that after the wedding we would clean everything up together.

He spoke quickly.

Sophie, standing in my kitchen while I signed, said married couples had to trust each other completely or nothing worked.

I remember laughing nervously and signing because both of them seemed so sure, and because I wanted to be the kind of partner who did not flinch at paperwork when a life together was beginning.

I should have flinched.

There was one odd moment at the reception that I almost forgot entirely.

Just before the first dance, a woman brushed past me near the bar and slipped a cream envelope into my handbag.

She had Nolan’s eyes and Vivian’s mouth.

I recognized her from a single tense family dinner months earlier: Rachel, Nolan’s estranged sister.

She barely looked at me when she whispered, Open this when you are alone.

Not with him.

Then she disappeared back into the crowd before I could stop her.

I was pulled onto the dance floor seconds later.

I forgot the envelope.

By the time Nolan and I finally got to the hotel suite, I was exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure.

My cheeks hurt from smiling.

My feet were throbbing.

Nolan kissed my forehead, told me to pour us champagne from the minibar, and said he had to run back down to the car for one last bag.

He smiled and added, almost as an afterthought, Come back in five minutes.

I thought it would be funny to hide under the bed and scare him.

It felt childish, but sweet.

Nolan and I had spent so much of our relationship joking with each other that I wanted our first private moment as husband and wife to feel playful instead of staged.

So I slipped off my heels, lifted the bedspread, gathered my dress around my knees, and crawled underneath.

The carpet scratched my skin.

My veil caught on the frame.

I could smell dust and hotel detergent.

I remember smiling to myself for all of three seconds.

Then the door opened.

The footsteps that entered were wrong.

Too measured.

Too heavy.

I went still and looked through the narrow gap under the bedspread.

Two pairs of feet stopped near the mattress.

One pair was Nolan’s black dress shoes.

The other pair was Sophie’s silver heels.

I told myself there had to be a harmless explanation until Sophie spoke.

—Are you sure she’s not coming back?

And Nolan answered, calm as still water.

—Don’t worry.

I put sleeping pills in her glass.

She’ll be out any minute.

My body went cold so fast it felt violent.

I had not touched the champagne.

If I had stayed standing in that room for even another minute, I probably would have.

I bit down on my hand to keep from making a sound.

Above me I heard the tap of a phone being unlocked.

Nolan’s voice changed when he spoke again.

—She’s not here.

Put it on speaker.

Vivian’s voice filled the suite a second later.

—Is she asleep yet?

Even now, that was the moment that broke something deepest in me.

Not just the betrayal, but the ease of it.

The same woman who had cried through our vows was now calmly coordinating whatever this was.

—Listen carefully, Vivian said.

You have two hours