Chapter 1
The Laurent villa sat on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea. White stone. Floor-to-ceiling glass. Private terraces draped in bougainvillea.
Everything about it looked expensive. Everything about it looked permanent.
Celeste Arden hated it on sight. She stood beneath the entrance archway, one hand wrapped around the handle of her suitcase, while staff hurried around her carrying luggage and flower arrangements.
Somewhere deeper inside the estate, music drifted through the open halls. Wedding preparations. HER wedding preparations.
Three weeks from now she was supposed to become Celeste Laurent. The thought settled heavily in her stomach. It was not excitement, or nerves. It was something else. Something she couldn’t quite name.
“You’re doing that thing again.”
Celeste turned. Tristan Laurent crossed the courtyard toward her, sunglasses tucked into the front of his shirt. His smile appeared effortlessly, as it always did. The smile people trusted. The smile people forgave.
“The thing?” she asked.
“The overthinking.”
He stopped in front of her and brushed a kiss against her forehead. A familiar gesture. Practiced. Comfortable. The kind of affection that should have made her feel secure.
Instead, she found herself staring over his shoulder toward the sea.
“I was looking at the view.”
“You were plotting your escape.”
His hand settled against her waist. It was a light touch, but it was possessive. The movement earned a laugh from one of the event planners passing nearby. Tristan flashed her another smile.
Everyone loved Tristan. It was impossible not to. Sometimes she thought that was part of the problem.
“Come inside,” he said. “My mother has already changed the seating chart twice.”
“Only twice?”
He groaned dramatically.
“There it is. That’s the woman I’m marrying.”
The comment earned another smile from her. A real one this time. Small. Brief. Enough to satisfy him. He squeezed her side before heading back toward the villa.
Halfway there, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen. Something shifted across his face. Gone almost instantly.
“Take it,” Celeste said.
“It’s work.”
“You always say that.”
He pointed at her.
“Because it’s always work.”
Then he disappeared through the doorway. Celeste watched him go. The knot in her stomach tightened, for reasons she couldn’t explain.
By sunset, the villa was overflowing. Family members. Friends. Business partners. People she had met once and somehow was expected to remember.
Champagne flowed endlessly. Conversations blended together. The evening became a blur of introductions and congratulations. Every few minutes someone reminded her how lucky she was. How beautiful the wedding would be. How perfect they were together.
By ten o’clock, her cheeks hurt from smiling.
By eleven, she escaped.
The guest wing was blissfully quiet compared to the reception downstairs. She kicked off her heels the moment she entered her suite. The silence wrapped around her immediately.
For the first time all day, she exhaled with relief. Her phone buzzed. A message from her best friend.
How’s future Mrs. Laurent doing?
Celeste smiled despite herself.
Barely surviving.
She tossed her phone onto the bed and headed toward the adjoining sitting room.
Her laptop was still packed away somewhere. She needed tomorrow’s travel schedule. Tristan had downloaded everything onto his tablet earlier that week. He’d told her she could use it whenever she wanted. The device sat on the coffee table exactly where he’d left it. Celeste picked it up. Unlocked it. Opened the travel folder. She couldn't find anything in the folder.
A notification slid across the top of the screen. A message preview.
Can’t stop thinking about last weekend.
Her brows drew together. The sender’s name meant nothing to her. A woman. No profile photo. No contact details. Just a first name. Nina.
The notification vanished.
For a second, Celeste simply stared at the screen. Then she opened the message. Silence filled the room. Complete silence.
Her eyes moved across the conversation. Once. Then again. Then a third time. Each pass made it worse. Hotel reservations. Photos. Messages sent after midnight. Inside jokes she didn’t understand. Plans. Promises. Memories. Weeks of them. Months.
The tablet slipped slightly in her hands.Her pulse pounded so loudly she could hear it.
No... No, no, no.
Her gaze snagged on a photograph. Tristan. Nina. A hotel balcony. His arm around her waist. His mouth pressed against her temple.
The image blurred. She blinked. Not because she was crying. Because her brain seemed incapable of processing what she was seeing.
The room suddenly felt too warm. Too small. Too quiet.
A message sat near the bottom of the screen. Recent. Only three days old.
Nina:I can’t wait until this wedding is over.
Tristan:Me neither.
Something cracked inside her. It wasn't a loud crack and it was not dramatic either. But it was just enough to make her shake. Enough to make her realize the version of her future she’d been carrying for three years had never existed at all.
The tablet trembled in her hands again.
The sitting room door opened. Celeste didn’t hear it. Didn’t notice the footsteps. Didn’t realize someone else had entered until a deep voice cut through the silence.
“Hey, I couldn't see you in the celebration. What happened?”
She froze. Stellan. Of course... Of course it has to be Stellan now... What was he going to say to him? She was not even able to move.
The tablet remained open. The messages were still visible. For a long second neither of them moved. Stellan was trying to understand what is going on in ehr head. But then his gaze dropped to the screen. His expression changed. He was not really surprised, but he showed a bitter recognition on his face.
As though he had expected something better. As though this wasn’t the first time he had seen the consequences of his brother’s mistakes.
The realization hit almost as hard as the messages themselves. Stellan lifted his eyes to hers. The silence stretched in between them. It was heavy. Heavy but unavoidable.
And for the first time that evening, someone looked at her as though she wasn’t the bride. As though she was simply a woman whose heart had just been broken into a thousan.
