Chapter 1

Elara

Today was my wedding day. But the man sitting next to me wasn’t my husband. It was his Uncle.

The car sped through the cold morning traffic on the way to the venue, and all I could do was pray I arrived on time.

My sister’s name lit up my phone for the fourth time in twelve minutes. I laced my fingers on my lap and let Vivienne’s call ring through to voicemail again.

Clara’s message pinged five seconds later: ‘Are you serious, Elara? Pick up your phone!’

But I didn’t. I already knew what they were going to say. I didn’t want to hear it until I absolutely had to.

The last thing I was going to do was miss my own wedding after going through great lengths to carve it into my work calendar and plan the damn thing.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” said the driver from the front. “We’ll get there on time.”

“Thanks.” I locked eyes with him in the rearview mirror and gave him a smile.

I took a breath, allowing a blanket of calm to fall over me.

Beside me, Lucien scrolled quietly on his tablet, reviewing the acquisition notes I made for the art pieces we bought yesterday in San Francisco. The morning light cut across his profile in sharp lines, highlighting the intense expression he used for everything.

I focused on it because the only distraction my mind allowed was work.

“Everything okay, Mr. Beaumont?”

He nodded, but his demeanor didn’t change. “Good work.”

“Thank you, Mr. Beaumont. Any game plan for Greece?”

“Let’s get through today. We have enough time to think of an approach tomorrow.”

Lucien hadn’t queried me for scheduling my wedding in the middle of important work. He had only asked, weeks earlier, whether I was certain the dates would hold.

I told him they would. And he cleared his schedule so we could both be in the same city for the ceremony and still make the morning flight the day after to get the final pieces in Greece.

The art exhibition for our Milan client was in ten days and everything needed to be bought and shipped and set up. The San Francisco deal had set us back two days and Lucien wouldn’t say it, but the wedding couldn’t be happening at a worse time.

But I’d pushed the wedding for far too long and it was unfair to Elliot, whose only crime was to love a workaholic.

As the city rushed past outside, I pulled up Elliot’s last text from last night. Just three words. ‘Can’t wait.’

I fixated on them far longer than necessary. In the early months of our relationship, he used to call, or leave cute voice notes that made me smile in the middle of meetings. Somewhere along the line, the calls stopped and the texts grew shorter. After I pushed the wedding for a third time, all I received were two words. Three at most.

I knew once we got married things would go back to the way it was. Until then—

My phone pinged with a text. It wasn’t Vivienne or Clara. I squinted at the unknown number and the video attachment.

Glancing at Lucien, I wondered if one of the organizers was trying to reach him. It wouldn’t be the first time.

But the man remained focused on the tablet, one thumb scrolling slowly.

I clicked the message.

The video was dark at the edges and slightly shaky, filmed from a high angle in what looked like an office after hours. There was no audio, but one didn’t need audio to understand what was happening. Elliot stood behind a desk in the dim lights with a woman in front of him. His hands were in her hair. Her hands were under his shirt. And the clear thrusting movements left no room for misinterpretation.

My blood ran cold.

I watched it again, a part of me hoping there was a mistake or it was some stupid prank. But the woman threw her head back in a soundless moan while my fiancé, the man I was supposed to marry in an hour fucked her into a desk.

I took a deep, shaky breath as I locked the phone and set it face-down. My eyes began to burn, but I blinked away the tears before they had a chance to form.

I would not cry.

Lucien paused his scrolling and looked over. “Everything all right, Miss Whitmore?”

“Yes.” My voice came out level and calm even as a lump formed in my throat. “Just Vivienne being Vivienne.”

He accepted the answer with a nod and went back to work. Lucien never asked further questions when the subject was personal.

After a year of working together, he hadn’t pressed for details about my relationship with his nephew. He treated the engagement the same way he treated any other fact on a project brief: noted, filed, left alone unless it affected the work.

Right now, I couldn’t be more grateful for that boundary. Because I felt one question away from tipping over the edge.

The venue gates appeared ahead of us and the driver parked near the side entrance the coordinator had marked for the bridal party.

Lucien stepped out first. I stayed in the car a second longer, breathing deeply until the tremor in my hands settled.

However, the cold in my veins stayed.

