The Bride Saw Red Threads of Desire, Then Fled the Wedding Chapter 10

The Bride Saw Red Threads of Desire, Then Fled the Wedding Chapter 10

Audrey filmed me working one day and didn’t think much of it. Three days later, the video had four million

views.

The DMs never stopped.

I screened out the trolls and the thrill–seekers and capped it at ten clients a day.

Seven hundred for a single target. Eleven hundred for a full premarital screening, no exceptions.

In my first month, I made more than I used to earn in six.

Lila built the spreadsheets. Phoebe ran the calendar. Willa filtered the requests. Audrey handled the

contracts.

One night, I lay in my new apartment running the numbers.

Three more months, and I could buy a condo outright. No mortgage this time.

My mother called that night. We talked about nothing for a while, and then she got quiet.

“Tessa, when you were little, I always told you to hide what you could do.”

She went silent for so long I thought the call had dropped. “I was wrong.”

“Your eyes were never meant to be a punishment.”

Audrey was the one who told me about Graham.

“So, Walter’s wife filed for divorce.”

“He went to clean out his desk, and people from other departments were lining up in the hallway just to watch. Walter was so humiliated he started going after everyone in the company who had any connection to

the wedding.”

“When he got to Graham, he fired him on the spot. Official reason: conduct detrimental to company

reputation.”

Audrey poured us both a glass of wine, looking far too pleased with herself.

“He applied to three competitors after that. All three passed. The story’s gone through the whole industry. Who’s going to hire the guy who got publicly outed for cheating at his own wedding?”

I said nothing.

Audrey’s voice shifted. “He came looking for you.”

“What?”

“He was outside your building for forty minutes this afternoon. Willa turned him away.”

I set my glass down.

Graham showed up the next evening anyway.

He’d dropped weight. His shirt collar gaped at the neck, and he hadn’t shaved in days.

He stood on the steps outside my building, holding a bag of lemon bars. The kind I used to love.

“Tessa.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

His voice sounded like it had been scraped hollow.

“My dad found out about my mom’s affair. They’re divorcing. I got fired, and every application I’ve sent out

has gone nowhere.”

He met my eyes.

“I’m not here to ask for another chance. I know that’s gone.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I owe you an apology. A real one.”

He set the lemon bars on the steps between us.

“I always told myself I’d kept my boundaries, that it wasn’t cheating if I never touched her. Yesterday I went back through our messages. I sent her over two hundred more good–night texts than I ever sent you.”

He laughed. It was the worst sound I’d heard from him.

“My boundaries were gone a long time ago. I just wouldn’t let myself see it.”

I looked above his head. The tether was still there.

Fainter than the night of the wedding. But still reaching across Cedarwick, stretching toward wherever she

was.