Her heel catches in the sand. She lurches, recovers with the desperategrace of someone too furious for gravity.
"SCREW YOU, BLAKE HARTWELL!"
A teenager three seats over is filming with the steady hands of a generation raised on content creation.
Someone boos. Scattered at first, uncertain—then building as the crowd finds its consensus. The sound swells from isolated voices into a wall of collective disgust.
I scan the room for Jane.Good, she’s still seated.
Scarlett disappears past the perimeter. The booing follows her, then pivots back to the altar.
Blake's mother is sobbing. His father is bellowing something about contracts and liability. Blake wheels between them, hands spread, trying to contain a fire that's already consumed the building.
"This is a setup—"
"Someone doctored—"
A voice from the crowd, male, unidentifiable: "We can SEE it's you!"
Blake turns to Natalie.
The shift is instantaneous. Denial to recognition. Recognition to rage.
"Did you do this?!"
Natalie hasn't moved. She stands at the altar with her bouquet held loosely at her side and her chin lifted and an expression I recognize from athletes who've already won—they're just waiting for the clock.
"You humiliated me," Blake snarls. Lower now. Vibrating with something darker than embarrassment.
Natalie's voice is clear. "You humiliated yourself."
His eyes flick to the cameras. I watch the realization hit—every lens is pointed at him. Every phone. Every press photographer. His face, his voice, his confession, broadcast in real time to an audience that will never forget.
Shame spikes visibly. His jaw tightens. His shoulders draw up. And shame, in a man who's never been held accountable for anything, curdles into something dangerous.
"You Stupid BITCH—"
"This was about the MERGER—"
"Think of the contracts—"
"You needed me." Blake’s sense of entitlement is so thick it's almost a physical force.
"I CHOSEyou—"
The crowd noise shifts again. Harder. Angrier. A man's voice: "Disgusting."
Natalie turns. Her father is already there—three strides from his staging position, hand on her elbow. Gentle. Certain.
"Come, sweetheart."
They start to move. Away from the altar. Away from Blake. Toward the aisle.
“Don’t you walk away from me!”
Blake lunges.
It's fast. Faster than I expected from a man whose primary exercise is golf. He covers five feet in three steps, arm raised, hand reaching for Natalie's shoulder with a grip that has nothing to do with reconciliation.
