My skin prickles as I consider that someone intentionally swapped them out.
“You don’t think Matteo would have done this?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she answers. “I’ve been trying to reach him all morning, and he won’t reply.”
I glance at my phone, noting he hasn’t texted me either.
“I’ve spoken to all the vendors,” Val says. “They claim they have no idea what happened. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “We’ll make the best of it.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.” Gabi offers me a nervous smile. “Because that’s not the only thing that got swapped.”
“What do you mean?”
They all glance at each other and quietly nod before Gabi walks over to the closet and opens the door, revealing a black bridal gown.
Not just any gown. The off-the-shoulder dress with a mermaid silhouette is the exact style I chose for my wedding to Angelo—and right beside it is the cathedral-length lace veil.
For a long moment, nobody says a word. I’m not even sure I’m breathing, but I can feel my chest mottling as anger overtakes me. There aren’t many people who knew the exact details of my wedding plans to Angelo. Someone would have had to steal that information from the original planning binder at our family home. The question is, who?
Admittedly, I could imagine Matteo doing something like this with the misguided intent that he’d be giving me my dream wedding. After all, everything I settled on for our nuptials was much simpler and less extravagant than the one I planned with Angelo. But realistically, it also makes sense that this could be Angelo’s way of adding salt to the wound—a final haunting blow that I’ll have to remember for the rest of my life.
“It’s a beautiful dress,” Gabi says. “Remember how much you loved it?”
“Yes, but it was never intended for this wedding,” I choke out, regretting the words the moment I say them.
The implication is there—that my wedding to Angelo was meant to be something special, and this one is not.
“Can I have a moment alone with Abella?” Mariella asks.
The girls all nod solemnly, quietly slipping into the hall as Mariella leans back against the vanity, studying me. She’s never voiced her opinion about what happened six years ago, but she should have. When Angelo went to prison and I called off our wedding, it set off a chain reaction that forever left a dark cloud over the Vitale family. The resulting stress was too much for Angelo’s mother to endure, and she died. Not long after that, Silvio’s health started to deteriorate, and now he’s gone too.
Logical or not, I carry the guilt for those events.
“You can blame me,” I tell her. “In fact, I wish you would.”
“Why did you call things off with him? I’ve never understood it.”
“I couldn’t be what he needed.” I stare through her, trapped in a memory that won’t let me go. “Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be.”
“Maybe I should be mad.” She sighs. “But I think more than anything, I’m just sad. What was all that misery for if not love? If you loved Matteo, then at least it would be worth it. In this situation, nobody wins.”
“No.” I swallow. “I suppose we don’t.”
A beat of silence passes before my father’s fist rattles the door to the bridal suite.
“You have twenty minutes, Abella. Prepare yourself.”
“Well.” Mariella blows out a breath and shrugs. “I guess that’s that.”
15
ABELLA
In the rush of getting into my dress, I start to feel claustrophobic, and I have to actively fight the urge to tear it off. My thoughts bounce between who sabotaged my wedding to how I can harness the power of invisibility and make myself disappear.
“Abella,” Gabi whispers. “You’re breaking out in hives.”
