THE LAST TIME I FORGAVE YOU..

7:14 A.M.

The first sign that I was about to destroy my own wedding came at 7:14 that morning.

My phone vibrated against the vanity table, rattling softly between a tube of lipstick and the pearl earrings my sister had insisted I wear.

I glanced at the screen.

Darian.

Not a call.

A notification.

The name disappeared before I could read the message beneath it.

“Don't look down,” the makeup artist murmured behind me. “You'll ruin what I just fixed.”

“I wasn't planning to.”

She continued blending beneath my left eye.

I tried to focus on the woman in the mirror.

She looked calm.

Beautiful, even.

Her dark hair had been pinned into the elegant style my sister had chosen. Her makeup was soft enough to look effortless. Her ivory dress hung beside the window, waiting for its final adjustment.

She looked exactly like a woman getting married.

I wasn't sure I felt like her.

My phone vibrated again.

This time, the screen stayed lit long enough for me to see the preview.

You said you wouldn't make me wait another—

The rest disappeared.

I stared at the phone.

“Everything all right?” the makeup artist asked.

“Darian left his phone here.”

She looked at me through the mirror.

“What?”

I pointed toward the small leather pouch sitting beside my perfume.

His phone was inside it.

I hadn't even noticed it when I came into the room.

That was strange.

Darian had stopped by the bridal suite just after six that morning. He wasn't supposed to see me before the ceremony, but he'd come to leave the cufflinks his best man had forgotten at the venue.

He'd kissed my forehead at the door.

Three hours.

That's what he'd whispered.

Then you're officially stuck with me.

He'd laughed, slipped his hand into mine, and left.

Apparently, he'd forgotten something more important than cufflinks.

His phone.

I reached for it.

“Should you be answering it?” the makeup artist asked.

“I'll just silence it.”

That was what I told myself.

The phone was unlocked.

I froze.

For seven years, Darian had used the same four-digit code.

My birthday.

I'd teased him about it once.

What if someone steals your phone?

He'd kissed my forehead.

Then they'll know who I love.

The memory hurt more than it should have.

I was about to lock the screen when another notification appeared.

This time, I saw the sender.

Vesper Lorne.

I frowned.

The name meant nothing.

Then the message appeared.

You promised me you wouldn't go through with this.

I read it twice.

My thumb hovered over the screen.

I should have put the phone down.

Instead, I opened the message.

There were dozens of conversations.

I scrolled.

Most were ordinary—business contacts, wedding vendors, his best man complaining about seating arrangements.

Then I found Vesper again.

The latest message was only thirty seconds old.

Darian, please answer me.

Another appeared beneath it.

You told me today would change everything.

My mouth went dry.

“Are you sure you're all right?” the makeup artist asked.

I didn't answer.

I opened the conversation.

There was no photograph at first.

No confession.

Just months of messages.

Weeks of late-night conversations.

Plans.

Arguments.

Apologies.

Then I saw a photograph.

I opened it.

Darian stood outside a restaurant, his head bent toward a woman whose face was turned slightly away from the camera.

His hand rested against the small of her back.

Not a friendly touch.

Not an accidental one.

Intimate.

Familiar.

The sort of touch a man didn't give a woman he barely knew.

I stared at the image.

Then I noticed his wrist.

Everything inside me went quiet.

He was wearing the watch I'd given him for our seventh anniversary.

A silver-faced watch with a dark leather strap.

I remembered fastening it around his wrist myself.

Darian had laughed and kissed my forehead.

“Seven years,” he'd said. “You know that means you're stuck with me now.”

Yesterday evening, I'd asked where the watch was.

I didn't want him wearing it during the ceremony. I was afraid the leather strap might catch against his cuff.

He'd smiled.

Left it at home.

I zoomed in.

The watch was unmistakable.

So was the timestamp.

Yesterday — 8:42 p.m.

Darian had left me at eight.

He'd kissed me goodbye outside my apartment and told me he was going home to get some sleep before the wedding.

I'd watched him drive away.

At 8:42, he had apparently been across town.

With Vesper.

I stared at the photograph until the words beneath it blurred.

My first instinct was to explain it.

There had always been an explanation.

A business dinner.

A misunderstanding.

Someone he'd forgotten to mention.

A woman who meant nothing.

A message taken out of context.

I'd become very good at finding explanations.

Seven years had taught me that.

But the watch was different.

The watch was a lie I knew for certain.

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“Who is she?” the makeup artist asked quietly.

I looked up.

“I don't know.”

The answer sounded strange coming from me.

After seven years with Darian, I knew almost everyone in his world.

His friends.

His colleagues.

His clients.

The people he owed money to.

The people he couldn't stand.

The people whose birthdays I was expected to remember.

