dressed like a lavender cupcake every Saturday for the next year if it helps you stop thinking my dress is a reason to marry a man you don’t trust.”
“It’s more than the dress.”
“I know. It’s the venue and the food and the photographer and everything else you’ve spent the last year planning.”
“Exactly.”
“Divorces are more expensive.”
My breath catches. The words settle into the room. Jessica reaches for my hands.
“If this isn’t what you want,” she says, “you need to go now.”
The voices outside fade. For months, I’ve treated the wedding as if it were inevitable. A train already moving too fast to stop. Every deposit, fitting, invitation, and plan added more speed until getting out felt impossible.
I haven’t promised the rest of my life to a man who cheated on me and then told me I was lucky he was still willing to marry me.
I can still leave. Something clicks into place. The answer isn’t complicated. It isn’t buried beneath the cost of the flowers or the embarrassment my parents might feel.
I don’t want to marry Carter. Especially after the night I spent with his father. I pull my hands out of Jessica’s.
“I can’t do this.”
Relief flashes across her face. “Okay.”
“I can’t marry him.”
“Then don’t.”
“What do I do?”
“Take off the dress.”
“No.” Panic rises in my chest. “There isn’t time. Someone will come looking for me.”
“Then we’ll lock the door.”
“No, Carter has a key.”
“Molly—”
A knock sounds. We both freeze.
“Molly?” Carter’s mother calls from the hallway. “They’re ready for you.”
I stare at the door. My heart pounds so hard that the pearls along my bodice seem to tremble with it.
“One minute,” Jessica calls.
“We’re already running late.”
“I’m fixing her veil.”
“All right. One minute.”
Her heels click away.
Jessica turns to me. “We can go through the back.”
The bridal suite has a second door that leads to a service hallway. We planned to use it for photographs in the courtyard before the ceremony, but rain forced us to take pictures inside instead.
Now that door looks like the only escape left in the world. I grab the bouquet. Then I realize how ridiculous it is to carry flowers while running away from my wedding and drop it again.
We hurry out the back door and down the hallway. Running in a wedding dress is harder than it looks in movies. The skirt tangles around my legs, the veil pulls against my scalp, and my heels threaten to slide on the polished floor.
At the intersection near the kitchen, voices approach.
Jessica grabs my arm. “Go,” she whispers. “I’ll stop them.”
I leave her and move as fast as I can until I find a small room. It’s a small office that is unoccupied. I close the door behind me, but then, the doorknob moves. I freeze.
“Molly?”
Not Carter. Grayson. My heart stops.
The door opens slowly. He steps inside and closes it behind him. He’s wearing a black suit.
I’ve never seen him in one. The jacket fits his broad shoulders perfectly, and a dark blue tie lies against a crisp white shirt. His silver-streaked hair is combed back from his face, though it looks as if he has already dragged his fingers through it more than once.
He looks devastatingly handsome.
“What happened?” he asks.
I rise. “How did you find me?”
“Jessica.”
“She told you?”
“She ran into me in the hallway and said you were hiding in one of the old offices.”
“Why did she tell you?”
“I asked where you were.”
“Why?”
His jaw tightens. “Because you weren’t walking down the aisle.”
My eyes drop.
“You came.”
“Carter is my son.”
The answer hurts, even though it shouldn’t. Of course he came for Carter.
Not for me.
“I thought you might not,” I say.
“I almost didn’t.”
My gaze lifts. He stands several feet away, but his presence fills the small room. I remember those broad hands on my waist. I remember being pressed against the Chevelle while his mouth moved over mine.
Heat coils through my stomach despite everything. Grayson looks at my dress. His gaze moves from the pearls along my bodice to the wide satin skirt before returning to my face. Something raw flashes in his eyes.
“You look beautiful,” he says.
The same words Jessica said. They sound different from him. They feel different.
“You shouldn’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“I’m supposed to marry your son.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to.” I say.
His eyes sharpen. “Did he do something else?”
“He didn’t have to.”
“What changed?”
“I did. You. Everything.”
Grayson remains silent. I twist my fingers together. The bare spot where my engagement ring should be is hidden beneath my other hand.
“Jessica told me I could still leave,” I say. “I kept thinking about the money and everyone who came. I felt guilty. Carter knew that. He kept reminding me how much the wedding cost and how embarrassed our families would be.”
