Then locked it.
She looked different now.
Pale.
Nervous.
I turned.
“What?”
She pulled a tiny flash drive from her bra.
My heart stopped.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mom’s laptop.”
“Lila—”
“Don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t know whether I’m helping you.”
I said nothing.
She laughed bitterly.
“Fair.”
For most of our lives, Lila and I had existed on opposite ends of our mother’s approval.
I resisted.
Lila adapted.
I argued.
Lila smiled.
I left home at twenty-two.
Lila stayed until twenty-nine.
People assumed that made her Mother’s favorite.
The truth was more complicated.
Favorites can be prisoners too.
Lila held out the flash drive.
“There are folders on there.”
“What kind of folders?”
“I don’t know everything.”
She swallowed.
“But this isn’t just about your dress.”
My skin prickled.
“What do you mean?”
“I overheard Mom talking to Gordon last night.”
Gordon Pike was our family’s longtime accountant.
“What did she say?”
“She said the Vale payment had to clear before the end of the quarter.”
“The sponsorship?”
Lila shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
She looked toward the door.
“But she said something else.”
“What?”
“That after today, nobody would be able to question where the money went.”
A chill moved through me.
“Why would my wedding explain where money went?”
“I don’t know.”
She pressed the drive into my palm.
“But I think you’d better find out.”
Before I could respond, someone knocked.
“Amelia?”
Mother.
Lila’s eyes widened.
I closed my fist around the drive.
Lila unlocked the door.
Mother entered.
She glanced between us.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to convince Amelia the dress isn’t completely hideous,” Lila said.
My mother laughed.
“Jealousy isn’t attractive.”
Lila smiled.
But I saw her fingers trembling.
At four o’clock, the ceremony began.
Guests filled rows of wooden chairs beneath the enormous oak tree.
Beyond them, the hills rolled gold and green beneath the California sun.
White roses climbed the ceremony arch.
A string quartet played softly.
Daniel stood beneath the tree wearing a black tuxedo.
I saw him before he saw me.
Then he turned.
His expression changed.
Not because I looked beautiful.
Because he recognized immediately that something was wrong.
Daniel knew my dress.
He had never seen it, but he’d listened to me describe it for a year.
Simple.
No sparkle.
No princess skirt.
I walked toward him beside my uncle Richard.
Every step made the crystals hiss against one another.
Guests smiled.
Cameras clicked.
My mother sat in the front row.
Radiant.
Satisfied.
Victorious.
When I reached Daniel, he took my hands.
His eyes dropped toward the rhinestones.
Then back to mine.
“That isn’t your dress,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“Trust me for five minutes.”
He stared at me.
Then squeezed my fingers.
“Always.”
The officiant began.
The ceremony moved normally at first.
Welcome.
Reading.
Music.
Daniel’s vows.
He spoke about the night we met during a power outage in Manhattan.
About eating takeout by candlelight.
About loving that I never pretended to agree with him.
Guests laughed.
I almost cried.
Then came my turn.
I unfolded the card holding my vows.
My mother leaned forward.
I looked at Daniel.
Then at our guests.
And finally at her.
“Before Daniel and I make a promise about honesty,” I said, “there’s something I need to correct.”
