My Fiancé Left the Phone Line Open One Day Before Our Wedding, and I Heard Him Tell His Mother He Planned to Take My House, My Savings, and Then Get Rid of Me. So I Changed a Few Details About the Ceremony—and When the Final Wedding Gift Appeared on the Screen, Nathan Learned He Had Never Been the One Running the Con.

I had chosen it because Melissa had once attended a conference there and told me the gardens looked “like rich people discovered trees.”

That joke had been one reason I booked it.

As the limousine approached, I saw guests walking beneath white arches covered in roses.

Everything looked perfect.

It offended me.

How dare betrayal come wrapped in flowers?

Elise met us through a side entrance.

She hugged me.

Then whispered, “He’s acting completely normal.”

“Of course he is.”

“Linda too.”

“Good.”

“Sharon, you can still leave.”

I looked through a window.

Nathan stood in the courtyard.

Dark tuxedo.

Silver tie.

Handsome.

Relaxed.

He laughed with my uncle while accepting congratulations.

For one strange second, my heart remembered loving him.

That was the cruelest part.

Knowledge does not erase emotion instantly.

Some part of me still recognized the man who had slept beside me.

Some part of me wanted the last twenty-four hours to be a hallucination.