“Money isn’t a reason to marry someone.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it before.”
“I didn’t let myself know.”
He glances toward the door. “Carter will be looking for you.”
“Let him.”
“I should tell him you’re safe.”
“Don’t.”
“Molly—”
“I don’t want to talk about Carter.”
“You kissed me five days ago,” I say. “Then you told me it couldn’t happen again.”
“It can’t.”
“You wanted it to.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you.” I blurt out.
“Molly.”
“I tried.” My voice breaks.
I hate how desperate I sound, but I can’t keep the truth inside any longer. Not after running from one lie. I can’t hide behind another.
“I tried to forget what happened in the garage,” I continue. “I tried to convince myself it was because I was upset about Carter. I told myself I was confused and vulnerable and looking for comfort.”
“You were.”
“No. I wanted you before I found that woman in my house.”
Grayson’s face becomes completely still.
His voice drops. “Stop.”
“I want you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do.”
“You’re standing in a wedding dress after running from my son.”
“Because I don’t love him.”
The words ring through the room. I loved the future I thought he offered. A home. A family. Someone who chose me. But Carter never truly chose me. He selected me because I was convenient, forgiving, and easy to manipulate.
Grayson looks almost pained. “You’re upset.”
“I’m finally thinking clearly.”
“You’re not.”
“I know what I want.”
“You don’t.”
Anger rises through my grief. “Stop telling me what I feel.”
“I’m trying to keep you from making another mistake.”
“Is that what the kiss was?”
His jaw flexes. “Yes.”
The answer cuts deeper than I expect. I swallow hard. “Did it feel like one?”
“That isn’t the point.”
“It is to me.” I close the final distance between us.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret it?”
He stares at me. “Not for one second.”
My breath catches. I lift my hand to his face. The roughness of his jaw presses into my palm. He leans into the touch before catching himself.
“I want you,” he says quietly. “More than I have any right to.”
“Then be with me.”
“No.”
One word shatters the hope he just gave me. I lower my hand. “Why?”
“Because you’re young.”
“I’m twenty-five, not a child.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t treat me like one.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re deciding for me.”
“I’m deciding for myself. Your life is too full for an old man like me,” he says. “You have friends. Children who adore you. A career you care about. There are places you haven’t seen and things you haven’t done.”
“You aren’t old.”
“I’m old enough to be your father.”
“That doesn’t matter to me.”
“It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I know what the years do.”
I shake my head. “That’s an excuse.”
“Maybe it is.”
“You’re afraid of Carter.”
His eyes harden. “I’m not afraid of my son.”
“You’re afraid of losing him.”
The silence answers for him. I understand then. Grayson already lost years with Carter while he was in prison. Loving me would create a wound between them that might never heal. He won’t risk it. Not even for me.
“You deserve better,” he says.
“Better than you?”
“Better than me or Carter.”
“You don’t get to decide what I deserve.”
“I know what I am.”
“So do I.”
The finality in his voice leaves me cold. Outside the office, distant voices echo through the hallway. Someone calls my name. We’re running out of time.
Grayson looks toward the door. “If you want to leave,” he says, “I’ll drive you home.”
“Home?”
“Wherever that is.”
“I don’t have one anymore.”
“Then the hotel.”
I stare at him. “And after that?”
“You figure out what you want your life to look like without Carter.”
“Without you too.”
His mouth tightens. “Yes.”
Another voice calls for me. Closer now. Grayson walks to the door and listens.
“There’s an exit at the end of this hall,” he says. “My car is parked near it.”
“The Chevelle?”
He looks at me. “Yes.”
The knowledge makes everything hurt more. He’s going to drive me away in the car that taught him how to rebuild his life, only to leave me alone with the ruins of mine.
We leave the room and reach the exit without anyone seeing us. We get to the car and Grayson opens the passenger door and helps me gather the dress inside. His hands brush my ankle as he lifts the hem over the threshold. The touch sends heat through me.
Grayson pulls out of the parking lot. The chapel disappears behind us. No one runs into the road to stop us. No one even notices the car carrying the missing bride away from her wedding.
I rest my forehead against the cool window and close my eyes. The silence inside the car stretches between us, filled with everything we can’t say. This morning, I thought the worst thing that could happen was losing my groom. I was wrong.