“I need you to leave.” Her face broke and she turned away from me. “Please.”
“We can go down together—”
“I’ll meet you,” she cut me off.
Something was off. Really wrong.
I stood, but lingered. It was almost time to start, and she wasn’t nearly ready.
Lottie, if you could do anything right now, what would it be?
I don’t want to smile for pictures. I want to take off this dress and this tiara.
The conversation we’d had the night of our reception drifted into my mind. Words I’d said to her when I’d been filled with hope that I could be someone for her—someone better.
If she wanted out of this shower, I’d give that to her at least. No matter the consequences. It would be an apology. For the wedding I ruined, for the dream I shattered.
“Lottie,” I asked softly. “If you could do anything right now, what would it be?”
It had the opposite effect I’d hoped. My question was a bullet to porcelain. Lottie didn’t crack, she obliterated. Her sobbing echoed in the large room, her body convulsed, and she fell to the ground.
Horrified, I fell down too, hand on her shoulder.
“Lottie, what is it? Is it the baby?”
Her arm fell limply out, pointing to the door.
“G-g-g—” She stumbled to speak through crying and snot. “G-g-get o-o-out!”
I paused.
I couldn’t leave her like this.
“Now!” she screamed.
“Where is she?” my mother asked for the thousandth time.
I worked my bottom lip between my thumb and forefinger, still uncertain if I should have left Lottie like that.
It didn’t feel like it was my place to push her.
A great pumpkin carriage sat in the center of the ballroom, diamonds and twinkling lights wrapped around the metal cage. It was for Lottie to sit in, for the women to fawn over her while the paparazzi took photos.
Because this wasn’t a baby shower, it was an event—history, as both my mother and hers had said.
But the woman of the hour, Lottie, was missing. So the carriage was noticeably empty.
“Well, Grayson?”
I stared at the empty carriage.
Was it too late? Had I fucking ruined her?
What did I tell them? That I’d left Lottie combusting on the floor of her wing—her separate wing—because we couldn’t even sleep in the same room together.
That I’d gone to her only to make some kind of peace, so that my real wife and I could live happily ever after.
My mother dragged a hand down her neck. “This is why you don’t wait until the last minute to have a shower.”