At a small table tucked beside the coffee machine, Noah and Izzy sat together, each with a mug of coffee, both watching the room like they were conducting a private, silent post-mortem.
Izzy took a slow sip and murmured, “He’s about three seconds from being a human sacrifice.”
Noah grinned, eyes still scanning the room, and he shrugged. “Better him than us.”
She nodded once in agreement. They made an oddly perfect team, Noah smoothing the edges while Izzy bulldozed straight through them.
His gaze drifted from Sophie’s not-at-all-subtle people-watching, to Lucas leaning in and turning on his most polished version of himself, to Lady Beaumont sharpening her sentences like weapons, and then to me.
One raised eyebrow.
A whole conversation in that tiny lift.
Then Emma came running in.
She practically skidded across the tiles towards me, her usually immaculate blonde braid shedding strands like it had slipped the leash. Her oversized sunglasses sat crooked on her nose, herblazer unbuttoned in a way that suggested she’d dressed herself at high speed and abandoned the rest of her routine on the way.
“Emma?” I started, but she was already reaching me.
“Holly!” Her voice cracked before I even fully turned to face her. “Have you seen Caroline? Please tell me she’s with you.”
Everything inside me dipped, that planner part of my brain immediately flicking through every worst-case scenario like a deck of cards.
“What? No, no, I haven’t. Why? What’s happened?”
“She’s not in her room.” Emma’s breathing came in short, shallow bursts, her hands shaking so badly her phone rattled against her rings. “Her bed hasn’t been slept in. Her phone’s not on the dresser. She’s just… gone.”
The word gone seemed to suck the air out of the breakfast room.
It rippled through the space, across the neatly set tables, the untouched glasses of juice, the determined hum of the espresso machine, until even the staff slowed, sensing the shift.
For a brief second, no one spoke.
Then the whispers started, low and sharp-edged.
“Gone?”
“Did she leave?”
The worry spread through the group like a chill.
I stepped closer to Emma, ready to steady her, when the room shifted again, not from sound, but from presence.
James was standing behind us.
None of us had noticed him approach, not over Emma’s panic and the murmuring behind us. But there he was, rooted to the spot, face drained of colour, eyes fixed on Emma with a hollow kind of disbelief.
He had heard every word.
He was nothing like the polished groom from yesterday’s rehearsal dinner. He was wearing a branded T-shirt with jeans,hair sticking up in a way that suggested he’d either slept on a sofa or in the corner of the barn. Possibly both.
He scanned the room with frantic, darting eyes.
“What do you mean gone, Emma? Where is she?” he asked, voice low but sharp enough to cut straight through the rising chaos.
“James…” Emma whispered, turning towards him. “Her room, she’s not there.”
I saw the change hit him. It wasn’t dramatic; it was worse. His face drained so quickly it was like all the colour had been pulled out in one motion. He swayed a fraction, shoulders tightening as if bracing for impact.
