Chapter 3: The Smile She Wore to My Wedding
Wendy held the door open.
She didn't move from the doorway.
Phoebe slid the envelope behind her back.
Her fingers were shaking, but her face was steady.
"We'll be right out," Phoebe said.
"Jessi just needs a minute."
"She's had her minute." Wendy's eyes stayed on me.
"Luca is asking for you."
I picked up the damp cloth from the counter and pressed it to my nose.
My hands were completely still.
I don't know how.
"Tell him I'm coming," I said.
Wendy didn't move for another three seconds.
Then she let the door close behind her.
Phoebe exhaled.
"Jessi—"
"She saw the envelope."
"I know."
"How much time do we have?"
Phoebe checked her phone.
"My cousin said the filing window closes Monday.
If we can get a copy of the forged document before then, we can challenge the transfer before it processes."
I looked at myself in the mirror.
Frosting still in my hair.
Mascara dried in two pale lines down my cheeks.
The small pearl button at my neckline, perfectly in place.
"Does your cousin still have access to the filing?"
"She pulled a copy this morning," Phoebe said.
"It's already on my phone."
I turned from the mirror.
"Send it to my attorney.
Tonight."
"Tonight is your wedding night."
"I know what tonight is."
Phoebe looked at me for a long moment.
Then she nodded and opened her phone.
I walked back into the ballroom.
Luca was standing near the bar with two of his groomsmen.
He saw me cross the room and his expression shifted — just slightly.
A small recalculation behind his eyes.
"There she is." He held out his hand.
I took it.
His grip was firm.
A reminder.
"You were gone a long time," he said quietly, pulling me close.
"There was a line," I said.
"Wendy said you were talking to Phoebe."
"We were fixing my makeup."
He looked at my face.
"You still have frosting in your hair."
"I know." I smiled at him.
"You put it there."
Something moved across his face.
Not guilt.
More like surprise — that I had said it at all, that I had said it evenly, without flinching.
His grip on my hand tightened.
"Don't do that," he said.
"Do what?"
"That thing where you think you're being clever."
I kept smiling.
"I'm just talking to my husband."
Across the room, Wendy had positioned herself near the exit, watching us.
She had her phone out.
She wasn't taking photos.
She was typing.
Luca followed my gaze toward his mother.
Something passed between them — a look I had seen before but never understood until tonight.
Not affection.
Not even familiarity.
It was coordination.
Luca turned back to me.
"We're cutting out early.
I already told the planner."
"We have three more hours."
"I said we're leaving." He released my hand and picked up his glass.
"Say goodbye to whoever you need to say goodbye to.
Twenty minutes."
He walked away toward his groomsmen.
I stood at the edge of the dance floor.
Around me, two hundred people ate and drank and laughed, and not one of them said a word to me about what had happened at the cake table.
Not one.
Except one.
My father's oldest friend, a man named Gerald who had known me since I was seven years old, appeared at my elbow.
He was holding a glass of water, not champagne.
"Jessi," he said quietly.
"Gerald."
He didn't look at me directly.
He looked at the dance floor.
"Your father would have stood up," he said.
"I want you to know that."
My father had been gone four years.
I hadn't known, until that moment, how much I had needed someone to say that.
"I know," I said.
Gerald set his glass down on a passing tray.
"You need anything — anything at all — you call me.
Day or night." He pressed a folded card into my palm.
"That's my personal number.
Not the office.
My personal one."
He walked away before I could answer.
I closed my fingers around the card.
Twenty minutes later, Luca steered me out of the ballroom with his hand flat against the small of my back, and Wendy watched us go from across the room with an expression I finally had a word for.
Relief.
May you like
She thought tonight had gone exactly as planned.
She had no idea that Phoebe was already in the parking garage, sitting in her car, forwarding a document to my attorney's emergency line.