I knew which restaurants he liked, which suits made him uncomfortable, which songs he skipped in the car.

I knew how he took his coffee.

I knew the scar beneath his left shoulder.

I knew what he looked like when he was lying.

At least, I thought I did.

I looked back at the screen.

Vesper Lorne.

I searched for the name.

A professional profile appeared.

Then another.

A photograph loaded.

My stomach tightened.

It was her.

Same eyes.

Same mouth.

Same dark hair.

The woman in the photograph wasn't some stranger Darian had accidentally met.

She existed.

She had a career.

A life.

And apparently, a relationship with my fiancé.

I scrolled through her profile.

There wasn't much.

But one detail caught my attention.

Her company had recently partnered with a firm Darian had been trying to secure a contract with for months.

I stopped scrolling.

That was something.

Not enough.

But something.

I returned to their conversation.

There were messages from three months ago.

Four months.

Six.

My breathing slowed.

This wasn't a recent mistake.

Whatever Vesper was to Darian, she'd been there for a while.

Then I saw something that made my chest tighten.

A message from Vesper dated six weeks earlier.

You said she'd never know about us.

I stared at the words.

Then another.

I don't want to be your secret anymore.

My vision blurred.

I blinked hard.

The makeup artist set her brush down.

“Arielle?”

“I'm fine.”

“You don't look fine.”

“I said I'm fine.”

The sharpness in my voice surprised both of us.

I closed my eyes.

“Sorry.”

She didn't respond immediately.

Then she quietly moved her makeup case aside.

“Do you want me to stop?”

I looked at myself in the mirror.

For the first time that morning, I didn't recognize the woman looking back.

Not because she'd changed.

Because something I'd believed about her life had.

“No,” I said.

My voice was steadier now.

“Finish.”

She picked up her brush again.

I returned to Darian's phone.

There were more messages.

I didn't read all of them.

I didn't need to.

Not yet.

I needed facts.

That was what I told myself.

Facts were easier than explanations.

I opened the photograph again.

Then the message from six weeks earlier.

Then the one from this morning.

You told me today would change everything.

My phone rang.

My own phone this time.

DARIAN CALLING, with his other line.

I stared at his name.

For seven years, that name had been home.

The person I called when something wonderful happened.

The person I called when something went wrong.

The person whose voice could calm me when I was frightened.

The person I was supposed to marry in two hours and thirty-six minutes.

I let it ring.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

It stopped.

A message appeared.

Where are you?

I almost laughed.

He knew exactly where I was.

Bridal suite.

Third floor.

The hotel where we were getting married.

He'd helped choose the room.

He'd complained about the price.

He'd laughed when my sister insisted on white roses.

He knew where I was.

So why ask?

I looked at his phone again.

At Vesper's name.

At the photograph.

At the watch.

At the lie.

Something inside me shifted.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

There was no sudden rage.

No scream.

No tears.

Just a quiet understanding that frightened me more than anger would have.

I had spent years believing that the hardest part of loving someone was forgiving them.

Maybe I had been wrong.

Maybe the hardest part was knowing when forgiveness had stopped being love and started becoming permission.

I looked at the clock.

7:23 A.M.

Two hours and thirty-seven minutes until I was supposed to marry Darian.

My hand moved to my engagement ring.

I turned it once around my finger.

Then again.

Finally, I stopped.

I picked up my phone.

Opened my messages.

And typed his name.

Darian.

I stared at the blank space beneath it.

I could ask him about Vesper.

I could ask about the photograph.

I could ask why he lied about the watch.

I could ask what he meant by today would change everything.

But I already knew what would happen.

He would explain.

I would doubt myself.

He would tell me I was overreacting.

And somehow, by the end of the conversation, I would be apologizing for asking the question.

Not today.

I deleted his name.

Then I opened Vesper's conversation again.

I scrolled past the photographs.

Past the arguments.

Past the promises.

Until I found a message from Darian.

Sent three weeks before our wedding.

My eyes stopped on the words.

After today, everything will finally be different.

I read it again.

And this time, I understood why Vesper had been so certain.

She wasn't asking Darian whether he was going to marry me.

She was waiting to see whether he was going to leave me.

I slowly set the phone down.

Across the room, my wedding dress caught the morning light.

For seven years, I'd imagined what it would feel like to finally become Darian's wife.

I had never imagined what it would feel like to discover that someone else had been waiting for the same day.

The makeup artist looked at me through the mirror.

“Arielle?”

I stood.

Her brush stopped in midair.

“Where are you going?”

I looked at the clock.

7:24 A.M.

“I need to make a phone call.”

“To Darian?”

I slipped the engagement ring from my finger.

“No.”

I looked down at it in my palm.

“To myself.”