Mama wzniosła toast za wesele mojej siostry na 300 gości, a potem zapytała mnie: „Kiedy twoja kolej?”. Odpowiedziałam: „8 miesięcy temu. Byłaś zaproszona. Twoja ulubiona córka”.

Posiadłość Montgomery pachnie sosną i cynamonem, ale równie dobrze mógłby to być formaldehyd. Stoję pośrodku salonu, ściskając w palcach kremowe pudełko prezentowe owinięte jedwabną wstążką i nie mogę oderwać wzroku od tego, co jest w środku. Dożywotnie członkostwo VIP w Last Chance Love, aplikacji skierowanej specjalnie do zdesperowanych singli po trzydziestce. A pod nim książka w twardej oprawie z wypukłymi złotymi literami: „Jak znaleźć szczęście, gdy umrzesz w samotności”. W marmurowym kominku za mną huczy ogień. Za francuskimi oknami śnieg pada grubymi, cichymi płatami, pokrywając zadbany ogród. Ale w tym pokoju chłód nie ma nic wspólnego z grudniową pogodą.

Bella chichocze. Dźwięk jest wysoki i ostry, odbija się echem od sklepionego sufitu niczym tłuczone szkło.

„Widziałam to na TikToku” – mówi moja siostra, a jej głos ocieka fałszywą słodyczą. „Recenzje były niesamowite. Pięć gwiazdek dla kobiet, które zrezygnowały z tradycyjnych randek”.

Nie podnoszę wzroku. Gapię się na tę okropną różową kartę aplikacji, na kreskówkową ilustrację więdnącego kwiatu, która ma symbolizować kobiety takie jak ja. Kobiety, które rzekomo wymarły.

„Weź to, kochanie” – głos mojej matki rozbrzmiewa w pokoju.

Trinity Montgomery siedzi na sofie z kości słoniowej, z postawą tak sztywną, że mogłaby być wyrzeźbiona z tego samego marmuru co kominek. „Bella po prostu martwi się o twoją przyszłość. Nie pozwól, żeby twoje ego zamieniło cię w starą pannę na zawsze”.

Mój ojciec nic nie mówi. Richard Montgomery stoi przy barku, mieszając bourbon w kryształowej szklance, wpatrując się w bursztynowy płyn, jakby krył w sobie odpowiedzi, którymi nie chce się ze mną dzielić. Jego partner biznesowy, Harrison Sterling, porusza się niespokojnie w skórzanym fotelu obok niego. Preston Sterling, narzeczony Belli, wpatruje się w swój telefon z nagłym, intensywnym skupieniem.

Zamykam pudełko. Powoli. Moje ręce nie drżą, choć czuję coś w piersi, jakby pękało.

Osiem miesięcy. Minęło osiem miesięcy, odkąd wysłałem te zaproszenia, odkąd spędziłem trzy wieczory przy stole w jadalni w Austin, wybierając idealny papier i ręcznie wiążąc aksamitne wstążki. Trzysta gramów, takie, które w dłoniach zdradzają jakość. Nate obserwował mnie z progu, skrzyżował ramiona i miał poważny wyraz twarzy.

„Jesteś pewien, że nie musisz do nich zadzwonić?” zapytał.

Wygładziłam kolejną wstążkę, palcami układając jedwab w idealną kokardę. „To moi rodzice. Nie przegapiliby tego”.

The memory sits in my throat like a stone. I’d delayed the ceremony for thirty minutes, staring at those two empty chairs in the front row, reserved for Dad, reserved for Mom. The signs I’d painted myself on small wooden plaques, decorated with wildflowers because my mother had once mentioned she liked daisies. That was seven years ago. But I remember. I remember everything they forgot.

“Well?” Bella leans forward on the sofa, her blonde hair cascading over one shoulder in a calculated tumble. Her engagement ring catches the firelight, a three-carat diamond that cost more than my entire wedding. “Aren’t you going to say thank you?”

The words stick in my throat. Part of me wants to scream. Part of me wants to run out those massive oak doors like I’ve done so many times before, drive back to the airport, fly home to Austin where Nate is probably heating up leftover Thai food and wondering if I’m okay. But I’m so tired of running.

