Chapter 1

1.

Three days before the wedding, Blake Van Court quietly altered our invitations. He switched the groom's name from his own to his uncle's―Harrison Van Court.

A friend lowered his voice and confronted him. "Have you lost your mind? What if this backfires? Stella's waited seven years for you. She's almost thirty-one."

Blake shrugged, utterly indifferent. "I lost a bet with Sophia. I told her I'd do one insane thing she asked. Besides, I just switched a couple of names on an invitation. It's not like I canceled the wedding. She can wait a little longer."

Sophia was a scholarship student he'd once sponsored. Now she was his personal assistant.

"When she sees the misprint, she'll come running to me to fix it."

His tone was flippant. "And if she somehow goes through with the ceremony―Uncle Harrison's body is shot. That department shut down years ago. Stella will end up crawling back to me anyway, and I'll have one more thing to hold over her."

His careless words sent his friends into howling laughter.

I stood outside the study door for a long time. Something inside me went cold, degree by degree. Then I turned around. I walked to the kitchen, and I poured the hangover aspirin and the fresh-brewed black coffee straight down the sink.

Afterward, when my mother Margaret came to me in a panic holding the wrong invitation, I just gave her a quiet smile.

"It's fine, Mom. We'll go with the name printed on the card."

This time, I didn't go to him to fix the invitation.

The day I visited the Van Court estate, Blake happened to be heading out. He was taking Sophia to a yacht show in the Hamptons.

I handed him my wedding invitation. He shoved it aside without even glancing at it.

"I'm not reading your apology letter. When you send over that Van Cleef necklace Sophia's had her eye on, then I'll forgive you."

I didn't bother explaining. I just watched him leave with cold eyes.

On the day of the wedding banquet, Blake―who had always been so high-handed, so cold, so removed―came crashing into the venue like a man possessed.

"Get out of my way! That's my bride!"

***

"Stella, are you sure you don't want to change the invitation? Given Harrison's condition... aren't you signing up for a sexless marriage?"

My mother Margaret's eyes glistened. It sent a pang of guilt through me.

She had been the happiest person when Blake finally agreed to a formal engagement.

She had watched me wait. From twenty-three to thirty. Year after year after year.

She cried with me when Blake postponed the wedding the first time. She sat in silence with me after the fourth, then the seventh. By the tenth, she had gone too numb to even cry.

Manhattan's Upper East Side social circuit had given me an unspoken nickname―"the Lane girl who never makes it to the altar."

When the Van Court family confirmed the engagement, my mother cried all night.

She dug out her own wedding dress and altered it by hand, stitch by stitch, for me.

And now Blake had sent out the wrong invitations because of a bet with his personal assistant.

I felt nothing but exhaustion. I looked down at the gold-embossed invitation.

"It's okay, Mom. At the very least, I'll still be Mrs. Van Court."

I knew I had no right to be sentimental anymore. I had to be practical.

This was the tenth time Blake had broken his word.

The first six were just "delays." Venue booked, invitations sent, dress fitted. Then he'd say, "Let's wait."

The last four were outright cancellations. But in New York's elite circles, the story had long since become "Stella got dumped ten times." No one cared about the truth behind it.

The first cancellation, friends were outraged on my behalf.

The second, people started wondering if it was my fault.

Then it happened again. And again. Everyone defaulted to the assumption that I was the problem. Too assertive. Too controlling. No wonder Blake, her childhood sweetheart, won't marry her.

I did consider walking away from Blake during that time.

A few mutual friends quietly tried to set me up with other people. The moment the other party heard the name Stella Lane, every single one politely declined.

"It's awkward with Blake... and your reputation, well..."

No one ever said it outright. But I understood.

My fingertip rested on the words "Harrison Van Court."

I knew I had finally let go of everything between Blake and me. I could be the untouchable Mrs. Van Court with a clear conscience.

The only difference was―the Van Court I was marrying was no longer the same one.