Chapter 1 - THE VASE
The vase shattered before the wedding music ever started.
Blue-and-white porcelain exploded across the marble ballroom floor, and every conversation died at once.
Maisie froze beside the display cabinet, both hands flying to her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” the six-year-old whispered.
Portia Vale turned so fast the diamonds in her veil flashed under the chandeliers.
“You little brat.”
Alonzo Reyes was already moving, but Portia got there first.
Her hand struck Maisie across the cheek.
The sound cracked through the ballroom.
Maisie stumbled backward.
Alonzo caught her before she hit the floor.
“Don’t touch my daughter.”
Portia’s face twisted. “She destroyed a Ming vase.”
“She’s six.”
“She has no business being here.”
Cedric Blackwood stood near the altar platform, stunned. His wedding was supposed to begin in twelve minutes.
Instead, his bride had just hit a child in front of two hundred guests.
Then Flora, the Blackwood family’s longtime housekeeper, crouched beside the broken cabinet.
“Mr. Blackwood?”
Nobody answered.
Flora reached beneath the cabinet and pulled out a sealed ivory envelope covered in dust.
Portia went pale.
“Give me that.”
Flora looked up.
Portia abandoned the shattered vase and lunged toward her.
Two bodyguards stepped between them.
Cedric stared at the envelope.
His mother’s handwriting was across the front.
CEDRIC - IF THEY RUSH THE WEDDING, OPEN THIS BEFORE YOU SAY I DO.
His mother, Eleanor, had been dead for eighteen months.
The ballroom went silent.
Cedric took the envelope from Flora.
Portia whispered, “Don’t.”
He looked at the woman he was supposed to marry.
“Why?”
Her eyes filled with something that wasn’t fear of losing a wedding.
May you like
It was fear of being exposed.
Cedric broke the seal.
