Chapter 1 

Beverly

The afternoon light slants through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the private tasting room, catching the dust motes dancing in the air and turning them into golden constellations. It smells like promise in here. Like sugar and butter and the clean scent of the white peonies bursting from a crystal vase in the center of our table. Everything is pristine, a perfect little snow globe of future happiness, and I’m right in the middle of it.

“Okay, this one,” Sharon says, pointing a perfectly manicured finger at the third cake sample on the silver tray. Her nails are the color of a ripe raspberry, a vibrant pop against the sea of white linen and pale china. “This is the one. Lemon curd with a lavender buttercream. It’s sophisticated. It’s sexy.”

I dip my fork into the delicate square, bringing a small bite to my lips. The tartness of the lemon hits my tongue first, sharp and bright, before the floral sweetness of the lavender smooths it all out. It’s complex. Unexpected. I glance across the table at Robin, my fiancé, who is supposed to be paying attention.

He’s not.

His head is bent, the line of his dark hair catching the light as he scrolls through something on his phone, his thumb moving in a quick, hypnotic rhythm. A small frown pinches the skin between his brows.

“Babe,” I say, my voice soft.

He looks up, his blue eyes taking a half-second to focus on me. Then the frown vanishes, replaced by the easy, dazzling smile that first made my stomach do a slow, lazy flip two years ago. “Sorry. Just work stuff. You know how it is.” He reaches across the table, his fingers warm as they cover mine. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s… a lot,” I say, and Sharon groans dramatically.

“Bev, it’s a wedding cake, not a bowl of oatmeal. It’s supposed to be a lot,” she insists, leaning forward. Her silk blouse, the color of champagne, shimmers. “You can’t have a vanilla wedding. It’s your one day to be extra.”

“My one day?” I raise an eyebrow, a smile playing on my lips. “I was planning on being at least a little extra for the entire marriage.”

Robin squeezes my hand, his thumb stroking my knuckles. “Whatever my girl wants, she gets.” He winks at me, then takes the fork from my fingers, tasting the sample himself. “Wow. Sharon’s right, that’s good. Sophisticated.”

He’s parroting her, but I let it slide. He’s here, isn’t he? He took the afternoon off from the firm to sit in a stuffy room and debate the merits of buttercream versus fondant. That’s love. It’s the small, boring, everyday acts of showing up. My grandmother Esther always says you don’t measure a man by the grand gestures, but by the quiet moments he chooses to share.

“I still think the classic almond with the raspberry filling is the frontrunner,” I say, nudging the first sample forward. It’s simple, elegant, and tastes like every happy childhood memory I’ve ever had.

“It’s safe,” Sharon says, waving a dismissive hand. “You, Beverly Jones, are more than safe.”

I look at Robin, at the handsome, familiar lines of his face, the way his smile makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. I look at Sharon, my best friend since we were assigned as college roommates, the chaotic, vibrant yin to my quiet, steady yang. My life is a carefully tended garden, everything in its place, thriving. Safe feels good. Safe feels like coming home.

“Maybe I like safe,” I murmur, taking a sip of the crisp champagne the restaurant provided. The bubbles fizz against my tongue. My engagement ring, a classic solitaire Robin picked out himself, feels heavy and significant on my finger. Six months from today, I’ll be Mrs. Beverly Davies.

“Well, I’m voting for lavender,” Sharon declares, sitting back with an air of finality. “Robin, you’re the tie-breaker.”

Robin, bless his heart, looks momentarily panicked. “Uh…” He glances between the two cakes, then at me. “I’m with Bev. Almond. Happy wife, happy life, right?” He gives me that killer smile again, and the warmth of it spreads through my chest, chasing away any lingering doubts. He gets me. He always has.

“Fine,” Sharon sighs, feigning defeat. “Be vanilla. See if I care.” She picks up her champagne flute, her raspberry nails bright against the delicate stem. “A toast, then. To the happy, vanilla couple.”

We all laugh, clinking our glasses together. The sound is a bright, clear chime that echoes in the quiet room. For a moment, I see it all laid out before me: this wedding, the house in the suburbs with the big garden, two kids, a golden retriever, a lifetime of quiet, happy moments with the man I love. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.

“I’m just going to use the restroom before the coordinator gets back,” I say, dabbing my lips with a linen napkin. I slide my chair back, the legs scraping softly against the polished hardwood floor.

Robin looks up from his phone again. “Okay, babe. Don’t be long.”

I lean down and press a soft kiss to his lips. He smells like expensive cologne and the faint, sweet scent of the cake. “I won’t.”

