Page 34 of Working for the Runaway Bride

“Will they? Because I don’t think his mother will understand after she paid for the flowers. My parents bought plane tickets. My aunt came from Florida. Your dress cost three hundred dollars.”

“I’ll wear it to the grocery store if that makes you feel better.”

A startled laugh escapes me. Jessica doesn’t smile.

“I’m serious,” she says. “I will stand in the produce section dressed like a lavender cupcake every Saturday for the next year if it helps you stop thinking my dress is a reason to marry a man you don’t trust.”

“It’s more than the dress.”

“I know. It’s the venue and the food and the photographer and everything else you’ve spent the last year planning.”

“Exactly.”

“Divorces are more expensive.”

My breath catches. The words settle into the room. Jessica reaches for my hands.

“If this isn’t what you want,” she says, “you need to go now.”

The voices outside fade. For months, I’ve treated the wedding as if it were inevitable. A train already moving too fast to stop. Every deposit, fitting, invitation, and plan added more speed until getting out felt impossible.

I haven’t promised the rest of my life to a man who cheated on me and then told me I was lucky he was still willing to marry me.

I can still leave. Something clicks into place. The answer isn’t complicated. It isn’t buried beneath the cost of the flowers or the embarrassment my parents might feel.

I don’t want to marry Carter. Especially after the night I spent with his father. I pull my hands out of Jessica’s.

“I can’t do this.”

Relief flashes across her face. “Okay.”

“I can’t marry him.”

“Then don’t.”

“What do I do?”

“Take off the dress.”

“No.” Panic rises in my chest. “There isn’t time. Someone will come looking for me.”

“Then we’ll lock the door.”

“No, Carter has a key.”

“Molly—”

A knock sounds. We both freeze.

“Molly?” Carter’s mother calls from the hallway. “They’re ready for you.”

I stare at the door. My heart pounds so hard that the pearls along my bodice seem to tremble with it.

“One minute,” Jessica calls.

“We’re already running late.”

“I’m fixing her veil.”