It’s my wedding day, and my fiancé is nowhere to be found.

“Jessa, sit down. We’re gonna find him, okay?”

My mom is trying to guide me towards a chair in the corner of the room. I can’t move, though. My muscles are stiff and unresponsive. My brain is a whirling hurricane of thoughts that don’t make sense.

“I can’t sit down,” I whisper.

“We’ll find him, honey,” my mom says. “He’s probably just… I bet he’s getting some air. We’ll find him. Sit down.”

I shove her hands away and gesture at the white wedding dress I’m wearing. “I can’t sit down, Mom. This dress is already about to bust at the seams if I take too big an inhale. It needs to be intact for the pictures.”

The pictures that my fiancé, Dane, is over twenty minutes late for.

“Where is he?” I snap. “He was here earlier.”

I turn and find myself staring at the photographer. She’s looking at me with the kind of expression that people reserve for sick puppies.

“He’ll be here soon,” I tell her. “He’s never been good with time. I’ll just… I’ll just go find him now.”

I brush past everyone and stride out of my dressing room. My mother doesn’t stop me. In fact, I can feel her relief as I walk away, even as she starts assigning various caterers and family friends to go check different corners of the venue.

But I know no one else will find Dane.

I know this because I’m going to find Dane.

And then I’m going to kill him.

My fiancé has never been the most serious man, but I always told myself that that is part of his charm. He is easygoing. He doesn’t sweat the small stuff. Sometimes, he doesn’t even sweat the big stuff.

But I never doubted that he would show up for me when it counted.

On our wedding day, for God’s sake.

The yacht club is large enough and the dress restrictive enough that it takes me a full ten minutes to get to the second floor. From every window, the vastness of the ocean stares back at me.

Dane and I are supposed to be sailing out on that very ocean less than two hours from now, officially man and wife.

It’s still going to happen, snaps a haughty voice in my head. Everything will go the way you’ve always dreamed it will.

Maybe it will, another, grimmer voice answers. Or maybe not.

I try door after door. Most of the rooms are empty. In one, I come across a cluster of older club members sipping whiskey and smoking cigars. They all give the panicked bride at their door a strange look.

I avoid their eyes and keep searching.

I reach the third and final floor of the pretentious club that Dane insisted we get married in. That’s when I hear a laugh that makes me stop in my tracks.

Because I know that laugh.

All too well.

It’s the laugh that accompanied me through college and my first job. A laugh that I have always associated with trust.

A trust that is now splintering away with each and every step I take.

I turn the corner and catch sight of the two of them through the narrow slit in the doorway. My fiancé and my maid of honor entangled together.

Dane is trying to pull his jacket back on, but she’s pawing at him, pushing her breasts against his chest and pulling his attention from the open door.

“Salma, I’m late,” he mutters. He sounds more amused than annoyed.

“I can’t help it. You know I can’t resist you in a suit,” she says, her voice high-pitched and breathy. I’ve heard her sound like that hundreds of times before.

In bars and restaurants.

At the beginning of new relationships.

In the thick of burgeoning sexual chemistry.

I should crash through the door and break up whatever the hell is going on between them, but all I can think is, How many times has Salma seen Dane in a suit?

A dozen times? Maybe more? We’ve attended weddings together as a group. Salma invited us to her company’s Christmas gala. My grandma’s funeral.

Did they have sex each time? And if so, how the hell did I miss it?

Because standing here in my perfectly fitted white dress, I feel stupid. And I’m not a stupid person. I worked my whole life to avoid being associated with that word.

But somehow, it snuck up on me. While I was making plans for the future, picking out flowers, and choosing between the salmon or the veal.

“Kiss me again,” Salma says in a loud whisper. A whisper that’s begging to be heard, like she knows I’m marooned in this hallway, helpless and watching. “Better yet, fuck me again.”

“I can’t, Sal. She’ll be waiting.”

She. I flinch at the way he throws the word out, so casual and unconcerned. No regard for the woman behind the pronoun.

But I lose focus on him as I wait for Salma’s response. Surely, this is all a sick joke. After all, it’s Salma we’re talking about, right?

The girl who held my hair back during the worst hangovers of my early twenties. The girl who encouraged me to be confident and fearless. The girl who sat up with me late at night and told me to pursue my dream of becoming a chef.

Is this that same girl? Or had I imagined her?

God, it’s amazing how quickly a life can fall apart.

“Will you think of me tonight?” Salma asks, her voice going low and raspy. “When you’re fucking her?”

“I always think of you.”

He laughs carelessly, but then he turns towards the door. The laughter dies on his tongue when he sees me.

Salma follows his gaze. Then, in perfect unison like some silly cartoon, their jaws drop.

She’s the first to speak. “Fuck,” she gasps.

I stare at both of them for a few moments. No one says a thing. A million different responses whirl sharply through my head, but I choose none of them. Silence says more than I ever could.

