I screamed into the paperwork.
“Of course I’m sure.” He grinned. “I’m the groom. I should do something besides show up and look handsome. You can just transfer your share of the payment before the wedding.”
So, while I studied color swatches and had in-depth discussions about flowers, he went through the admin.
Whenever we’d finished signing off on something, he’d show me the invoice and note down how much I owed to cover my half of the cost.
We were combining our lives. Nothing about that felt strange to me.
If anything, it felt mature. Like a partnership.
He’d show me the invoice and note down how much I owed.
Three months before the wedding, I came home early from work because a client meeting got canceled.
Nick’s car was already in the driveway.
I smiled when I saw it. He was supposed to be working late, and my first thought was that maybe we’d get an unexpected quiet night together.
I walked in quietly, kicking off my heels by the door.
Then I heard voices in the living room.
I came home early.
“Andrea still has no idea,” Lori said.
Nick snorted. “Of course she doesn’t. She trusts us completely.”
I froze. What did I not know about?
Then Lori said, lower this time, “So when are you actually dumping her, baby?”
What?
Nick chuckled. “Once the wedding day comes, we’ll handle it. By then, she’ll have paid for everything, and you can just take her place. It’s perfect.”
“So when are you actually dumping her?”
I wanted to believe it was all a bad dream, but there was no mistake, and no misunderstanding.
Nick and Lori… Talking about me like I was stupid. Like I was a wallet in a white dress.
I backed away quietly, walked out the front door, and got in my car.
I cried first. Then I got angry.
Then I started planning.
If they wanted to humiliate me, I was not going to make it easy.
Then I started planning.
Over the next three months, I learned how deep it went.
They were sloppy because they thought I was blind. Or maybe because people get reckless when they believe they’ve already won.
Nick showered with his phone on the sink one night, and messages lit up the screen.
The photos and texts Nick and Lori had been exchanging cleared away the last of my doubts — my fiancé was cheating on me with my sister.
