The quaking in my legs bobbled me off balance, and I sank to the worn carpeting, my hands and knees smacking the thin carpeting.
I waited for them to come back because surely this was a horrible joke.
Jimmy’s family played practical jokes. Some were cruel, yes. This one must be the most awful practical joke they’d ever conceived, butthey would come back.
Theyhadto come back.
And then I would stand up and wipe my tears away as I laughed because that was what they expected and I always did what they expected, and then we’d go on with the wedding because thishadto be the most terrible, horrible, awful practical joke.
They shouldn’t play jokes like this, especially not on me, who hadn’t been raised around them. I was always too gullible, they told me, falling for their practical jokes.
The chapel remained empty, silent except for the grating of the ceiling fans far above and, when I couldn’t stand the pain in my lungs anymore, my gasps for air.
The thin blue carpeting pressed against my face smelled like old shoes and rotting fibers.
Twenty minutes later, twenty minutes of me staring at the gray-blue loops of cheap carpeting under my palms and pink-manicured fingernails, waiting for them to come back, a lady came in and told me that I would have to leave because the next wedding was going to start in five minutes.
I stumbled up the aisle toward the doors, my too-high heels catching the carpet and sending me careening, fumbling to catch the backs of the pews so I wouldn’t crumple to the floor, with the swishing train of my wedding dress dragging on the worn carpeting behind me.
CHAPTER 6
the prince’s palace bridal suite
LEXI BYRNE
Staggering alonein my bridal gown through the crowd of the Monaco Casino and Hotel toward the reception desk, with my professionally applied makeup wrecked and long veil askew, was the longest walk of my life.
Jangling slot machines echoed around my head, and cigarette smoke from gamblers stained the air gray and irritated my nose all the way up to my eyes.
Flashing lights strobed in my raw eyes, streaking the air around me.
Cheap-suited conference attendees, senior slot-machine denizens, addicted gamblers, and card sharps at the poker tables stared and muttered at the devastated and humiliated bride trudging over the dark blue, gold-swirled carpeting.
It was Vegas. You’d think nothing could cause a stir, and yet I was putting on a show just by existing.
But I couldfixthis.
Surely, there had to be a way for me tofix this.
Jimmyhadto listen to me. He must have been devastated, in the midst of a panic attack because he was prone to them, when her accusations had rung out in a crowded chapel in front of his family.
He probably just hadn’t known how to handle it, and he’d made a mistake.
But if we were alone, if the room was quiet and empty, hehadto listen to me.
Even though he hadn’t answered his phone the fifty times I’d called and texted him and now his voicemail inbox was full of my pleading and crying, he wouldhaveto listen to me if I was standing right there in front of him.
I couldexplain.
Even though I didn’t know what I’d ever said to cause this.
Every word and phrase I’d ever said to him over six years scrolled through my head like an endless social media feed—I can hardly wait to marry you, I’m so excited to spend my life with you, I love you I love you I love you—butnothingI’deversaid seemed to evensuggestthat I was pregnant.
Because we’d never had sex.
We’d donestuff,sure.
Groping, kissing, heavy breathing.
