Chapter 1 — The Bride Who Didn’t Know

"Audrey, where are you getting married next Saturday?"

My best friend asked the question while I was confirming the flowers for my wedding.

"Ireland. Sienna, you helped me pick the venue."

A sharp little cheer came through the phone.

"I won! Preston, pay up. I told you she still didn't know."

The cursor blinked beside the words white sweet peas. I had spent three evenings finding a florist who could get them in July.

"Know what?"

Preston laughed somewhere behind her. Then his voice came closer.

"We moved it to Iceland, sweetheart. Honestly, you should check your email occasionally."

I checked my email for a living. I managed software deployments across three time zones. I could tell him which engineer had changed a line of code at two in the morning.

"You moved our wedding?"

"The hotel outside Reykjavík is incredible. Sienna found it. You'll love it."

"When were you going to tell me?"

"I'm telling you now. Just change your flight."

Sienna whispered something. He laughed again.

"What was the bet?" I asked.

"Don't start. We were wondering how long it would take you to notice."

"Notice something nobody told me?"

"Audrey, it's a destination, not a different groom."

He hung up before I could answer.

For a moment, I sat with the phone against my ear, listening to nothing.

Then a photograph arrived from Maeve Doyle, our wedding planner in Ireland.

I recognized the bridal boutique. The gilt mirror. The little platform. The dress with a lace collar and a skirt too heavy to lift without help.

Sienna stood on the platform wearing it.

Preston stood beside her, holding her hand.

I was in the bottom corner, crouched in jeans, straightening the train because the saleswoman had asked me to move it away from the door.

Across the top, somebody had added: Welcome to Our Wedding.

Maeve called before I could enlarge the image.

"Audrey, I'm sorry. I wanted you to see this before it went to print."

"Print for what?"

"The welcome display at the Iceland hotel. Their coordinator asked me to transfer the photography files. Preston specified this one."

I looked at my own bent head.

"Did he say why?"

Maeve hesitated.

"He said you and Sienna would find it funny."

I remembered the day of the fitting. My original dress had disappeared from the appointment list. Preston had paid for an elaborate replacement, saying he'd wanted to surprise me.

Sienna had begged to try it first.

Later, I heard her ask him whether she'd won that bet, too.

Before the dress, there had been his grandmother's sapphire bracelet. His mother had shown it to me over Christmas dinner, telling me she hoped I would wear it at the wedding.

A month later, it appeared on Sienna's wrist.

Preston said he wanted to see whether I would notice.

I had noticed everything. That had never been the problem.

"Is our reservation still there?" I asked Maeve.

"At the manor? Yes. You signed the contract, and your deposit is on the booking. I can't cancel it on someone else's instructions."

My hand stopped shaking.

"So he didn't move the wedding. He booked another one."

"That's correct."

"Please don't cancel mine."

"Of course. Would you like me to pause the remaining arrangements?"

I opened the contract. My name appeared first. My signature was on the final page. The deposit had come from the bonus I'd earned fixing a security failure nobody else on my team could reproduce.

"Give me until tomorrow morning," I said.

After we disconnected, I downloaded the agreement, the invoices, and the photograph into a new folder.

Then I opened a message I had left unanswered for twelve days.

Nathan Hayes had sent a picture of the manor chapel's repaired windows. He'd worked on the restoration years earlier. When we'd reconnected through a photograph I'd posted of the venue, he'd offered to check that the room was accessible for my mother.

His last message was simple.

If you need anything when you're here, ask.

I hadn't answered because Preston had glanced at Nathan's photograph and asked why a man I knew in high school needed to help with our wedding.

Apparently, women from his childhood belonged in ours. Men from mine did not.

I set the phone down when the front door opened.

Preston came into the study carrying a small cream shopping bag.

"You look serious."

"I'm reviewing the wedding contract."

He leaned over my shoulder and kissed my temple. I turned the laptop slightly, enough to close the photograph without hiding the contract.

"Leave that stuff to me. You've got enough work to do."

"You said that last month."

"And look what happens when you don't trust me. You spend your Saturday buried in paperwork."

He put the bag beside my keyboard.

Inside was a gold bracelet I had looked at twice and decided not to buy. The money would cover several weeks of my mother's evening care.

"You remembered," I said.

He smiled, pleased with himself.

For ten years, that smile had made me question the evidence in front of me. He couldn't be careless, I would think. He remembered my coffee order. He couldn't mean to hurt me. He'd driven through a snowstorm when my mother first got sick.

He took the bracelet from its box and fastened it around my wrist.

"There. Better?"

I hadn't said I felt bad.

Before I could answer, he took my left hand.

His thumb pushed my engagement ring over my knuckle.

I caught his wrist.

"What are you doing?"

"Sienna won."

"What does that have to do with my ring?"

"It was the prize. Just for the week."

The diamond rested between his fingers. Four years earlier, he'd put it on my hand with tears in his eyes. Inside the band, he'd had five words engraved.

Love of my life.

"You offered my engagement ring as a prize?"

"She wanted to wear it in Iceland. She'll give it back before the ceremony."

"Did it occur to you to ask me?"

His smile thinned.

"I just bought you that."

He glanced at the bracelet as though we were discussing an exchange policy.

I let go of his wrist.

"Keep the ring."

"Audrey."

"You made a promise. You should honor it."

He studied me, uncertain whether I was angry enough to spoil his evening.

Then his phone chimed.

Sienna's name lit the screen.

"She's downstairs," he said. "Try to be nice. She's had a rough year."

He left the room with my ring in his pocket.

I unfastened the new bracelet and put it back in its box.

On my laptop, an offer from my employer waited beside the wedding contract: three years in Dublin, leading the team I'd helped build remotely. I'd postponed my answer because Preston couldn't bear the idea of me leaving Boston.

I reread the salary, the relocation support, the start date.

Then I picked up my phone and opened Nathan's message.

Will you still be in Dublin next Saturday?

His answer arrived before I finished typing the second sentence.

Yes. Are you coming over for your wedding?

I stared at the question until another message appeared.

Audrey, is something wrong?

For once, someone had asked before deciding for me.

I wrote: I don't know how to explain it yet.

Three dots appeared, vanished, then appeared again.

Are you coming to marry him, or do you need help leaving him?