“That doesn’t change what I found.”

“It changes everything.”

“No, Victoria. It changes nothing.”

Her voice became colder.

“You have no idea what you’re involving yourself in.”

“Then explain it.”

She hung up.

That evening someone broke into my office.

Nothing valuable disappeared.

Only copies of the inspection photographs.

Fortunately, the originals were encrypted.

I contacted the city investigator assigned to the project.

And then, without telling Victoria, I installed additional security at my office.

Claire insisted I do the same for the bridal suite.

“Your mother-in-law hates you, your wedding dress costs more than my apartment, and you’ve accidentally stepped into a corporate fraud investigation.”

“You make my life sound exhausting.”

“It is exhausting. I need naps because of you.”

The hotel already had hallway cameras.

But the bridal suite itself had none for privacy reasons.

The wedding coordinator offered a temporary interior security unit for jewelry and gifts.

I agreed.

Then something occurred to me.

“Can the camera cover the dress?”

“Yes.”

“Make sure it does.”

Two weeks later, I told the dress designer to create something unusual.

A detachable exterior.

She stared at me across her worktable.

“You want me to cut apart a gown that took nearly a year to make?”

“No. I want you to make it look like one gown when it’s actually two.”

Her name was Sofia Bellini, a seventy-year-old genius who had dressed actresses, princesses, and one first lady.

Her eyes gleamed.

“Why?”

“I have a feeling.”

“About fashion?”

“About my future mother-in-law.”

She considered this.

Then she smiled.

“I like you more every time you come here.”

We spent fourteen days redesigning the gown.

The elaborate crystal-covered skirt and back panel became a removable shell attached with nearly invisible clasps.

Beneath it was the real dress.

Simpler.

Cleaner.

More beautiful.

An ivory column of silk with a fitted bodice, hand-embroidered silver branches, and a narrow train.

The embroidery had been copied from a drawing my mother made twenty-seven years earlier.

She had died when I was seventeen.

I had found the sketch while cleaning my father’s attic after the engagement.

It showed a woman standing beneath an arch of branches.

Underneath, in my mother’s handwriting, were six words:

Strength can still be made beautiful.

That became the heart of the second dress.

Only four people knew.

Sofia.

Claire.

My father.

And me.

Not even Adrian.

Originally, I planned to reveal the second layer during the reception as a surprise.

But after Victoria’s phone call about the building investigation, another possibility entered my mind.

I hated myself for thinking it.

Still, I asked Sofia to prepare for it.

“What exactly do you think she’ll do?” Claire asked.

“I don’t know.”

“And if she does nothing?”

“Then we have a beautiful reception reveal.”

“And if she does?”

I looked at the hidden clasps.

“Then she chooses what happens next.”

Victoria chose.

At 4:57 p.m. on my wedding day.

Three minutes before the scheduled processional.