Chapter 3

Damien freezes for a beat. Then he laughs, low and certain, like a man humoring a child.

"Continue with what, sweetheart? Your groom isn't even in the room. You marrying the wallpaper?"

"Come on, Aria. You've never been the clingy kind. I gave you my word. I'll marry you. Just sit tight a couple more years and be a good girl. Hm?"

Wait. Always wait.

Ten years of waiting. I finally clawed my way to a wedding date. Three months out, I found out he'd been screwing someone else for three years.

And now he wants me to wait again. Wait for him to marry another woman, give her his name, his bed, his ring. And then, when he gets bored of her, drag me out of storage and put me on the altar?

"I'm done waiting, Damien."

He doesn't hear me.

He glances at the watch on his wrist, drags Cordelia back under the sheets, and tosses the words at me without looking up.

"Night's still young. We can go another round or two. Don't worry, Aria. The first Sinclair heir is coming out of you. Nobody else gets that."

I lower my eyes. There's nothing in them.

I drop the bridesmaid dress on the floor and walk out.

The next morning, neither of them comes down.

The stylist is standing in the hallway, hugging her case, mortified.

I walk over.

"I'm the bride. Do me."

She knows me. Every consultation, every fitting, every piece of silk flown in from the Moretti atelier in Sicily came through me. She doesn't ask. She just opens her case and gets to work.

By the time my hair and veil are nearly done, the two of them finally come strolling down the stairs.

The morning sun cuts across the hall and falls right over me.

Damien stops dead.

The stylist pins the last layer of the veil in place. I lift my skirt, stand, and turn my head slowly to look at him.

He pinches the bridge of his nose like I've given him a migraine.

"Aria. I told you. You'll get your wedding. Later."

"Be a good girl. Take it off before Cordelia comes down. She'll throw a tantrum if she sees you in it."

Right on cue, the heels start clattering on the stairs.

Cordelia comes flying down, hooks onto his arm, and the second she lays eyes on me she comes unglued. Her finger jabs at my face.

"Damien! Today is my wedding! Why is she in my dress?!"

Her eyes well up on command. She tucks her chin and her voice goes soft, broken, deliberate.

"You know about my mom. You know what she was. I told myself I'd die before I ended up like her. And I still let you have me. I let myself become that woman for you, Damien."

A tear slips down. Right on cue.

"Three whole years. And you can't even give me one wedding day she isn't standing in the middle of?"

Damien drops his head fast and starts murmuring against her hair. Hands fluttering. Panicking. Trying to soothe her.

The same way he panicked fifteen years ago, kneeling beside a thirteen-year-old me in the bloodied ruins of the Moretti compound.

Bodies still warm. He held me against his chest and swore on his Family's blood that I would never be alone again.

Memory is a cruel thing.

I laugh, soft and short, and toss the small leather notebook on the floor between us.

"Damien. I don't need this anymore. Take it back."

If he bothered to look, he'd know exactly what it is. The Vow Ledger.

Fifteen years ago we pressed our bloodied thumbs onto the inside cover and started writing down a hundred wishes.

He told me, back then, that when we finished the last one, nothing in this world could pull us apart.

There are still ten wishes left in that book.

I don't want to finish them with him anymore.

"Aria. Good timing."

Damien picks up the leather notebook, smiles, and presses it into Cordelia's hands like he's giving her a present.

"It's our little couple's journal, baby. We finish a hundred wishes together, and we're locked in. Forever."

He kisses her hair.

"The dress is yours. The wedding is yours. All of it."

Cordelia's tears dry in a heartbeat. She melts back into his chest, looks me dead in the eye, and smiles slow.

"Damien, baby. Make her take it off. She's a bridesmaid. Who said she gets to wear a bride's dress?"

Damien lifts one finger.

Three housemaids close in on me, hands already reaching.

"Aria. Off."

The stylist looks around, panicked. She opens her mouth to speak. A guard takes her by the elbow before a single word comes out and steers her into the next room. The door clicks shut.

The dress weighs a ton. Underneath it I'm wearing nothing but underwear.

I look around the room. Guards. Staff. Damien.

I tilt my head and smile.

"Damien. You sure you want me to take it off right here?"