As I walk away, I glance back over my shoulder. They’re sitting there, the two most important people in my world, framed by the golden afternoon light. My future husband and my best friend. My heart feels so full it might actually burst.

The hallway to the restrooms is long and cool, lined with dark, atmospheric paintings of moody landscapes. The air is ripe with the low murmur of the main dining room, the clatter of cutlery, and the scent of garlic and rosemary. It’s a welcome sensory shift from the sugary sweetness of the tasting room. I splash cool water on my wrists, the shock of it grounding me. I check my reflection in the ornate, gilt-edged mirror. My curls are behaving, framing my face in a dark, happy cloud. My brown eyes are bright, my ebony skin is glowing. I look happy. I am happy.

On the walk back, a waiter in a starched black vest offers me a fresh flute of champagne from a passing tray. “For the bride-to-be,” he says with a kind smile.

“Thank you,” I say, my fingers closing around the cool, slender stem.

I’m about to round the final corner back to our private room when I hear their voices. The tone is different. It’s not the light, playful banter from before. It’s low, tense, conspiratorial.

I stop, my hand hovering near the doorframe. My first thought, absurdly, is that they’re planning a surprise for me. A bridal shower detail, maybe. Or a wedding gift. I smile to myself, leaning a little closer, not wanting to spoil their fun.

Sharon’s voice comes first, sharp and laced with an impatience I’ve never heard her direct at anything related to me. “How much longer do we have to do this, Robin? I can’t watch you pretend to be excited about buttercream for one more second. I’m going to lose my mind.”

The bottom drops out of my stomach. The air in the hallway suddenly feels thin, hard to draw into my lungs.

Robin’s voice is a low hiss. “Just until the wedding, okay? It’s a few more months. We’ve managed for a year, we can manage a little longer.”

A year.

The word echoes in the sudden, roaring silence of my mind. A year. We’ve only been engaged for eight months. The timeline doesn’t make sense. My brain scrambles, trying to piece it together, trying to find an explanation that doesn’t feel like a shard of glass working its way into my heart.

“Managed?” Sharon’s laugh is a bitter, ugly sound. “Is that what you call this? Sneaking around? Listening to her talk about flower arrangements and guest lists? It was fun at the lake house, when it was new. Now, it’s just… pathetic.”

The lake house. Last summer. The weekend I had to work on that big archival project for the city. They went without me. They sent me pictures—the two of them on the dock, smiling, waving. My two favorite people.

“It’s not pathetic,” Robin says, his voice defensive. “It’s a plan. We get married, we wait a year or two, I secure my partnership at the firm. My father will be happy, my finances will be set. Then we can… figure things out. A quiet divorce. No one gets hurt.”

No one gets hurt.

The words are a knife to my heart. I press my back against the cool plaster of the wall, my knuckles white where I grip the champagne flute. The hallway seems to tilt, the moody landscapes in the paintings blurring into dark, ugly smears.

“And what about me?” Sharon’s voice rises, sharp with indignation. “I’m supposed to just wait in the wings while you play house with Saint Beverly? Stand at the altar and watch you marry my best friend?”

“It’s not going to be a real marriage, Shar. You know that.” His voice softens, becomes wheedling. It’s the same tone he uses on me when he wants something. “It’s a business arrangement at this point. Besides, it’s not like she’s exactly… adventurous. You know?”

A cold dread, slick and oily, begins to creep up my spine. I hold my breath, praying for him not to say it. Don’t say it. Don’t you dare fucking say it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means she’s just too vanilla, okay?” The words are casual, a simple statement of fact. A dismissal. “She’s sweet, she’s easy, but I needed more. You give me more.”

Too vanilla.

The phrase lands in the exact center of my chest and detonates. All the air leaves my body in a silent rush. The carefully tended garden of my life is engulfed in flames. Every happy memory, every laughter, every quiet moment I thought was love is now coated in a thick layer of ash. He didn’t just cheat. He’s been lying. They’ve been lying. For a year. My best friend. My fiancé.

The low murmur of the restaurant fades into a dull, metallic roar in my ears. The scent of garlic and rosemary is suddenly nauseating. My fingers, still wrapped around the champagne flute, are completely numb. I can’t feel the cold glass. I can’t feel anything at all.

Inside the room, their conversation continues, their voices weaving a tapestry of my destruction. But I can’t make out the words anymore. They’re just sounds. Meaningless vibrations in a world that has suddenly lost all meaning.

My hand, acting on its own, uncurls.

The champagne flute tips, falls.

It doesn’t seem to make a sound until it hits the polished hardwood floor. The shatter is a gunshot in the quiet hallway. A sharp, violent, splintering crack that is loud enough, I pray, to bring my entire world crashing down around me.