“Listen,” I press on, “it’s gonna take a while. You might as well grab a coffee or something. I heard Natasha say the catering table has espresso shots. You work hard. You deserve an espresso shot.”
He blinks at me like I just suggested he abandon his post to go adopt a puppy.
“Right,” he mutters. “I’ll be right outside.”
Perfect.
My heart is practically tap-dancing in my chest as I lock the bathroom door behind me. The bridal suite’s private bathroom—complete with gold fixtures and enough marble to build a Roman temple—suddenly feels like my only safe space.
“Breathe, Bella. Just breathe.”
The woman in the mirror looks like a stranger. Hair in some elaborate updo, tiny diamonds woven through the strands. Makeup that took forty-five minutes to apply. Wedding dress that weighs as much as a small car.
I’m notthis woman.
I climb onto the toilet, hoist myself toward the window with the grace of a drunk giraffe, and hang suspended for a second—half in, half out—my veil caught on something inside.
“Screw it,” I mutter, yanking. The sound of ripping lace is oddly satisfying.
I drop the last few feet, landing in a perfectly manicured rosebush beside the church. My dress billows around me like some kind of absurd parachute.
I peek around the corner.
Konstantin’s man is still posted at the front entrance—a walking slab of muscle and bad intentions—but the side street?
Clear.
I hike up my skirts, ignore the absolute disaster that is my life, and make a run for it.
A delivery guy on a bike swerves to avoid me, nearly crashing into a street sign.
“What the hell, lady?”
“Sorry!” I call back, not slowing down. “Wedding emergency!”
I pass a café where two women are having lunch outside. One of them chokes on her drink when she sees me. The other just stares, fork frozen halfway to her mouth.
“Don’t get married,” I tell them breathlessly as I hurry past. “Or at least elope.”
I catch my reflection in a storefront window—mascara already smudging from sweat, wedding dress bunched awkwardly in my fists. I look deranged. Which seems appropriate, because marrying a man like Konstantin Belov without at least one moment of public panic would be the truly crazy thing.
A cop on the corner notices me and starts reaching for his radio. I quickly duck down a side street before he can decide whether “bride on the loose” constitutes an emergency.
My lungs are burning. Turns out, cardio in a corset is its own special form of torture. The dress weighs a ton, and I’ve got at least three layers of foundation melting down my face. But I don’t stop.
A little boy tugs his mother’s sleeve and points at me. “Mommy, is that a princess?”
“No honey, that’s just a woman making poor life choices,” she answers, pulling him along.
I can’t even argue with her assessment.
Three blocks later, I spot it—the blue and white taco truck with a hand-painted sign reading “El Taquito Feliz.” My stomach growls in recognition.
I approach the window, breathless, aware that I look absolutely insane. The vendor—a middle-aged man with a magnificent mustache—freezes mid-taco assembly.
“Señorita?”
“Threecarne asadatacos, please,” I say, trying to sound like it’s completely normal for a bride in full wedding regalia to order street food. “Extra lime.”
