That sick feeling I had from earlier quickly came back.
“What were you doing, Ashley? Did you see anyone?”
I quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my body as Emmit glanced over his shoulder at me. “She’s with me. Yeah no, she’s perfectly fine.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I placed my hand on Emmit’s arm.
Shaking his head, he turned away from me again. “Do what Todd says, Ashley. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. I need to get dressed.”
Emmit dropped his phone onto the bed and quickly walked over to the dresser where he pulled out some shorts and a T-shirt.
“Emmit, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.”
His body relaxed just a bit. “No baby, don’t be scared. Ashley woke up to see you were missing. She said she got worried so she went to see if maybe you went down to the early sunrise yoga class. When she got back—”
Emmit’s voice faded as he shook his head and reached down for his sneakers. “What? When she got back what?” I put my hand over my mouth and asked, “Emmit, is she okay? Are my parents okay? What’s going on?” I shouted as I forced him to look at me.
His hands rubbed down his face as he let out a loud frustrated moan. Dropping his hands to his side, Emmit slowly shook his head. “Let’s get you dressed first, Addie. Then I’ll tell you as we head back to Ashley’s place.”
Worrying my lip, I nodded and quickly got dressed. Emmit took me by the hand and led me out of our beach cottage.
“Please tell me, Emmit,” I begged.
Emmit blew out a long breath before he began talking. “When Ashely left to go find you, someone came into her room. They destroyed it, knocking over furniture and taking a knife and . . . and . . .”
The lump in my throat almost didn’t allow me to talk. “And what, Emmit?” I shouted.
“They cut up your wedding dress.”
My legs stopped working. My heart felt as if it had stopped beating as my lungs fought for how to keep pulling air in and out. “W-what?”
Emmit turned my body toward him. “Adaline, I think it’s Stephanie.”
My eyes widened in horror. “Stephanie? Emmit, that’s crazy. Why would you even think she would—?” My hands came over my mouth as I realized Emmit must have hidden something from me. Stephanie must have done something else.
The Trellis.
“Did she . . . was she the one who destroyed the trellis?”
Emmit placed his hands on my arms and held me gently. “I don’t think so baby. I think that was just as they think, the storm.”
I looked at Emmit with a confused expression. “Then why are you thinking Stephanie?”
Emmit blew out a quick breath and closed his eyes. “I didn’t want you to be upset or worried, so I didn’t tell you.”
My stomach turned, and I felt nausea. I had known something was up right before the wedding. “Didn’t tell me what?”
Emmit looked away and cursed under his breath before he looked back at me. “Two weeks before the wedding someone called up to Laluna and tried to cancel our reservations.”
“What!” I shouted as I took a step away from Emmit. “Are you kidding me? How did you find out?”
“Laluna sent me an email confirming the cancelation, and I called immediately and was able to get it taken care of. Then Todd found out someone had closed a couple of my credit cards but he got that taken care of the same day.”
My mouth dropped open as I let what Emmit was telling me sink in. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this Emmit? Why would you keep it from me?”
“I thought I was doing the right thing by not telling you. I didn’t want to stress you out any more than you already were. I took care of it and everything was back on track. I didn’t want to bother you with some bullshit thing some crazy ass girl did.”
I shook my head and turned away from Emmit as I took everything in and processed it. Spinning back around, I glared at Emmit. “Well, look what it did, Emmit! It just brought her right to us. To your sisters room! For all I know she could have just watched us fuck and we didn’t know. She destroyed my wedding dress! My. Wedding. Dress! What else is she going to do?” I finally broke down and cried as Emmit quickly wrapped me up in his arms.
“I swear to God, Addie, she will not get anywhere near you. I won’t let her.”
Burying my face into his chest, I sobbed. “You don’t even know if it’s her, Emmit.”
I could feel Emmit’s body tense, as he held onto me tighter.
“It’s her.”
Those two words sent a shiver through my body as I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed we could go back to being lost in each other like we were not even ten minutes ago.
Trying to keep from falling apart, I pulled back and looked into Emmit’s eyes.
“What are we going to do?”