She Wore My Dress, She Married My Groom, She Planned My Love Chapter 02

She Wore My Dress, She Married My Groom, She Planned My Love Chapter 02

I tightened my grip on my phone.

I had already turned down the Viremont assignment once because of Torin.

Back then, he had held me close and pleaded with me over and over.

“Veda, if you move overseas, what am I supposed to do?”

“We’re about to get married. You really want to leave me here alone?”

I had agonized over it for days.

In the end, I gave up one of the best opportunities of my career because I wanted to marry him.

Seven years of memories crowded into my head. I looked at Torin, my voice catching despite everything.

“If Cambria was already back, why didn’t you just break up with me?”

“Seven years, Torin. Was there ever even one moment when you actually loved me?”

He said nothing.

After a long silence, Cambria gave a small, almost helpless smile.

“He didn’t leave you because I wouldn’t let him.”

“You’d built your whole life around Torin. I was afraid that if he walked away, you’d fall apart all over again.”

She came toward me like she was the one making some grand sacrifice.

“Veda, I left the man I loved with you for seven years.”

“I watched him celebrate your birthdays, take engagement photos with you, even plan a wedding with you.”

“I’ve stepped aside long enough. All I want now is the wedding that was supposed to be mine. Why can’t you give me that?”

Then she rested a hand over her stomach.

“If it were only about me, I could keep stepping aside.”

“But I’m three months pregnant.”

“I’m not raising a child who has to pretend their own father is their aunt’s husband.”

Torin’s expression changed instantly. He put a hand around her waist.

“The doctor told you to avoid stress. Stop explaining yourself to her.”

When he looked at me again, his voice had gone cold.

“Veda, Cambria has spent seven years stepping aside for you.”

“She’s carrying my child now. I’m done pretending this can keep going.”

Just like that, seven years disappeared.

As if none of it had ever mattered.

Except there had been a time when Torin had treated me like I mattered more than anything.

When I was hospitalized with severe gastritis, he canceled his meetings and stayed with me for two days.

When the Sayers tried to force us apart, he let his family cut him off and moved into my tiny apartment.

At our poorest, we lived on boxed mac and cheese, and he always gave me the bigger portion.

“Just give me a little more time, Veda.”

“One day, I’m going to make sure everyone knows you were right to choose me.”

Later, his startup collapsed and left him buried in debt.

I worked all day and took freelance design jobs at night, helping him survive the worst two years of his life.

The day he secured his first real investment, he held me and cried.

He promised he would never betray me.

Those arms around me had been real.

So had those tears.

And now he was standing beside a pregnant Cambria, telling me our seven years had been nothing but an act.

The giant screen behind them suddenly came back to life.

The event staff clearly had no idea the wedding had imploded. They simply continued with the scheduled relationship montage.

Gold lettering appeared across the screen.

TORIN SAYER & CAMBRIA KELLAN

TEN YEARS OF LOVE

Photos began sliding across the screen in chronological order.

On my twenty-fourth birthday, Torin had told me his flight was delayed.

I had sat alone in front of a cake that had gone cold and stale while I waited for him.

But in the photo on the screen, he was standing with Cambria beneath a snow-covered mountain, wrapping a scarf around her neck before kissing the tip of her red, frozen nose.

Then came a photo from six months ago.

The day I lost my first baby.

Torin had said an emergency business trip meant he couldn’t come to the hospital.

Mom claimed she was having heart trouble.

Dad and Corbett both turned off their phones.

I had gone through it alone, shaking from the pain.

And while I was in that hospital, every one of them had been on an island celebrating Cambria’s birthday.

Mom held up her gift.

Dad cut the cake.

Corbett set off fireworks on the beach all night.

And Tressa stood behind the camera, capturing their perfect family celebration.

Photo after photo filled the screen, showing me seven years I had never been allowed into.

For the first time, I could see just how many lies it had taken to keep me outside.