Vivienne and Clara were waiting outside the bridal suite when I entered the corridor. Once my sister saw me, she crossed her arms.

“You’re late.”

Clara, who was holding a garment bag over one shoulder, rushed forward. “For Christ’s sake, Elara. Who works on their wedding day?”

I walked past both of them.

“Hair and makeup is this way,” Clara called out, but I didn’t respond. “Where is she going?”

“Elara! For the love of god.”

Their voices trailed away as I moved to the groom's suite, walking past groomsmen who looked happier than me.

Elliot stood near the full-length mirror, adjusting his cufflinks when I opened the door. He looked up as I came in and smiled the same easy smile that used to make my heart flutter.

Now it filled me with bitterness and anger.

“There you are,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if my Uncle had kidnapped you. Why aren’t you ready?”

I stopped three feet away and unlocked my phone. The video was still open, so I turned the screen toward him and held it steady.

He watched for four seconds. Five. The smile faded and his face went pale.

“Elara—”

“Who is she?”

“It’s not what you think.” He reached for the phone, but I pulled it back, my voice growing louder the angrier I got.

“How could you do this?”

“I didn’t—it was one time, baby. I swear it meant nothing.”

“You cheated on me!”

“I didn’t mean to. You were gone all the time. I felt lonely. It was stupid.” He reached for me, a desperate plea in his eyes, but I recoiled in disgust.

“Don’t touch me.”

He stepped closer regardless. “Baby, I made a one time mistake.”

But his words struck me in a rehearsed way. Like I’d heard variations of them these past few months, when he canceled dinners or refused to see me.

“Baby, work ran late.” Or “Baby, we’ve been busy at the office.” Or “Baby, I’m staying with Theo tonight.”

I’d always swallowed the flimsy excuses then. Told myself I caused the distance and that marriage would fix it.

Today, the distance had turned into a woman. A cold sinking feeling washed over me.

“It wasn’t just one time, was it? Those late nights and being too busy to come see me…”

“I—“

“How long, Elliot?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

He fell quiet, shoulders slumping. “Maybe four months. I don’t know. I tried to stay away but… she was nice and it felt good to be wanted again. You have to understand she means nothing. It was just a stupid mistake.”

I scoffed. A mistake was forgetting my birthday. A mistake was ordering chicken when I preferred steak.

My fingers tightened around my phone. “A mistake isn’t fucking another woman for four months.”

“I ended it before the wedding. I promise you, baby. ”

“I can’t do this.” There was steel in my voice despite the fact that my heart was ripping into shreds.

He blinked at me in shock, but it wasn't pain that flickered across his face. Panic widened his eyes as he looked past me toward the hallway, as if expecting the shadows to swallow him whole.

“You can’t be serious,” Elliot stammered, his voice dropping into a desperate, panicked whisper. “Today is our wedding, Elara! Everyone is here. Uncle Lucien is here!”

“You should’ve thought about that before you fucked someone else.”

He took a frantic step toward me. “Do you have any idea what Uncle Lucien will do to me if this falls apart?”

“I don’t care.” Anger surged past my numbness.

Elliot’s voice cracked, a pathetic edge taking over. “Please, Elara. We can talk about this. Uncle Lucien already thinks I’m useless! This will ruin me in his eyes.”

I stared at him, a cold, bitter realization washing over me. “You don't care that you broke my heart. You're just terrified of Lucien.”

“Elara, you know how he is!” Elliot begged, his eyes wide with desperate humiliation. “He doesn't tolerate failure. He doesn't tolerate weakness! Just walk down the aisle. We can play the part, fix this privately later—just don't let him see me fail like this. Please!”

“The wedding is off,” I said, the words cutting through his desperation like a blade.

I pulled off the ring on my finger and threw it at his chest. It bounced off his jacket and clattered onto the floor. “You can give it to her.”

“Elara, baby, don’t do this! Please!”

I turned and stormed out of the room. Vivienne and Clara stood frozen in the hallway alongside several groomsmen who had definitely heard every word. Their faces were a mix of shock and rage.

“Elara, wait…” Vivienne reached for my arm, but I stepped aside, shaking my head.

I continued down the corridor, my heart breaking into a million pieces with a single thought racing through my head:

There would be no wedding. And I would not cry.