Page 104 of How to Ruin a Wedding

“It’s not my phone.” She drops it from her hand like it shocked her.

I hurriedly bend for it, snatch it, and back away. All eyes are on me now. More importantly, Valerie’s are. I see it on her face, the rapid calculating, trying to understand what’s happening. Sorting through bits and pieces of information that don’t make sense, no matter where they’re placed.

“Lucy?” she says my name like a question, like it’s the only one she can think of at the moment.

I haven’t had a chance to figure out what to do, what to say, when this moment happened, if it happened, and I’d really hoped it wouldn’t.My first scenario is that I would simply go back to New York, and everyone I met here would be a memory. Then, after Anders, after our promises, I thought I could have Valerie end the wedding herself, and there wouldn’t be any fingers pointing my way, and anger, or questions at all.

I was foolishly wrong.

Bethany manages a full question. “Why is Nick calling you?”

Olive looks up at me with wide eyes. “What’s going on, Lucy?”

I want to shrink myself into a size so insignificant that I can hide between one of the cracks of the floorboards. At least until I can formulate a response that will explain myself while managing to keep Anders’s family from hating me, while not throwing Anders under the bus, but also explaining my reasoning for all I’ve done.

But I just don’t have the time.

I’m so sorryis all I can think to say. I gesture to Nick. “He isn’t who I thought. This isn’t what I thought—what I wanted. I’m so sorry.”

“What is happening?” Bethany snaps. “Explain yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again, and run as fast as possible to Anders’s car. I throw myself in, lock the door, and rush back to Anders before I can face the fire of questions I’m not equipped to defend myself from.

This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

When I pull up to the house, an unfamiliar car is parked in the driveway behind Taina’s rental. Not an Uber, since there’s nobody in the car. I’d think it’s Anders, but he wouldn’t get a rental just to get back home.

Then I get out, spot a man talking with his hands on the porch, and my sister in front of the door, shouting.

My stomach free-falls.

I rush over and call out her name. Then he turns—Mathew. I stop so fast my knees can’t keep up, and I trip on the stairs. Pain ricochets up my body as I grip the railing for support.

“I knew it,” Mathew spits out. “Of course you’re here. Bailing your sister out of whatever trouble she’s gotten into. Again. Always.”

“What trouble?” Taina rushes over to my side, still in her sweats. “Sorry, I came unannounced again. I wanted to finish our fight.” Then, she faces Mathew. “We’re having a little vacation together. I told you I was coming here.”

“This isn’t the address of the rental you booked,” Mathew says. “Why are you here?”

“Why are you tracking my exact location? What have I ever done to warrant that?”

“You’re helping out with one of her ridiculous jobs, aren’t you?” He looks to me. “You really can’t do anything on your own.”

I look down as Taina says, “Who the hell are you speaking to like that?”

“I told you I was sick of this!” he tells Taina. “I told you to let your sister clean up her own messes for once. You said this was a vacation. I knew you lied.”

“And you didn’t?” Taina shoots back as I try to step away, but she tightens her hold on my waist. “You’re supposed to be on a work trip, not stalking me.”

“You’re mywife.”

“And she’s mysister.”

“I’m yourhusband.”

“I should go.” I pry Taina’s fingers off me. To fling myself into the ocean, if it meant getting away from anyone and everything right now. It’s all too much.

“You should have gone a long time ago,” Mathew says. “Your time limit is almost up. I warned you. I don’t care if you don’t have the money. You promised you’d leave my house.”