“Olivia, do you know this man?” Dorian whispers, leaning close.
I turn to him. “I met him last night. At the bar. We talked but …”
I’m so confused.
We didn’t flirt. We didn’t do anything inappropriate. We simply had a meaningful conversation and that was that.
“Can someone call security?” Dorian calls out, rolling his eyes. His arms lift before clapping against his sides. Someone scrambles toward the hotel, padding over the satin aisle runner and into the grassy space that separates the building from the rose garden.
“Wait,” I say, gathering my dress in my hands and heading down the aisle toward the back row where Gabriel stands.
There’s no salvaging this moment so I might as well hear him out, but I’m going to do it in private, not in front of hundreds of prying eyes and pricked ears.
“Olivia,” Dorian calls at me like an owner calling their dog. “Olivia, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’ll be right back,” I tell him.
When I reach Gabriel, I motion for him to follow me inside.
“You’re insane,” is the first thing I tell him. The second? “This better be worth it.”
But I regret the words the second I say them. If this is worth it, it means the wedding is a mistake.
Dorian’s eyes focus on mine, and he licks his lips before pulling in a hard breath.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this,” he says in a way that makes my stomach plummet. “But last night, about an hour after you went back to your room … your fiancé came down to the bar. And he was with some girl named Elizabeth.”
My heart free falls and the sting of tears threatens my vision.
“No …” I say, “He left my room and went back to his …”
“Clearly he lied to you.”
“And Elizabeth is my best friend. My maid of honor. He wouldn’t—”
“—he did. And he has. Apparently it’s been going on for quite a while,” he tells me. “At least that’s what I gathered from the conversation they had.”
I think of Elizabeth and the mystery man at work she’s been pining after the last couple of years, the one who’s always “unavailable” and “refuses to commit.”
All this time, was she talking about Dorian?
I glance out the glass toward the rose garden. All of it looks so small from here, but I spot Dorian chatting with the minister and Elizabeth avoiding all eye contact.
I refuse to believe it.
And yet somehow … I do.
“How do I know you’re not making this up?” I ask. “And how do you know what my fiancé looks like? Maybe it was someone else in the bar last night.”
He rolls his eyes. “First of all, I saw what he looked like when the two of you were FaceTiming right next to me. And secondly, I have better things to do than crash some stranger’s wedding and stand up in front of hundreds of people, making a fool of myself.”
As always, the man has a point.
Then again, I don’t know him from Adam.
He could be crazy.
“I want to see the picture,” I tell him.
His hand lifts to his jaw and he forces a breath through his nostrils. “You don’t want to see it.”
I laugh. “Are you joking right now? I need to see it. Have to see it. Want to see it. It’s the only way I’m going to believe any of this.”
Dipping into his back pocket, he slides out a thin black phone and thumbs in his code before tapping on an app and flipping the screen toward me.
Sure enough, it’s Dorian and Elizabeth. His hands in her hair. His mouth—the very same one that kissed me goodnight—on her mouth.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” I gather my dress and run for the nearest restroom, which I find down the hall and around the corner. My dress, which once fit my body like a glove, now squeezes the life out of me.
I can’t think.
I can’t breathe.
And I sure as hell can’t go back out there and marry that bastard.
With my back against the wall, I slide down to the ground until I’m nothing more than a numb woman sitting in a whole mess of tulle and chiffon.
I’m hurt. Shocked. Devastated. Humiliated.
But I refuse to cry.
He isn’t worth a single tear.
Someone pushes the door open a few inches and a second later, a man’s voice calls my name.
My heart leaps into my throat for a second when I realize it’s just Gabriel.
“You doing okay?” he asks.
“Peachy.”
“What do you want to do?” he asks.
I laugh because it’s a strange question. A complicated question. A question for which I have no good answer.
“Truthfully,” I say, “I just want to get out of here.”
“All right then. Let’s go.”
I press my palms against the wall and push myself to standing. A moment later I meet him outside the ladies’ room door. His entire expression holds an apology, though he has nothing to be sorry for. If anything, I should be thanking him.