Instead, I turn and retrace my footsteps, storming back to the first floor. I hike up my ridiculous skirts as I practically sprint across the lobby and rush right out the massive doors of this awful, pretentious, nightmarish yacht club.

My right hand keeps tingling and shaking, but I dismiss it as I abandon my heels on the boardwalk and step out onto the soft sand of the beach.

I keep running and running until my breath comes in short, painful gasps. Then I stop and flop my ass down. As soon as I do, I know that it will take a miracle to get me back on my feet again. Bury me here for all I care.

The sun is setting in the distance. In another life, I would have been on an obnoxiously large yacht, toasting to my new life with my new husband.

I finally look down at my shaking hand and realize that it’s not shaking at all. I’ve been squeezing the bejeezus out of my phone this whole time and it’s vibrating.

I turn it over. My mother’s name is emblazoned on the screen for two seconds before the call cuts out. I check my notifications.

Seventeen missed calls.

Eleven from Dane. Three from my mother. One from my father.

I ignore all their names and pull up a number I haven’t called in over five months. I know he knows what day it is. I also know that he’ll pick up.

“Jessa.”

“Chris,” I whisper, hating the sob in my throat.

“Jessa,” he says again. Softly. It’s as though he knows exactly what’s happened. But then, how could he?

“You were right about him,” I admit. My voice wavers, but it doesn’t crack. I won’t let it.

He doesn’t laud it over me. He doesn’t berate me. He doesn’t even seem to take pleasure in the fact that he was right. Most touching of all, he doesn’t ask me any questions.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to be right.”

“I know.” And the truth is, I really do.

“Come see me,” he says.

“I will. I just… need some time first.”

“Take all the time you need,” he says, the words soaked through with sincerity. “I’ll be here.”

I hang up and stare at the bright orb of fire in the distance. A thin stretch of storm clouds hangs over its face like a veil.

I should probably be crying, but I can’t find the energy. I don’t want to waste tears on either of them, anyway. They’ve stolen enough of my energy for one lifetime.

I don’t see the stranger until his shadow looms over me, blocking the rest of the sun. A sin I’m willing to forgive because, for one insane moment, it feels like he’s replaced it altogether.

It’s not just his impossibly imposing size or his square jaw. It’s not even his effortlessly tousled hair or his impossibly gray eyes.

It’s the way he’s looking at me.

There’s no sympathy or pity there. Just mild curiosity, and even that doesn’t quite capture it. There’s arrogance in his face, the way you’d call a prince arrogant. A kind of certainty and calm that says nothing in this life can touch him.

“Should I keep walking?” he asks. “If you’d prefer to cry in peace, that is.” His voice is deep. Chocolatey, velvety, but with an unmistakable rasp at the edges.

I frown. “Probably.”

He smirks and pulls out a flask from the inside of his coat. “Here,” he says, offering it to me. “This should help.”

I don’t think twice before accepting the flask and taking a big swig. I probably should have, though. The burning bite of whiskey scorches my throat on the way down.

“Jesus Christ,” I gasp.

“It goes down easier the second time.”

I meet his eyes for a moment and then raise the flask to my lips again. “Hm,” I say, still cringing against the burn. I take a second sip. “You’re right.”

I hand back the flask. He accepts it without a word.

“You’re not dressed for the beach,” I point out. He’s wearing a crisp button-down shirt with black pants and leather dress shoes. All of it looks ridiculously expensive. But he doesn’t seem to mind the fact that his feet are sinking into the sand.

He seems amused by that. “Neither are you.”

I laugh. Somehow, I forgot about the wedding dress.

“It’s a long story,” I say. “Actually, it’s not long at all. It’s just sad.”

“I’m the maker of sad stories.”

That catches my attention, but I don’t ask what he means. I just push myself clumsily to my feet. Mostly because my neck is hurting from craning to look up at him.

He’s even more beautiful up close. The intense way he watches me is more than a little bit unnerving, which is probably why I start babbling.

“I’ve catered at least a dozen dinners at this stupid fucking club,” I say. “Not sure I can stand to come back now.”

“Admitting defeat is never the answer.”

I raise my eyebrows. “You’d keep catering?”

“I’m the one who hires caterers, not the one who works for them.”

“Are you offering me a job?” I joke bitterly.

He cocks his head to the side. “If you want it.”

I frown when he blinks. He’s not joking. “Excuse me?”

“You see that yacht over there by the far right dock?” he asks. I follow his pointing finger to see the biggest boat by far. It’s a glistening hull of purest white, catching the setting sun and the faceted sapphire reflection of the water below.

“The Medusa?”

He nods. “She’s mine. And I’m in need of a caterer.”

I stare at him in shock. “You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

His gray eyes are hypnotic. A shiver passes through me, but I’m not sure if I’m hot or cold.

“When?” I manage to croak out. “When are you leaving?”

He smirks. “Right now.”