Chapter 1

I waited eight years for him to say "I do" — until he handed my bouquet to his assistant.

The bouquet landed in Ella Morgan’s arms almost by accident.

Lana Shaw's carefully aimed throw sailing perfectly into the crowd — but it bounced off the other fingertips, then tumbled once in the air, and fell into Ella Morgan’s lap like fate correcting a mistake.

Every eye in the room turned knowingly toward Nate Sinclair.

It was involuntary, collective, the way a room full of people who'd watched a couple orbit each other for eight years would naturally look to the man and think: *now.*

The chanting started almost instantly.

"Put a ring on it! Put a ring on it!"

"Eight years, Quinn! No more excuses!"

"Kiss her! Propose! Do *something!*"

Someone pushed Nate forward. He stumbled a step, then steadied himself. Ella felt her cheeks flush. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She waited for the words she had been waiting eight years to hear.

This was it.

The moment they had engineered with surgical precision — every detail coordinated with Lana months in advance.

And he was supposed to say *I will marry you.*

Nate reached her. The noise swelled around them — whistles, applause, someone banging a fork against a champagne flute.

But Nate only reached down and calmly took the bouquet from her hands.

He turned with casually and easily, as though the gesture meant nothing, and handed it to the bridesmaid beside him —his assistant, Rain Chambers.

“She caught it first,” Nate said. He smiled, easy and familiar, and ruffled Ella’s hair. “Be good, baby. Next time.”

The spotlight followed the flowers away.

It found Rain Chambers — Nate's assistant, who had no business being a bridesmaid at this wedding — clutching the flowers with an expression of perfect, rehearsed surprise.

Ella stood alone in the center of the floor. The applause had shifted, scattered, refocused on the pretty girl with the bouquet and her shy, delighted smile.

Ella's hands hung empty at her sides.

She smiled. It was a quite small

Nate didn’t know. There would be no next time.

Her wedding was next week.