People are noticing now. Of course they are. Guests turning. Staff freezing. The wedding finally losing the last of its pretty illusion all at once.
Camille lifts a shaking hand and points around me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I say.
“With me?” she scoffs.
“I didn’t do anything,” Sienna says.
This makes things worse and Camille practically lunges at her. I block her again, shoving her away physically this time.
“He told me he couldn’t do it,” Camille says. “He told me he couldn’t go through with the wedding because he still loves you.”
22
SIENNA
“He toldme he couldn’t do it,” Camille says.
For a second I don’t understand what she means. My mind is still trying to catch up to the sight of her storming across the lawn in her wedding dress, face twisted with rage, half the guests turning to stare.
Then she looks straight at me and says, “He told me he couldn’t go through with the wedding because he still loves you.”
The words hit me so hard I actually feel myself sway.
I stare at her, then at Ethan somewhere beyond her, and the whole morning seems to tilt. The flowers. The chairs. The music that had just started to settle into place. All of it suddenly feels unreal, like a set built around the wrong story.
Viktor is in front of me before I even realize he moved, his body between mine and Camille’s, but I can still see enough around his shoulder to know this is really happening.
Camille is shaking. Not crying yet. Not falling apart in that soft, helpless way people expect from brides. She looks furious, humiliated, alive with it.
And I’m standing here trying to understand how my life has once again become the thing ruining a wedding.
“Don’t even try to lie to me,” Camille goes on, her voice rising. “I’ve seen the pictures. I should have known something was between you when you showed up, and he knew you so intimately.”
“You both humiliated me in front of everyone,” I say shakily. “How can you?—”
“Enough,” she says. “This was your plan, all of it. To ruin my wedding.”
My jaw falls open.
“What I don’t understand,” Camille says, her voice cutting through the silence, “is what you were doing in his father’s arms last night.”
My whole body goes cold.
She takes one step closer, eyes locked on me, and now there’s triumph mixed in with the fury, like she’s finally reached the part she came here to use. “Are you really that desperate?”
For a second I can’t speak. My face burns. My chest feels tight. I’m suddenly aware of everything at once: the guests watching, the bridesmaids hovering just behind her, Ethan somewhere to the side in awful, drunken silence, Viktor standing between us, and me in the middle of it all with nowhere to go.
Camille keeps staring at me. “Well?” she says. “Should I say it for you? You couldn’t have Ethan, so you threw yourself at his father?”
“Camille,” Viktor says.
She ignores him.
“Honestly, Sienna, I almost admire it. It takes a certain kind of woman to move from son to father without choking on the shame of it.”
I hear a soft gasp from somewhere behind her. My stomach twists, and I press my hand against it without thinking.
