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“Thanks, sis.” But she’s a tough cookie, and this is just lip service.

“I mean it. You were there for me when no one else was.” She took me under her wing when I started with the catering crew. She covered my early mistakes. Clued me in on the tricks of the hospitality trade, from the benefits of a double-sided apron to the advantages of wearing braids over a high ponytail. Better tips and less headaches. At least before I got my hair cut.

I’m going to help her, I decide in that moment. I’m not sure how, not yet, but something will come to me.

“So listen,” she says, shaking off the moment. “I know you said photos, but it would’ve been a waste not to use the recording. The timing was just so perfect. See, I was messing with my phone when you and the new hubs burst through the door and the kid threw confetti. Here, it’ll be easier for me to show you.”

She whips out her phone, and I see that very sequence, starting with our genuine surprise and delight as we stepped through that painted metal door, hand in hand. I was terrified and squeezing his hand so tight. My heart gives a jump at the appearance of the little girl’s tears, then I’m handing her a peony from my bouquet. I see her tentative smile and my pleasure and the way Troy watches as he stands behind me. I want to wind it back to see his expression again, but I’ll do that later. And then the money shot. Our kiss. It looks so good. Like we’re really in love.

“Maybe I should’ve gone to film school, because the aesthetic is a whole vibe.”

“It’s really good.” I know we were acting, and we were aware of Chelsea’s presence, that we needed it to look convincing, but there seems to be so much more to it as I watch it again. The way he gazes down at me and how I look back at him. His hand at the small of my back and the way I move with him. It’s 100 percent romance movie material.

“So . . .”

I look up. “What’s that?”

“Dish, girl, dish! Like how—when. Give me the whole love story!”

“Well,” I begin carefully, “I’m not sure what to say except it all happened very suddenly.”

“Bet! You were wearing an apron in his fancy-ass office. An apron, Clara! If you’re going to run into an ex, a girl makes sure she’s wearing her full armor.”

My chuckle is genuine because that’s so true. “It was kind of mortifying.”

“You were shook,” she says on a laugh. “I thought you’d seen a ghost, that you were gonna pass out.”

Oh, Chelsea, I almost did. And not because Troy is rich, or handsome, or powerful, but because, once upon a time, he used to hold my face in his hands. But when he saw me Friday night, he looked like he wanted to wrap them a smidge farther south.

And now look at us, married. Gulp.

Chelsea leans in, her eyes wide. “When he did that hot boss-hole routine and marched you out of the place, I knew he was just trying to get you alone.”

I glance coyly down. “That is what he wanted.” He wanted me alone. And in another borough.

“Called it! I love this so hard for you. Park Avenue princess turned waitress bumps into an old flame while serving canapés. Marries in a courthouse four days later. I mean, Cinderella could never!”

When she puts it like that, it sounds amazing. But I feel worse than I did with my boob hanging out this morning. This isn’t a rags-to-riches love story, and Troy might be handsome, but he’s no prince come to rescue me. I’m rescuing myself.

This marriage is nothing but a strategic legal maneuver cultivated on lies and covered by a prenup sharp enough to draw blood. What it shouldn’t have been was waking the morning after our marriage, tangled in sheets and dreams and a husband who recoiled when he realized who he was kissing. I don’t remember that passage in Cinderella.

Yet I can’t stop thinking about the weight and heat of him. The sounds he made in my ear and how my body seemed to remember his before my brain slammed on the brakes.

And the way he looked at me when I told him it had been a while. Like there was something wrong with me.

“Did he go down?”

Coffee sloshes over my fingers. I wish. “W-what was that?”

“I said, did he go down on one knee?”

I’m saved by the buzzing of my phone, yet all I can think of is how amazing Troy was at giving head. He was so enthusiastic—a total pussy devotee. I pick up my phone, and my stomach flips as his name flashes up on the screen. “Excuse me,” I murmur. I just know I’ve gone beet red.

“That him?”

I nod as I open the text.

Troy: So. Small Problem.