Chapter 3

For a moment, none of us spoke.

The corridor was too bright, too clean, too ordinary for what had just happened. A nurse pushed a cart past us. Somewhere behind the double doors, a monitor beeped steadily. Tessa stood half behind Elliot with a hospital blanket around her shoulders, her fingers still twisted in the sleeve of his dress shirt as if she had every right to hold on to him.

Elliot looked from her hand to my wedding dress, then back to my face.

His first reaction should have been guilt. Instead, suspicion crossed his face.

"Nora," he said slowly, "please tell me you didn't follow us here."

I stared at him.

For a second, I thought I had misheard.

Then a tired, humorless laugh escaped me.

"Listen to yourself."

His mouth closed.

Maybe he realized how ridiculous it sounded. Maybe he only realized he should not have said it out loud. Either way, his eyes dropped, and that was when he noticed the papers in my hand.

"What's that?"

I folded the forms once, too quickly.

His expression changed.

Before he could reach for them, Margaret's voice cut through the hallway.

"Elliot Mercer."

She came toward us so fast one of the nurses stepped aside. Her hair, perfect at the wedding, had come loose at the temple. Her pearls were still on, but the controlled elegance she usually wore like armor had cracked wide open.

"Your father is in cardiac observation because you vanished from your own wedding," she said, her voice trembling with fury. "Do you understand what you've done?"

Elliot went still.

"What?"

"He collapsed in the ballroom."

For the first time since he had left the bridal suite, real panic crossed his face.

"Is he—"

"He's alive," Margaret snapped. "No thanks to you."

His gaze turned to me almost at once.

There it was again, that instinct to find the part of the disaster he could argue with.

"You told them?" he asked.

The question landed harder than it should have.

My ankle was throbbing. My dress was wrinkled from the hospital chair. I had spent the last hour sitting beside his terrified mother while he was somewhere in this same building holding another woman, and somehow he still looked at me as if I had created the damage by naming it.

"I told them the wedding was off," I said. "You were the one who left."

His jaw tightened.

"My father has a heart condition. You knew that."

"Yes," I said. "I also knew he had a son who should have been standing at the altar."

Tessa flinched behind him.

Elliot turned slightly, as if to shield her from the sentence.

That small movement finished what little patience I had left.

"And don't worry," I added. "I didn't tell your parents about her. I gave you more grace than you gave me."

Margaret's eyes moved to Tessa for the first time.

The hospital blanket. The tear-streaked face. The way she stood too close to Elliot in the middle of his ruined wedding day.

Her expression slowly hardened.

"Who is this?"

Tessa's eyes filled with tears so quickly it almost looked practiced.

"Mrs. Mercer, I'm so sorry," she said, clutching the blanket tighter. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have called him. I was having a panic attack, and I couldn't breathe, and I didn't know who else to call."

Margaret stared at her.

"You're the girl?"

"Mom," Elliot said.

Margaret lifted a hand, stopping him.

"You left Nora at the altar for your paralegal?"

"She was in crisis."

"You left your bride," Margaret said, each word sharper than the last, "with two hundred guests waiting, and your father sitting in the front row, because this girl sent you a text?"

Tessa began to cry.

"I never wanted to ruin anything. I swear. I told him to go back, but I was so scared, and he's always been so kind to me."

Always.

The word settled between us like a confession.

Elliot exhaled through his nose, already irritated, already protective.

"That's enough. This isn't Tessa's fault."

Margaret looked at him as if she no longer recognized him.

"Then whose fault is it?"

He did not answer.

I was tired suddenly. So tired that the anger drained out of me and left only a dull, heavy ache.

I looked down at my stomach. It was still flat beneath the ruined satin, still carrying the secret I had meant to turn into joy.

A baby.

A home.

A future I had been foolish enough to think was already mine.

"We're not getting married," I said.

Elliot's head snapped toward me.

"Nora, don't do this."

"I already did."

"You're hurt. You're humiliated. I understand that." He took a step closer, his voice lowering into the careful tone he used with difficult clients. "But don't make a decision like this in a hospital hallway."

I looked at him, almost amazed.

He still thought this was a moment. A fight. Something that could be contained if he chose the right words.

"You made the decision when you walked out of that room."

His face tightened.

"I told you I would fix it. I'll move Tessa off my cases. I'll make sure she reports to someone else."

"Where?"

He hesitated.

"That's already being handled."

"Where, Elliot?"

"The Westchester office."

I waited.

He seemed to think that should mean something.

"That's almost an hour from Midtown," he said. "She won't be around me every day."

"So she stays at the firm."

"She needs the job."

I nodded slowly.

Of course.

Tessa needed the job. Tessa needed comfort. Tessa needed him in the parking lot, in the emergency room, in the middle of our wedding day.

I had needed him too.

That had simply mattered less.

"She's twenty-three," Elliot said, frustration slipping through his control. "She's just starting out. Do you really want me to destroy her career over one mistake?"

"One mistake?"

He looked away.

That was the answer.

Margaret pressed a hand to her forehead, breathing hard.

"Elliot, apologize to Nora. Properly. Now."

"I am sorry," he said, but his eyes were still guarded, still measuring how much blame he could accept without giving me the whole truth. "I handled today badly. I should have called someone else. I should have come back sooner."

"Sooner," I repeated.

His mouth tightened again.

Tessa wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

"I can resign," she whispered. "If Nora hates me that much, I'll resign. I don't want to be the reason you lose the woman you love."

Elliot turned to her immediately.

"No one is asking you to do that."

I closed my eyes for a second.

There it was.

The answer, plain and final.

He could not bear the idea of Tessa leaving the firm, but he had been able to leave me standing alone in a wedding dress.

When I opened my eyes, Elliot was looking at me with something close to pleading.

"Nora, come home with me. We'll talk. Just us."

"There is no us anymore."

His face went pale.

"You don't mean that."

"I do."

For the first time, he looked afraid.

I stepped back before he could touch me.

The papers in my hand crinkled softly. His eyes flicked toward them again, but I tucked them against my side and turned away.

Behind me, Margaret started crying quietly. Tessa said Elliot's name in a small broken voice. Elliot did not follow me right away.

Maybe he thought I would stop.

Maybe he thought I would turn back.

Seven years had taught him that I usually did.