Chapter 30: Three Days Before
The final fitting took place in a haze of ivory silk and nervous anticipation.
Three days. Seventy-two hours. Then everything would change.
Amelia had chosen the gown herself—a simple, unadorned sheath in pale cream, modest to the point of plainness. "Perfect for a second wedding," she'd said, her smile razor-sharp. "We wouldn't want you to compete with the real bride, would we?"
Serene had accepted it as she accepted everything—with silence and the faint, hollow echo of a heart that had stopped hoping years ago.
Clive had sent word that morning. A business meeting in the city, critical and unavoidable. He would try to make it, but she shouldn't wait. Shouldn't hope. Shouldn't expect.
She didn't. She never did.
---
The changing room was small and warm, lit by soft golden lights that made the cream silk glow. Serene stood before the mirror in her undergarments, the gown pooled at her feet, waiting for the seamstress to return and help her into it.
The door opened.
She didn't turn. Assumed it was the seamstress, finally free from attending to Ava in her grander dressing room down the hall.
Hands settled on her shoulders.
Warm. Familiar in a way that made her blood run cold.
"You'll be the most beautiful bride," a voice murmured against her ear. Ethan's voice. Low and rough and utterly, devastatingly intimate.
Serene froze.
His arms wrapped around her from behind, pulling her against his chest in a possessive embrace that stole her breath. His lips brushed the curve of her neck—soft, tender, achingly familiar.
"You smell nice," he breathed, and she could feel the words vibrate through his chest, through her back, through every cell of her frozen body.
His arms tightened. Held her so close she couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think. She felt everything—the hard planes of his chest, the beating of his heart, the warmth of his body surrounding hers like a memory made flesh.
He kissed the back of her neck again.
And something inside her shattered.
This is how he holds Ava.
This is how he breathes her in.
This is how he loves the woman who destroyed me.
The thought cut through the haze of sensation like a blade.
He loves her.
He chose her.
He belongs to someone else now.
And in that moment—with his arms around her, his lips on her skin, his warmth seeping into bones that had been cold for years—Serene felt the last thread snap.
The thread that had connected her to the boy in the greenhouse.
The thread that had made her hope, even after everything.
The thread that had kept a tiny, foolish part of her heart alive.
It broke.
Quietly. Completely. Forever.
She pulled away.
Turned to face him.
His green eyes widened as he saw her—really saw her—and realized his mistake.
"I—" he started, but she didn't let him finish.
She reached for the notepad and pen she always carried, her hands steady despite everything dying inside her. She wrote quickly, precisely, each word a nail in a coffin she hadn't known she was building.
I'm not Ava, Mr. Leo.
Ethan's face went pale.
You may leave. My man will be there soon.
She watched him read the words, watched understanding dawn, watched something flicker in those green eyes—pain? regret? loss?—and felt nothing.
Nothing at all.
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. You get to marry someone you love. You're both lucky.
She handed him the notepad and turned away.
Behind her, the door opened again.
---
Clive.
He stood in the doorway, his expensive suit slightly rumpled, his hair windswept, his eyes searching the room until they found her. He crossed the space in three long strides, shrugging off his coat and draping it over her exposed shoulders before she could react.
"You okay, wifey?" he asked softly.
Wifey.
He'd started calling her that days ago, a private endearment that made her feel cherished and terrified in equal measure.
Serene looked at him—at this man who had left a meeting, who had driven through traffic, who had come to her despite everything—and something broke open inside her.
She threw herself into his arms.
The sob that tore through her was silent, as always, but he felt it. Felt her shake against him, felt the years of pain and loneliness and desperate, aching grief pour out of her in waves.
He held her. Tight and steady and utterly present.
"I'm here," he murmured against her hair. "I'm here. I won't miss another thing. I promise."
---
Outside, in the grand salon where families gathered to approve final choices, the atmosphere was thick with tension.
Amelia sat in a velvet armchair, her eyes darting between the two doorways—Ava's fitting room and Serene's—like a general watching two battle fronts. Ava lounged nearby, examining her nails with studied indifference, but her eyes kept flicking toward the door Ethan had disappeared through minutes ago.
Samuel stood by the window, staring out at the grey winter sky, his expression unreadable.
David hovered near the refreshment table, his concern for Serene barely concealed.
And then the doors opened.
Clive emerged first, his arm wrapped protectively around Serene, who was swimming in his coat. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her expression hollow, but she held herself with the quiet dignity that had always been her armor.
Ethan followed moments later, his face a mask of carefully controlled nothing.
Ava's eyes narrowed. "Ethan, darling, where have you been? I've been waiting ages."
He didn't answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on Serene—on the way Clive's hand rested at her waist, on the way she leaned into him, on the intimacy between them that spoke of something real.
"Wrong room," he said finally. "My mistake."
The words were flat. Empty. Meaningless.
---
Ava rose, crossing to him with feline grace, and pressed herself against his side. "Well, you're here now. Come see my gown. It's absolutely stunning."
She tilted her face up to his, and Serene saw it.
The smudge on her lipstick.
Fresh. Slightly blurred at the edges, as if someone had kissed her recently and she hadn't bothered to fix it.
The same lips that had kissed the back of Serene's neck minutes ago.
The same lips that had once promised her forever.
He had gone straight from her to Ava.
He had held her, breathed her in, kissed her skin—and then walked out and kissed his fiancée.
Serene's vision blurred.
She gripped Clive's arm, steadying herself against the wave of nausea that swept through her.
"You alright, wifey?" Clive murmured. "You've gone pale."
She nodded, but it was a lie. Everything was a lie.
The love she'd held onto for years.
The hope that had survived against all odds.
The belief that somewhere, deep down, the boy she'd loved still existed.
All lies.
---
"Excuse me," she signed to Clive. "I need air."
He nodded, concern etched on his face. "I'll come with you."
She shook her head. "Please. Just... give me a minute."
He hesitated, then released her. "I'll be right here."
She walked toward the door that led to the small garden behind the boutique—a winter landscape of bare branches and frosted grass, cold and quiet and empty.
She didn't make it.
Halfway across the room, her vision went white. Pain exploded behind her eyes—sharp, blinding, overwhelming. She stumbled, reached for something to steady herself, and found nothing.
The last thing she saw was Clive's face, frozen in horror, as he lunged toward her.
Then everything went black.
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