The scandal.
All I could see was him.
He looked devastated.
“My father…”
“I know.”
“My sister.”
I glanced toward Vanessa.
“Half-sister.”
He nearly laughed.
Then his eyes filled.
“Claire, I need to ask you something.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Do you still want to do this?”
The entire ballroom seemed to hold its breath.
I looked down at my gown.
At my grandmother’s lace.
At the flowers.
At Vanessa.
At the doors through which my mother had disappeared.
Then at the man standing in front of me.
For two days, everyone had behaved as though a wedding dress could determine whether I became a bride.
For thirty years, my mother had behaved as though she could determine whether I deserved happiness.
I finally understood how absurd both ideas were.
I reached for Adrian’s hand.
“Yes.”
He closed his fingers around mine.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure.”
Mara returned to the microphone.
She looked at us.
“Should we continue?”
I nodded.
But before the ceremony began, I turned toward Vanessa.
She stood barefoot beside the front row wearing the slip that had been beneath my stolen gown.
“Vanessa.”
She looked up.
“Take it off.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know.”
“No.”
I pointed toward the gown.
“Take it off because it isn’t yours.”
She nodded.
Then I touched the pearl overskirt of my own dress.
“And neither is this.”
I reached for the hidden fastenings.
Camille hurried forward.
Together, we released them.
The elaborate pearl-covered outer skirt fell away.
Gasps rippled through the ballroom.
Underneath was the second gown.
Simple ivory silk.
Clean lines.
No crystals.
No dramatic train except my grandmother’s lace trailing softly behind me.
The dress I actually loved.
Adrian stared.
“Wow.”
I smiled.
“That’s better.”
He laughed.
For the first time that evening, so did I.
We married twenty minutes later.
No screens.
No speeches.
No secrets.
When the officiant asked whether Adrian took me as his wife, he answered before she finished the question.
“I do.”
People laughed.
When she asked me, I looked directly at him.
“I do.”
And when he kissed me, three hundred people stood.
Not because of the dress.
Not because of the scandal.
Not because my mother had finally been exposed.
Because after everything designed to stop us, we were still standing there.
Together.
Three months later, prosecutors opened an investigation into the missing trust funds.
My mother was eventually removed permanently as trustee.
Most of the money was recovered through assets she controlled.
Vanessa sold her apartment and voluntarily returned what remained of the funds traced directly to her.
I didn’t ask her to.
For nearly a year, we barely spoke.
