I'm living in one of Hudson's spare rooms. I change in the bathroom with the lights off because I don’t trust he’s watching me. I've got my old job back, sitting at the same desk, smiling at the same people, pretending nothing has changed when everything has.
Ace ignored my text. Which I suppose is karma, because this is exactly what I did to him for six years. Silence. Distance. Letting someone who loves you wonder if you're alive or dead because it's easier than telling them the truth.
I deserve this. I did this to myself.
The driver opens my door, and the heat hits me, making my head swim. He holds out a hand and helps me up. I smooth down the dress. It’s simple and boring. Emma and I bought it in twenty minutes in the first shop we walked into, on Hudson's card, because I refused to spend more than twenty minutes on a dress for a wedding that is a crime scene.
Emma's in red. A bridesmaid dress she picked because I told her I didn't care. She looks beautiful. I look like a woman walking toward something she can't escape.
This is not my real wedding. I keep telling myself that. I'm in a drama class. A simulation. A really elaborate, deeply fucked-up simulation that ends with a signature and an annulment and a new life somewhere far away from everyone I've ever loved.
Once this is over, I'm leaving California. A fresh start. Maybe New York. Maybe Montana. Somewhere nobody knows my name or my face or the fact that Harper Jones sold her future.
I don't know who I want to be anymore. I just know I can't be this.
Emma laces her fingers through mine and squeezes as we walk toward the entrance.
"Last chance," she says quietly. "We can still run, Harper."
The doors open ahead of us. Through them, I can see the foyer. White marble. Flowers everywhere. People in expensive clothes turning to look.
I glance down at the engagement ring on my finger. The diamond that Ace once threaded onto the bar of his piercing because he couldn't stand the sight of another man's claim on me. The memory hits so hard I nearly buckle on the steps.
The man behind those doors is blackmailing me into a wedding.
Karma got me good.
But one day, it's going to come for him too. I just have to survive long enough to see it.
A tear slips down my cheek. I let it fall. I think about Ace. How I wish he were the man waiting at the end of an aisle for me. How I wish I were in Arizona, on Sterling Ranch, barefoot on the porch, wearing something simple, with my parents in the front row and Penny saddled up with flowers in her mane and Ace standing there in his hat with that grin that turns my knees to water.
That's the wedding we talked about once. Ten years ago, lying in the back of his truck, staring at the stars. I said I wanted Venice for a honeymoon, and he remembered it for a decade.
But that wedding doesn't exist anymore. And the look on his face the day he walked out of my parents' house tells me it never will.
"I can't run," I say. "I have to fight this."
Emma frowns. I don't explain. I just pull her up the stairs, and with each step, I bury another piece of myself. Numb the emotions. Plaster on a smile.
But I keep the tears. They make this believable. They sell the lie. When really, I'm crying for everything I've lost.
For the man I left behind and let believe I was choosing someone else. When the truth is, Ace Sterling is the only man I will ever want.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Ace
Song- Closure, The Plot In You.
"Ace. You don't have to do this. It's like sticking a knife into an open wound," Colten says from behind me.
Romeo types fast on his laptop, pulling up feeds, cycling through cameras. I don't take my eyes off the screen.
"Ace, he's right," Jett says from the corner.
I ignore them both. But if Jett thinks it’s a dumb idea, it definitely is.
"If I'm going to get over this, I need to see it for myself."