Harrison Sterling clears his throat. “Perhaps we should move on to dinner,” he suggests, his voice carefully neutral. “I believe the caterers have everything ready in the dining room.”

Bella’s smirk widens. She knows she’s won this round. She always does.

Except this time, something inside me doesn’t break. It snaps. Not my heart, which has been breaking in this house since I was old enough to understand that some children are treasured and others are tolerated. No. What snaps is something harder. The chains I’ve been dragging around for twenty-nine years. The ones labeled good daughter and second best and maybe if you try harder.

I look up, my eyes meet Bella’s, and I watch her triumphant expression falter just slightly. There’s something in my face she doesn’t recognize. Something cold and clean and final.

“Thank you, Bella,” I say. My voice comes out smooth, almost pleasant. “I’ll keep this very carefully.”

I tuck the box under my arm, holding it against my ribs like evidence. Because that’s exactly what it is.

Trinity frowns. “Caroline, don’t be dramatic. It’s just a thoughtful gift.”

“Oh, I know.” I smile. The expression feels strange on my face, like I’m wearing someone else’s mouth. “It’s very thoughtful, very valuable.”

Richard finally looks at me, his gray eyebrows drawing together. “Caroline?” It’s a warning. The same tone he used when I was sixteen and suggested that maybe, just maybe, Bella shouldn’t get a BMW for her first car when I’d received a ten-year-old Honda. The tone that means, don’t make a scene, don’t embarrass us, don’t exist too loudly in spaces meant for your sister to shine.

I hold his gaze. “Yes, Dad?”

He opens his mouth, closes it, turns back to his bourbon.

Preston Sterling stands abruptly, shoving his phone into his jacket pocket. “I need some air,” he mutters, and walks toward the French doors leading to the terrace.

Bella’s smile finally cracks. “Preston, it’s freezing out there.”

Preston hesitates at the terrace doors, the cold air blowing in, before turning back with a resigned sigh to join the procession to the dining room. But he’s already gone, and I understand something in that moment. He’s uncomfortable. He should be. Any decent person would be.

“Shall we?” Harrison gestures toward the dining room, his discomfort palpable in the tight set of his shoulders.

The dining room chandelier throws diamond patterns across the white linen tablecloth. Trinity taps her spoon against her crystal water glass, the sound cutting through the murmur of polite conversation like a blade.

“Before we begin,” my mother announces, her voice pitched for an audience, “I want to toast this very special season, the year of the bride.”

I watch Bella straighten in her chair, her practiced smile blooming across her face like she’s been waiting for this cue her entire life.

“My youngest daughter,” Trinity continues, gesturing toward Bella with her wine glass. “We’ll be married this February in what I can only describe as a modern royal event. Three hundred guests. The ballroom at the Four Seasons, a dress that took six months to design.”

Preston shifts beside Bella, his jaw tight. Harrison Sterling studies his salad fork with the intensity of an archaeologist examining an artifact.

“Bella has always known how to do things properly,” Trinity says, and the word properly lands on my skin like a slap. “With grace. With consideration for family.”

My father lifts his bourbon in agreement. He hasn’t looked at me since we sat down.

I cut into my filet mignon. The knife slides through the meat with barely any resistance, but my hand feels welded to the handle.

Trinity sets down her glass with a delicate click. Her gaze swings toward me, and I recognize the glint in her eyes. She’s about to perform.

“Bella is settled,” she says, her tone dripping with manufactured concern. “But what about you, Caroline? You’re approaching thirty. You can’t plan to live with plants forever, can you?”

The table goes quiet. Even the catering staff, refilling water glasses near the sideboard, seem to freeze mid-pour.

“When is it your turn?” Trinity asks. The question hangs in the air like smoke.

I feel Preston’s eyes flick toward me, then away. Harrison clears his throat but says nothing. Bella leans forward slightly, her expression arranged into something that might pass for sisterly interest if you didn’t know her, but I do know her. I see the anticipation in the way her fingers curl around her wine stem. She’s waiting for me to crumble, to stammer, to make some excuse about focusing on my career or not having met the right person yet.

I set down my silverware, the clink of metal on porcelain sounds louder than it should. “I’m not single, Mother.” The words come out calm, steady, like I’m commenting on the weather.

