“Maybe I should stay in here with you,” their mother said, eyeing the wedding dress as she shook her head as if pitying the choice.
“No can do,” Lucy said quickly. “Everything is set up for the video pictures to start after all the guests are seated. If you don’t go now, you’ll spend the ceremony in this room.”
“Fine.” Their mother rolled her eyes, gesturing at Valene as thoughshewere the problem. She wasn’t.
As soon as the door closed and only Valene, Lucy and Francine remained, Lucy heard the lock click into place on the double doors.
“Why did you lock us in?” Lucy asked.
“Because we don’t want anyone to see what we’re doing,” Valene said.
Lucy frowned. “What are we doing besides putting the veils in place?”
Valene and Francine grinned at each other wildly. “There has been a change in the agenda,” Valene said, walking straight toward her. She stepped behind Lucy, grasped the long zipper on the back of her dress and drew it down from neck to waist in one quick zip. “You’re going to need to hurry and get out of this dress.”
“What?” Lucy stared at them both like they were lunatics.
Valene went next to the carefully tended wedding dress and unzipped Francine, too. Francine stepped from the dress with Valene’s help. Her sister reached out to pull the maid of honor dress from Lucy’s shoulders.
She clutched the neckline to her chest, barely keeping it in place. “Have you gone mad?”
Her favorite sister huffed. “Did you really think I didn’t know that you were in love with Axel?”
Lucy shot a hot gaze at Valene, still holding the bridal dress up. “I don’t understand. Who told you?”
“I knew the moment Axel entered the room and we met for the first time. The both of you look at each other like breathing would be difficult if you weren’t together forever.
“I selected you as my wedding director because I knew with a little help from one other person—” she smiled at Valene, who dropped one sleeve of the wedding dress to salute them “—we could trade places and you can be the one to marry the man you love.”
Lucy’s mouth fell open. “You knew? All this time?”
“Of course I knew, silly. You’re my best friend in the world. I knew the second Axel saw me and you together he’d already made his choice.”
“I told him that I could never hurt you. I told him that if you knew, you would never agree to the wedding.”
“And you’re right.” Numb with shock, Lucy let Francine help her out of the maid of honor dress and into the lovely wedding dress she’d secretly wanted to wear more than anything. “Something you don’t know, Lucy. Before we left Alpha-Prime, I told Mother and Father that I wasn’t interested in the arranged marriage they’d selected for me.”
“Is it because you’re in love with someone else?”
Her sister nodded.
Lucy stepped into the bride’s dress and Valene zipped her up. It fit perfectly. “The mysterious H.R.?”
Francine didn’t answer. Lucy chewed her lower lip. “I want to marry Axel. But I don’t want you to be hurt when this blows up after the ceremony.”
Her sister shook her head. “Don’t worry about me, Lucy. I decided a long time ago it would be better to be alone than to face a lifetime married to someone I didn’t love. Mother and Father were certain that I’d come around when they offered me extra boons for marrying a second born man with links to a noble family. They were further convinced that I’d fall in line with their long-planned legend of second born arranged marriage. But they were wrong.”
“What do you think they will do?”
“I don’t know. But I also don’t care. Turns out they can’t make me do what I don’t want to after all.”
Lucy frowned again. “If I can help you in any way, I surely will.”
Francine hugged her. “I know. Don’t worry. Likely they’ll just find some other second-born man from a better family to force the issue, but I have news for them. If I can’t have H.R.—and I can’t—then at this point in time, I don’t want anyone.”
“Why can’t you have H.R.?” Lucy asked.
“He did not love me. Well, he didn’t love me enough. He married someone with lots of power, wealth, and more status. If we’d married, his parents would have disowned us and he was unwilling to give up his wealth for love or for me. He wasn’t the man I thought he was.”
