*Two months later*
The silk feels wrong against my skin.
I stand before the full-length mirror in the bridal suite, watching the woman in white who stares back at me with gray-blue eyes too wide for her face.
The gown fits perfectly, every seam aligned to the curve of my body, every bead catching the August light streaming through the windows.
Caroline insisted on the designer, Sarah insisted on the veil, and I insisted on nothing because I still cannot believe any of this is real.
My hands press against the slight swell of my stomach beneath the bodice. Twenty weeks now, barely visible beneath the structured fabric, but I feel it constantly—this secret weight, this precious thing I am terrified of losing.
The dread settles into my bones without invitation, familiar and unwelcome.
"Aubrey, darling, you look absolutely stunning." Caroline crosses the room with champagne flutes in hand, pressing one into my grip before I can decline. "Apple cider, not alcohol, before you panic. I am not about to poison my grandchild on the day I officially gain a daughter."
"She has been worrying about that all morning," Sarah adds from the vanity, where she is adjusting her maid of honor dress in the mirror. "I told her you would never, but you know how mothers-in-law get their reputations."
"I resent that implication, Sarah Harris, though I suppose I have earned it over the years."
Caroline smooths a strand of hair away from my face, her touch gentle and sure.
"Now, what is causing that little crease between your eyebrows? Pre-wedding nerves are perfectly normal, but you look like you are expecting a natural disaster."
I take a sip of the cider and force my shoulders to relax. The sweetness coats my tongue, but the anxiety remains lodged behind my sternum, pulsing with each heartbeat.
"I keep waiting for something to go wrong." The admission escapes before I can soften it. "Everything has been too perfect, and perfect is what happens right before the ground opens up beneath your feet."
"Oh, sweetheart." Sarah abandons the mirror and crosses to stand beside me, her hand finding mine. "That is your past talking. In less than an hour you are going to be Aubrey Howell. Nothing is going to ruin this day."
"She is right, you know." Caroline sets down her own glass and adjusts my veil. "I have been planning events for forty years, and I can promise you you will be fine. Your only job today is to walk down that aisle and marry my son."
The words should comfort me. Instead, they brush against the edge of the fear without penetrating it.
"The music is starting in five minutes," Sarah announces, checking her phone. "Tim is waiting outside to walk you down, and I need to take my position. Are you ready?"
I glance toward the window, thinking of my mother already seated in the front row with the other guests, wearing the pale blue dress we picked out together last month.
She left the bridal suite an hour ago to check on Finn—said ‘the boy needed someone in his corner while he waited,’ especially with James still carrying his disapproval like a stone in his pocket.
I meet my own gaze in the mirror and make a decision.
This is my wedding day. This is the beginning of a new life. Whatever ghosts are hovering at the edges of my consciousness, they do not belong here.
"You are ready," I say, and the words feel true enough to speak aloud.
Sarah embraces me quickly, careful not to crush the dress, and disappears through the door. Caroline follows after pressing a kiss to my forehead, leaving me alone with the silence and the woman in white who watches me with cautious hope.
The knock comes precisely on time.
Tim stands in the hallway wearing a tuxedo that probably costs more than my mother's trailer, his expression soft with an emotion I cannot quite name. He offers his arm with a small bow that makes me laugh despite the nerves.
"You look beautiful, Aubrey." His voice carries sincerity that settles some of the trembling in my chest. "Finn is going to lose his mind when he sees you. And I plan to mock him about it for at least a decade."
"Thank you for doing this." I take his arm and feel the solidity of his presence beside me. "Walking me down the aisle, I mean. You did not have to agree."
"Are you kidding? This is the closest I will ever get to giving away the woman my best friend has been pining over since before I had a mortgage."
He pats my hand where it rests on his sleeve.
"Besides, someone has to keep Finn from bolting before you reach the altar. The man has been pacing like a caged animal all morning."
The laughter that escapes me is genuine this time, warm and full.
We walk through the estate's corridors toward the garden where the ceremony awaits, and I feel the dread loosening its grip with each step.
The afternoon light falls golden through the tall windows, painting patterns on the marble floors, and somewhere ahead I can hear the string quartet beginning the processional music.
This is happening. This is real.
Tim pauses at the entrance to the garden, where French doors stand open to reveal rows of white chairs filled with faces I recognize and faces I do not.
Flowers cascade from every surface in whites and creams and soft blushes. And there, at the end of the aisle beneath an arch dripping with gardenias, stands Finn.
His eyes find mine across the distance, and the expression that crosses his face makes my heart stutter against my ribs.
"Ready?" Tim asks quietly.
I nod, and we step forward.
The aisle stretches before me, and I walk it with my hand on Tim's arm and my gaze locked on the man who waited ten years for this moment. The guests blur into soft shapes at the edges of my vision. The music swells around me, wrapping me in sound that feels like benediction.
Then I am standing before Finn, and his hands are taking mine, and the priest is speaking words about love and commitment that wash over me like water.
The ceremony proceeds in fragments of sensation—Finn's thumb stroking my knuckles, the weight of the ring sliding onto my finger, the vows that fall from my lips with a certainty I feel in my marrow.
"If anyone present knows of any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony," the priest intones, "speak now or forever hold your peace."
Silence fills the garden and I exhale, and relief begins to bloom in my chest.
Then the doors at the back of the garden crash open.
Daniel stumbles through, his suit rumpled and stained, a gun clutched in his shaking hand. The smell of whiskey reaches me from twenty feet away, sharp and sour, and my blood turns to something heavy and wrong in my veins.
"You thought you could just leave me, Aubrey?" His voice slurs and cracks, rising above the gasps of the guests. "You thought you could take my child and disappear into his money and I would just accept it?"
The gun swings toward Finn first, and I watch my future narrow to the black circle of that barrel.
"I know that baby is mine." Daniel's face contorts with rage that has been fermenting for months. "You stole my wife, you destroyed my life, and now you think you get to raise my kid? I do not think so, Howell!"
"Daniel, put the gun down." Finn's voice is steady, but I feel the tension radiating from his body beside me. "This is not going to end the way you think it is."
"No, I decide how this ends!" The barrel swings toward me, and I see the moment Daniel's finger tightens on the trigger. "If I cannot have you, Aubrey, nobody can."
The world fractures into disconnected images—a guest lunging toward Daniel, a flash of movement, the deafening crack of a gunshot splitting the air.
I look down at my wedding dress and see red blooms across the white silk like a flower opening.
The garden tilts sideways, and everything goes dark.
To be continued…
P.S. Author’s Note
So… did she survive? Did the baby make it? And what happens to Daniel now? I'm not done with Aubrey and Finn's story yet. The next chapters are coming, and before I write them, I want to hear from you! Drop your reactions below, tell me what you think happens next, and what you need to see.
Your comments genuinely shape where this story goes, I read every single one!
See you in the next chapters!