Romeo woke with a start, the light streaming through the curtains stabbing painfully at his eyes. His body felt leaden, his skin clammy with sweat, and a dull ache throbbed behind his eyes. For a moment, disorientation clouded his thoughts, and then it hit him like a freight train—the wedding.
And what he’d done.
His breath hitched as the weight of the past week pressed down on him. He’d tried—God, he’d tried—to fix the mess he’d made. Night after sleepless night, he’d rehearsed what he would say, how he’d explain the unforgivable. But every time he worked up the courage, the words lodged in his throat, and his cowardice won.
He’d spent days circling the edges of confession, praying that someone—André, Aunt Marie, anyone—would notice the sabotage he’d wrought on the seating chart. Someo
