Wedding Invite

Chapter Five

**Christiana’s POV**

I hadn’t slept since that kiss.

I just laid on the bed, tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling fan as it spun lazily above me, slicing the darkness with its soft whirring.

The silence in my bedroom was thick, suffocating, like the air itself had grown heavy with questions I wasn’t ready to answer. Every few seconds, my mind circled back to the bar and lingers back to Bryan. The weight of his stare. The heat in his breath when it mingled with mine. The way his lips found mine like they already belonged there.

God, I hated that I could still feel it.

That kiss was unforgettable.

I hadn’t expected it to feel like that. I hadn’t expected him to feel like more than a target. I was good in my seduction skills by the way.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand and lit up with Tony’s name.

I hesitated before answering. “Hey,” I said finally, trying to inject some normalcy into my voice.

“You didn’t call me back last night.” His voice was calm, but I could hear the edge beneath it, the familiar restraint of someone trying not to feel too much.

“I got in late.”

“Did you see him?”

My throat tightened. “Yeah.”

I could hear the slight crackle of wind through his end of the line, maybe from his car window.

“And?”

I rolled onto my side, the sheets wrapped around my legs like chains. My voice was quiet, but it still felt like a confession.

“He kissed me.”

I heard the sharp inhale. Like he’d been punched through the phone. “Christy…” The disappointment in his voice wasn’t judgment. It was heartbreak.

“I didn’t plan that part,” I said quickly, needing him to understand. “It just happened. One second we were talking and then...” I bit my lip, tasting regret. “He kissed me.”

“Jesus,” he muttered finally. “You said you were going to play it smart. Seduce, distract, manipulate, whatever. But now he’s kissing you?”

“I didn’t ask him to.” I pushed myself up, my back hitting the headboard. “He just... did it.”

“But you didn’t stop him,” Tony repeated, more to himself than to me. His voice shifted softer now, but frayed at the edges. “You like him already, don’t you?”

“Like is a strong word, he isn’t a bad guy, he just happened to be victim of a bad woman’s karma”

“God, Christy... this isn’t you.”

“Don’t say that.” My voice cracked.

“It isn’t. You’re not this girl.”

“And what girl is that?” I snapped, sharper than I intended.

“You’re not some woman who sleeps with a married man just to get even. You’re not...”

“I didn’t sleep with him!” My tone rose. “And he’s not married. Not yet.”

“Technicalities,” Tony muttered. “You think that makes it better?”

His words sank into me, hard and cold. I closed my eyes.

“This whole thing… you’re playing with fire” he continued, his voice quieter now. “It’s getting too far. You’re not just hurting her, Christy. You’re changing. I hear it in your voice. You sound like someone I don’t recognize.”

“I am the fire, that's going to burn down Bella's life” I said softly. “I am the fire, Tony.”

I let the words hang between us like smoke, curling and dark. I didn’t mean to say it, but I had.

Tony didn’t respond immediately. I imagined him sitting in his car, hands on the wheel, jaw tight, trying to piece together the version of me he once loved with the version on the other end of the line.

I hated silence with Tony. It always meant he was holding something back.

“I don’t know if I can watch you do this,” he said at last. “I don’t know if I can stand by while you destroy yourself just to destroy her.”

“Tony please...”

“Christy,” he said, “what exactly do you think you’ll feel when all this is done? When you’ve destroyed her, when he hates her... what do you think you’ll have left? Do you think that brings peace? Closure?”

I pressed a hand to my temple. “I don’t know. I just know I can’t let her get away with it. With all of it. She ruined my family. She...”

“She didn’t kill your mother,” he interrupted gently. “Your father...”

“...she was the reason!” My voice cracked, sharp and bitter. “If she hadn’t seduced him, if she hadn’t...”

“Christy.”

“I introduced her to my mother,” I said, lower now. “I brought her into our house. And now she’s marrying a billionaire and pretending none of it happened while my mother is underground and my father is in a cell. How is that fair, Tony?”

And in that moment, I was cracked open. I let the air fill with the ache of everything I couldn’t say.

Maybe he was right. I was becoming someone else, someone darker.

I leaned back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling again. “Maybe I should stop,” I murmured. “Maybe this whole thing is just... too much.”

There was a pause on his end, like he didn’t believe what he’d just heard.

“Are you really saying that?”

“I don’t know. I think... I think you’re right. This isn’t who I want to be.”

“Oh great! You don’t know how happy I am to hear that” Tony said, one can hear the excitement in his tone.

I placed him on loudspeaker as I reached for my laptop on the side table, needing to distract myself from the storm Tony had stirred inside me.

My head was spinning with, with guilt, with questions I didn’t want to answer.

The screen glowed to life, casting a soft, cool light across the room. I blinked against it, heart still thrumming in my chest from everything Tony had said. I pulled open my inbox and started to scroll.

* You’re Invited: Bella Calamida & Bryan Adams - Wedding Ceremony*

My heart stopped. I felt it skip a beat, then slam into my ribs so hard I thought the screen might crack with the force of it.

I just stared at the subject line for a few seconds, my brain refusing to register. My first thought was it was spam or some sick, twisted wedding-planner promotional campaign.

I clicked it open with trembling fingers, half-hoping it would glitch, redirect to a blank page, disappear as suddenly as it arrived.

It loaded in full, painfully perfect detail. A digital layout that looked like a spread from Vogue Weddings, all elegance and curated lies. The invite was cream and gold, embossed with soft florals and gilded edges. Their names were written in calligraphy, swirled together like fate had penned them side by side: Bella Calamida & Bryan Adams.

Venue: a private vineyard in Dallas, Texas. Date: the following weekend. Dress code: timeless elegance.

Below that, RSVP buttons. A link to a Spotify playlist titled: Forever Starts Here. Photos of the venue followed, hills, lanterns, the table arrangements, the fucking cake.

But what made my stomach twist was at the top of the invitation, in polished gold font, it read:

Dear Christiana Salazar, we would be honored to have you join us.

Christiana Salazar.

My full name. It was intentionally sent. That b*tch!

Bella Calamida, the woman who tore my life in half like a ribbon, invited me to her wedding like nothing ever happened. Like she hadn’t betrayed me and my mother, seduced my father, and left me standing in the wreckage of everything I once called home.

I stared at the email until the edges of the screen blurred, and I sat frozen, as if the invitation had reached out and slapped me across the face.

“She's evil,” I whispered aloud, a dry laugh catching in my throat like broken glass.

“What?” Tony’s voice cut through the silence on the phone.

“She sent me a wedding invite.”

There was a pause. “Bella?”

“Yep. Just now. I’m looking at it.”

Tony’s breath hitched. “That... that’s insane. Why the hell would she do that?”

I exhaled hard, dragging a hand down my face. “Spite. She did it to spite me, she wants me to see it. That’s the kind of woman she is. She wants me to sit in some designer gown, smiling politely while she walks down the aisle in white like her soul isn’t soaked in sin. She wants me to clap while she marries the man of her dreams after ruining my own life. She wants to breed envy in me”

Tony cursed under his breath, but I wasn’t listening anymore. My mind was racing.

I closed the laptop with a soft, final click. The sound echoed louder than I expected.

Whatever thread of mercy or doubt or conscience Tony had managed to stir in me, it was gone now and burned to ash.

She wanted me to at her wedding?

I would go to burn it all down with a smile.