Chapter 1 — Broken Wedding, Better Life (2)

Lena was standing now, white as the lace on my dress. "Scarlett, I can explain—"

"Explain what?" I turned to her — my best friend, my bridesmaid, the woman who had held my hair back at parties and cried at my engagement dinner. "Which part? The part where you slept with my fiancé? Or the part where you did it wearing my wedding colors?"

"Scarlett—"

"You know what I've been doing for the past three months?" I said, and my voice was surprisingly steady. "I've been planning this day. I've been picking flowers and tasting cakes and reassuring my mother that yes, of course, the Rosses are the right family. I've been making peace with the life I was told I should want."

I looked at Elliot. I looked at Lena. I looked at the cathedral full of people who had come to watch me get sold.

And I made a decision.

I reached up. I unpinned the veil. I let it fall.

"I don't," I said, "want this."

"What?" Elliot's voice cracked. "Scarlett, don't be hasty, think about the—"

"The prenup?" I smiled, and it was the first real smile I'd worn all day. "I read it. I know exactly what I'm walking away from. And I'd rather walk away from everything than stay for one more second of this."

I stepped out of the dress. Not elegantly — I had to tug at the zipper, and the heirloom silk made a sound like a protest, and for a moment I was tangled in a century of Ross family history. But I got free. I stood in the middle of the cathedral in my slip, barefoot, holding the dress, and I felt lighter than I had in years.

"Scarlett, don't—" my mother hissed from the pews. "Think about the family!"

"I am thinking about the family," I said. "My family. Me. The one person in this room that I'm actually responsible for."

I looked at the crowd — a thousand faces, three hundred cameras, twenty million viewers. And I said the words that would define my life from that moment on:

"Broken wedding, better life."

I dropped the dress on the floor.

I walked out of the cathedral in my bare feet, with Zoe at my side, and the cameras followed me all the way to the doors, and somewhere behind me, I heard Elliot screaming at Lena, and Lena screaming back, and the sound of a thousand wedding guests realizing they had come to watch a funeral for a marriage that had never actually existed.

The doors closed behind me.

The steps of the cathedral erupted.

Cameras first — a wall of them, lenses like insect eyes, voices screaming my name and Elliot's name and questions that were really accusations wearing question marks. "Scarlett! Over here!" "Was it true? The video?" "Where are you going?!" "Are you going to sue?! Who do you blame?!"

The crowd surged. My bare feet hit the cold marble of the steps, and I felt the stones like a slap, and for one dizzying second, the whole world was noise and flash and the terrible, thrilling smell of freedom.

Then Zoe was at my side, an arm around my waist, her voice in my ear: "Walk. Don't run. Look straight ahead. They can't print a panic, but they can print a stumble."

I walked.

I made it down the steps, through the crowd, to the black sedan that appeared at the curb like a summoned miracle. The driver — a woman I didn't recognize, with eyes like a hawk and a coat like armor — held the door without a word. Zoe shoved me in, dove in after me, and slammed the door against the roar.

The car pulled away. The cameras receded. And I sat in the back seat, in my slip, in my ruined life, and I started to laugh.

"What's funny?" Zoe asked.

"Everything." I laughed until my ribs hurt. "That was — Zoe, that was the worst day of my life, and I've never felt more alive. Does that make me insane?"

"It makes you free." Zoe's eyes were bright. "Insane is just what free people look like to people who've never tried it."

The driver cleared her throat. "Ms. Kane. Ms. Pierce. I'm to take you wherever you need to go."

"Who sent you?" I asked.

"A man who prefers to stay mysterious." The driver's lips twitched. "He said to tell you: 'No strings. Just a car.'"

I looked at Zoe. Zoe looked at me.

"The suspicious man," she said.

"The suspicious man," I agreed.

The sun was bright through the windows. The steps of the cathedral fell away behind us. And I sat in the car, in my underwear, with my best friend and my dignity and the beginnings of a plan — and I felt, for the first time in years, like the road ahead belonged to me.

"Okay," Zoe said, handing me her jacket. "Now what?"

"Now," I said, wrapping the jacket around my shoulders, "we find out what I'm actually worth."

"That's the spirit." Zoe grinned. "I already called the studio. There's a couch. And coffee. And — I'm telling you this as your friend — a very suspicious man who's been asking about you for three weeks."

I looked at her. "A suspicious man?"

"He showed up at my office on Monday. Wanted to know everything about you. Your work, your history, your favorite coffee order." Zoe's eyes were sharp. "He's rich. He's weird. And he's been very, very interested in a woman he's never met."

"Great," I said dryly. "Another man who wants to own me."

"Maybe." Zoe shrugged. "Or maybe he's the first one who wants to help."