Trinity blinks. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve been married for eight months.”

My mother’s face goes through three distinct expressions in the span of two seconds. Confusion. Disbelief. Rage.

“Liar.” The word explodes out of her mouth before she can stop it. Her hand slams down on the table, rattling the silverware. “Why would no one know about this? You secretly eloped in Vegas, didn’t you? Is that why you’ve been so distant?”

“I didn’t elope in Vegas.”

Bella’s face has gone pale, but she recovers fast. She always does. “Are you making up stories to ruin my engagement party?” Her voice cracks perfectly, hitting that sweet spot between wounded and incredulous. “You’ve always been jealous of me, Caroline, but this is pathetic even for you.”

She turns to Preston, her hand finding his arm. “Can you believe this?”

But Preston is looking at me, his attorney’s brain clearly running calculations I can’t quite read.

“I sent invitations,” I say. My voice hasn’t changed pitch. I sound almost bored, which is strange because my heart is hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. “Via FedEx overnight, in February.”

My father’s glass hits the table hard enough that bourbon sloshes over the rim. “If you sent invitations and didn’t get a reply, why didn’t you call?” His face is flushed, the vein in his temple pulsing. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? To embarrass this family in front of the Sterlings?”

And there it is. The truth I’ve been circling around for eight months, the answer I didn’t want to see even as the evidence piled up around me like snow against a door. They didn’t forget. They’re gaslighting me. Right now. In front of witnesses. Rewriting history while I sit here holding the receipts they don’t know exist yet.

The last thread of hope I’d been clutching, the one I didn’t even know I was still holding, dissolves. Something shifts inside my chest. The architect in me takes over, the part that knows how to read blueprints and calculate load-bearing walls and understand exactly where pressure needs to be applied for a structure to fail. I stop trying to defend myself with emotions. They don’t care about my feelings. They never have.

Under the table, hidden by the white linen, I slide my phone from my clutch. My thumb finds the message thread with Nate. I type one word.

Now.

The message shows as delivered, then read. I put the phone away and pick up my fork again, spearing a piece of asparagus like nothing happened.

“Caroline.” My mother’s voice has that dangerous quality to it now. The one that used to send me running to my childhood bedroom. “Stop this nonsense and apologize to your sister.”

“For what?” I take a bite of asparagus. It tastes like absolutely nothing. “For getting married? For inviting my family to my wedding? Which part needs an apology?”

Bella’s eyes are bright with tears that haven’t fallen yet. She’s good at this, holding them right on the edge where they catch the light. “I can’t believe you’d lie about something like this. On Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Then prove it,” my father snaps.

I meet his eyes across the table. “Okay.”

Harrison Sterling shifts in his seat, clearly wishing he was anywhere else. Preston has gone very still beside Bella, his lawyer instincts finally catching up to whatever his gut has been telling him.

The chandelier above us catches on my wedding band. I’ve been wearing it this whole time. They never even noticed.

“Dessert will be ready in fifteen minutes,” one of the catering staff announces from the doorway, oblivious to the tension crackling through the room like static electricity.

My phone buzzes once against my thigh. A text from Nate. System accessed. Ready when you are. Anytime tonight.

I look up at the eighty-five-inch smart TV mounted above the fireplace in the adjoining sitting area, currently displaying a digital fire log that mirrors the real fire burning below it.

“Actually,” I say, standing up from the table, “I think we should skip dessert tonight.” I walk toward the TV, my heels clicking against the hardwood floor. “There’s something everyone needs to see.”

“Caroline, sit down.” My mother’s voice has taken on that edge, the one that used to make me shrink into myself, desperate to be smaller, quieter, less troublesome.

“Not tonight.” I stop in front of the TV, my back to the room. “You always believe Bella unconditionally.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Calm. Almost conversational. “But have you forgotten what my husband does for a living?”

Silence.

I turn to face them. “Nathaniel Vance, senior cybersecurity analyst. He works for a firm that protects Fortune 500 companies from data breaches.”

Trinity’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Don’t you?” I pull my phone from my clutch, holding it up so they can see the screen. Three letters glow there. Now. Sent eighteen minutes ago. Delivered.

The TV screen behind me flickers. Bella’s head snaps up, her tears forgotten.

“What are you doing?”