Chapter 2

For a moment, my mind went completely blank.

Back when I was trying on wedding dresses, I'd picked out the one I'd been dreaming about since I was a little girl. Adrian took one look and said it wasn't right for me.

Then he asked the clerk to bring another one.

That dress pinched my chest and squeezed my waist until I could barely breathe—it just wasn't my size. The clerk warned us that letting it out would be a nightmare, and one wrong alteration could ruin the whole thing.

But Adrian said, "This one. It suits you."

And I said yes.

For countless nights after that, I stood in front of the mirror wearing it, dreaming about the romantic wedding Adrian and I were going to have.

Turns out, it was Mia's dress.

The wedding, the dress, even the husband—all of it, her charity.

Mia kept going.

"Claire, if you want to blame someone, blame me. It's all my fault. I'm so sorry."

She raised a hand to slap her own face. Adrian caught her wrist instantly, pulled her into his arms, and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"I'm the one who wanted to marry you. You didn't do anything wrong."

When he looked back at me, there wasn't a trace of warmth left in his eyes.

"You've pushed an innocent girl this far. Happy now?"

Before I could get a word out, Mia went limp in his arms.

Adrian panicked. He scooped her up and bolted for the door, then turned and shouted at me from the threshold, "What the hell are you standing there for? Bring the car around!"

At the ER, Adrian never let go of Mia's hand.

I still remember the night I was wheeled into surgery after my car accident. He'd sat at my bedside just like that.

He hadn't slept for three days. At one point he grabbed the attending physician by the arm and wouldn't let go. "Please. Whatever it takes to save Claire. Blood, bone marrow, a kidney—take whatever you need from me."

Only a few years ago.

The same hand that used to hold mine was now holding someone else's—his real wife's.

The man who once said he'd trade his life for mine didn't have any room left for me in his heart.

To him, I was just the woman who demanded he sacrifice his happiness, the one he was throwing a wedding to as a favor.

I turned around and walked out of the hospital.

On the way home, I called the wedding planner.

"Cancel tomorrow's wedding."

There was a stunned pause on the other end. "Miss Bennett—you've been planning this wedding for two years. You designed every detail yourself. The ceremony is tomorrow. Are you sure?"

I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles ached. The image of Adrian rushing out of that private room with Mia in his arms flashed through my head again.

When I finally spoke, my voice was shaking.

"Cancel it."

"I don't want to marry him anymore."

Late that night, Adrian came home.

The moment he walked in, he flung his jacket onto the couch in a rage.

"So you just left Mia at the ER? She apologized to you in front of everyone. She fainted because of you. Claire, what more do you want from her?"

"Do you need everyone in that room to get on their knees and beg for your forgiveness before you're satisfied?"

I stared at him. I couldn't get out a single word.

My heart had shattered.

Adrian had once been the man I trusted most in the world.

And he had gone behind my back—slept with another woman on the night of our seven-year anniversary, and signed a marriage license with her at City Hall.

He'd turned me into a joke in front of everyone we knew.

And now he was standing in front of me, demanding to know what right I had to be angry.

It was absurd. It was ridiculous.

When I stayed silent, Adrian sighed. "Claire, I know you're upset. But this isn't Mia's fault. She didn't mean to hurt you."

"Promise me you won't take this out on her, okay?"

Then, the way he had a thousand times before, he reached out, cupped the back of my neck, and leaned down to kiss me.

Mia's perfume flooded my nose.

And in that instant, my head filled with images of him and Mia—his hands on her, his mouth on hers, their bodies tangled together in bed.

I couldn't stop myself from wondering how many nights he'd come straight from her bed and kissed me with the same lips that had just been on hers.

It was revolting.

I shoved him off me, ran into the bathroom, and gripped the edge of the sink, dry-heaving.

I turned the faucet on and rinsed my mouth out, over and over, scrubbing at my lips until they were red and swollen.

Adrian followed me to the bathroom door.

"What's that supposed to mean? You think I'm dirty?"

He stared at me. Then he let out a short, ugly laugh.

"Claire—when your mom got raped, did she lose her mind like this too?"