She did now.
And that didn’t count the groom’s cake. Or the petits fours with their initials in gold on the top.
Add the flowers, the music, seating charts, colors, themes, and despite the efficient and incredibly patient wedding planner, it all boiled down to nightmare.
She couldn’t wait until it was over and done.
And that probably made her an aberration.
Weren’t brides supposed to want the fuss and bother? Didn’t a bride want her wedding day to be special, unique, a fairy tale?
She did want it to be special, unique, and she very much wanted the happy ever after.
But.
And those buts had been coming fast over the last few weeks. But it didn’t feel like her day, her special, unique, gloriously exciting day. At all. Somehow, it had slipped right out of her control. When she reminded herself it was Brandon’s wedding day, too, and he should have some say, it struck her he had all the say.
None of it reflected her vision or her wishes. It clearly reflected all of his.
And if their vision and wishes were so dramatically different, didn’t that mean they just weren’t suited?
If she dwelled on that, she worried. Like she worried when they spent three Saturdays house hunting and he pushed for the sleek, contemporary McMansion and she wanted the rambling old house with character.
But.
If she didn’t dwell on it, if she remembered the last eighteen months of being a couple, she couldn’t find anything to worry about.
A wedding day was just one day, and why shouldn’t Brandon have the fuss he wanted? A house? It’s what you put inside it that counted. They’d find a compromise, and make it a home.
Wedding jitters, she told herself. The Big Reality was setting in. And she had proof—literally—in the wedding invitation proof in her bag.
Accepting jitters, she canceled an appointment with the florist—couldn’t face it—and headed home.
She’d have a couple of quiet hours. Brandon had some groom thing to deal with, so she’d have the place to herself until he got home.
She decreed when he did, they’d open a bottle of wine, go over the wedding invitation proof, finalize that, then finalize the ever-growing guest list. Order the invitations, and be done with it—since he’d hired a calligrapher to address them.
Something she could’ve done, but hey, she wouldn’t complain about not addressing a couple hundred invitations.
She pushed through Boston’s Saturday traffic with the windows down and the music up. In eight weeks, she thought, the color would have exploded with fall—her favorite season. And all this would be behind her.
She was twenty-eight, closing in fast on twenty-nine and the end of another decade. She was ready to settle down, start a family. And in eight weeks, she’d marry the man she loved.
Brandon Wise—smart, talented, romantic. A man who’d taken it slow and easy when she’d been cautious about starting a relationship with a coworker.
He’d won her over—and she’d enjoyed being won over.
They rarely fought. He was incredibly sweet to her mother, and that mattered. He enjoyed the company of her friends, and she enjoyed the company of his.
Sure, she could think of a lot of ways they diverged. He’d go to a cocktail party, dinner party, art opening—name the social event—every night. And she needed to spread those things out, hold on to the quiet-at-home times.
He had more shoes than she did—and she liked shoes.
When he talked about buying a house, he talked about grounds crews, and she imagined mowing the grass and planting a garden.
But who wanted to marry and live with a clone?
Differences added variety.
By the time she parked, she regretted canceling the appointment with the florist. She should’ve taken care of it. Flowers, like cake, should make you happy.
She’d make up for it by tossing something together for dinner.
A ploy to head off a let’s-eat-out suggestion? she considered as she walked to her side of the duplex. Maybe, but he’d come home to a meal in progress, a bottle of wine, and that was a good deal.
They’d eat, drink, and finalize that damn guest list.
A big check mark in the done column would lift a weight.
Weight lifted, they could spend Saturday night naked in bed.
She heard music when she opened the door and stepped into the foyer. And saw, a few feet ahead as the foyer gave way to the living room, a woman’s shoe.
A red stiletto.
She set her purse on the entrance table, dropped her keys in the bowl she kept there. And slowly bent down to pick up the shoe.
Its mate lay on its side near the turn toward the bedroom, along with a white, full-skirted, strapless dress.
Music flowed out of the bedroom, a quiet, sexy score punctuated by a woman’s breathless cries and moans.
Brandon liked having music on during sex, she thought dully. He made a point of it.
She’d found it endearing. Once.
Since they hadn’t bothered to shut the bedroom door, she stepped over the discarded dress, kicked the man’s shirt and trousers out of the way.
Who knew, she thought, that love could snuff out like a candle in a stiff breeze? And leave no trace. None at all.
She watched her fiancé’s ass grind as he thrust into the woman under him. The woman whose legs were wrapped around his waist as she called out his name.
She looked down at the shoe still in her hand, looked at that naked, cheating ass.
When she flung it, when it struck, she thought: Oh yeah, that’ll leave a mark.
He reared up, scrambled around. The woman managed a quick shriek and tried to drag up the rumpled sheet.
“Sonya.”
“Shut the fuck up,” she snapped at him. “Jesus Christ, Tracie, you’re my cousin. You’re part of the bridal party.”
Sobbing, Tracie dragged harder at the sheets.
“Sonya, listen—”
“I said shut the fuck up. I’m in the middle of a goddamn cliché. Get dressed, get out. Both of you.”
“I’m sorry.” Still sobbing, Tracie snatched at the bra and panties on the floor. “I’m so—”
“Don’t speak to me. Don’t ever speak to me again. If your mother wasn’t my aunt, and someone I’m very fond of, I’d kick your slut ass here and now. Keep your mouth shut and get out of my house.”
Tracie grabbed the dress on the run, dragging it over her head, sans underwear, as she went. She didn’t bother with the shoes.
She didn’t shut the door behind her.
“Sonya. I have no excuse. I slipped, I—”
“I see. You slipped, and your clothes just tossed themselves around the room while you fell naked on my cousin. Get out, Brandon. You can get out naked or pull on some clothes first. But get out of my house.”
“Ours,” he began.
“My name’s on the mortgage.”
“Sweetheart—”
“You’d seriously dare call me that? Try it again, and I swear to God you’ll leave bleeding. I said get out.”
He dragged on khakis. “We need to talk. You just need to calm down so I— Where are you going?”