Chapter 1

The wedding cars had been idling outside my father's house for three hours.

Marissa Belrose refused to move from the seat beside my fiancé—the seat that was supposed to be mine.

She was my fiancé Dominic Sterling's assistant. The girl who'd been fighting me for the front passenger seat for eight months.

She was looking straight at me through the window.

"Nora. Didn't you say you get carsick? This time the front is yours. I'll sit next to Dominic."

"Can you get on with the wedding now?"

"Nora. You know that's my seat."

I looked past her.

Two of Dominic's men stood by the lead car. Neither had moved. Neither had looked at me. Their eyes stayed on Dominic, waiting for his order.

But Dominic never gave the order to move her.

I swallowed the heat rising in my throat.

"Dominic. Get her out."

Dominic shook his head. Gave me that tired look. The one he'd been giving me for a year.

"Nora. She's not feeling well. Are you going to make a scene over a seat? Are you getting in or not?"

"If you keep this up, don't bother. Walk yourself to the church."

He checked his Patek. I smiled.

"Fine. Then I'm not marrying you today."

I didn't hesitate.

I turned and walked toward the car trailing right behind the wedding procession. I looked at the man inside.

“You said you'd wait for me. “

“Come marry me. Right now.”

***

The wedding cars had shown up three hours late to begin with.

I looked at Marissa in the back seat.

She was wearing the sea-island cotton shirt I'd had custom-made for Dominic. Turnbull & Asser. Madison Avenue. His initials embroidered over the pocket in French navy.

I finally understood. My fiancé had spent the night in bed with his assistant.

Dominic wasn't answering his phone that whole morning. Nobody at the Sterling compound in Newport would tell us anything.

My father thought there'd been an accident on I-95. He pulled his old bike out of the garage and rode ten miles down the route we'd mapped. Until he flagged the wedding convoy down himself.

The lead car was empty of him. My father's bike folds. It would have fit in the trunk.

But he rode the ten miles back.

His jacket was streaked with dust. He stopped in the little grove behind the house and brushed himself off before he walked in the front door.

He wanted to spare me the humiliation in front of the guests.

Something in my chest twisted so hard I couldn't breathe.

Every ritual my parents had planned got skipped. Dominic never got out of the car. His only explanation:

"Sorry. Rough night."

But the lipstick on his collar was visible from ten feet away. Chanel red. Not my shade.

Marissa pulled three sentences out of the air and poured the whole mess on me.

"Nora. You know there's nothing between me and Dominic. You're the one making a scene in front of everyone. That's on you."

"You're supposed to be his Donna. Don't you know how to give a Don face when he's off balance? That's the least a Donna does."

She said it leaning into Dominic's chest. My custom shirt against his lapel. Her look at me was pure triumph.

Something in my ribs pulled tight.

Today Dominic was wearing yesterday's shirt. It reeked of Marissa's perfume.

"Marissa had too much last night. Nothing clean in her bag. It was the only shirt at the apartment. I gave it to her."

So he'd taken the shirt I'd made for our wedding and put it on her.

I pressed every feeling in my chest flat.

"Dominic. Call off the wedding."

Dominic glanced at his watch. Impatience flickered across his face.

"Nora. Get in the car or I'll make you regret it."

"So you're really calling off the wedding over a seat?"

"Yes."

I cut him off before he could finish.

Dominic looked at me. Nodded slowly.

"Fine. Have it your way."

He turned back to Marissa, reaching in to adjust the shawl across her lap, careful, unhurried. He had never once touched me in public that way.

"Get comfortable. We'll be moving in a minute."

Then he climbed in beside her and closed the door. He looked at me through the glass, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Marissa, impatience written across his whole face.

"Nora. The passenger seat is yours. Or the back of the sedan behind. Take your pick."