Chapter 3
850 Words
The morning of the wedding was thick with a layer of fatigue, her lips pressed into a thin, pale line. She looked like someone else. Someone quieter. Smaller.
The room around her felt distant like she was underwater. Sounds came in warped echoes—the scrape of a chair leg, the click of a lipstick cap, the muted shuffling of feet beyond the door. Everything was happening too fast and yet not moving at all.
Her heart beat like a war drum, but all she could feel was a slow, consuming numbness. She had known this day was coming—ever since she signed the contract with shaking hands, ever since Evelyn told her, “ You do not belong here, don't act as you do." Since Connor’s eyes, cold and unreadable, had looked through her, not at her.
She tried to breathe, but the corset cinched her ribs tight, and the lace clung to her like ivy, pulling her in. The dress was beautiful—delicate embroidery, a trail of diamonds, and Swarovski down the back. A bride’s dream. But to Olivia, it felt like a costume. Like she’d been cast in a role she couldn’t step out of. Like something was being buried, not celebrated.
The stylist moved around her with efficient hands, twisting her hair into a flawless updo. “Almost done,” she murmured as if Olivia had asked. But Olivia hadn’t spoken in over an hour.
Through the open door, she heard laughter—bright, sharp, unbothered. It stung her. How could they laugh when she felt like she was dying inside?
A soft knock broke the trance.
“Miss Wilson?” the stylist said gently. “It’s time.”
Time.
Time for what, exactly?
She stood, though her legs trembled under her. The weight of the dress tugged at her shoulders. She wondered—briefly, wildly—what would happen if she ran. Just tore the hem and sprinted barefoot through the gardens. Would anyone follow? Would anyone care?
But she already knew the answer.
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The hall was bathed in candlelight, warm and golden, like a dream someone else was having. Olivia’s heels sank into the plush carpet as she took slow steps forward. Everything around her glittered—chandeliers, marble, crystal glasses, carefully arranged smiles. But inside, she felt like paper. Thin. Folded. Fragile.
She kept her gaze down, the bouquet trembling in her hands. The white roses were perfect, unblemished. Like her. Or at least, the version of her they expected. Composed. Beautiful. Compliant.
Each step echoed through her chest, louder than her heartbeat. She could feel their eyes—guests she didn’t know, family who’d stopped seeing her long ago, men in tailored suits measuring her like property.
She passed a woman she remembered from the engagement dinner. The woman leaned in toward her neighbor and whispered something behind a hand. Olivia caught one word—“fortunate.”
Was she? Or was it just easier to pretend she was?
At the altar, Connor stood motionless. He didn’t turn. Didn’t smile. Just stared ahead as though waiting for an appointment to begin. He looked every bit the groom—flawless suit, polished shoes, impeccable posture. A man carved from expectation.
She stood beside him, and the priest began to speak. His voice was warm, even joyful. It barely touched her. She focused on the rhythm of her breathing, the cool sting of metal at her wrist from a tight bracelet, and the scent of roses turning sour in her nostrils.
The priest turned to Connor. “Do you, Connor McCoy…”
Connor looked at her then. Finally.
Their eyes met, and the air left her lungs.
There was no warmth there. No flicker of reassurance. Just calculation. Like he was finalizing a deal. Olivia saw in him a mirror of everything she was told to accept. Power without affection. Duty without kindness.
“I do,” he said, his voice smooth and soulless.
The priest turned to her.
“Olivia Wilson, do you take Connor McCoy…”
Her lips parted, but no sound came. For a moment, she swore the whole world paused—waiting.
She thought of her little apartment where she could have relaxed after the day's work; she thought of the secrets she had protected for long; she thought of the scent of coffee she could have been brewing for her customers; she had dreamt of having a better future, but now she couldn't dream anymore. She needed to protect herself at all cost and then she felt the weight of all that she had to protect.
“I do,” she whispered.
The words burned on her tongue and left her tasting ash and regret.
The priest smiled. There was applause, soft and polite. Connor turned to face the guests. Olivia followed suit, hands clenched tight around the fading roses.
Then she saw him.
A face in the crowd. Familiar.
His eyes locked with hers, wide with disbelief. Her heart stuttered.
He was real. He was here.
The man from her past.
And he was watching her.
- Writer
