Chapter 1 - The Clippers Hit the Wall
The buzzing reached me before the crying did.
I had just stepped into the hallway outside Rosemere House’s bridal suite when I heard the sharp mechanical hum behind the cream-colored door.
Then Maisie screamed.
Not the scream of a hurt child.
The worse kind.
The sound she made when somebody had frightened or humiliated her badly enough that she couldn’t find words.
I opened the door.
For one second, my mind refused to understand what I was seeing.
Celeste stood beside the lighted vanity in her ivory-and-champagne wedding gown, one hand gripping a pair of electric clippers.
My three-year-old daughter stood in front of her in the pale-lavender flower dress Audrey had chosen that morning.
Fake blonde hair covered the floor.
Maisie had been born without hair. She had never had a single natural strand on her scalp. Her little blonde wig was something she loved because she could remove it whenever she wanted and put it on when she wanted to feel like the princesses in her picture books.
Celeste had known that from the day we met.
Yet she was running the clippers through the wig while Maisie cried.
“You don’t belong in my wedding,” Celeste snapped.
The clippers buzzed once more.
Another crooked section of blonde synthetic hair fell.
“Dad…”
That one word stopped everything.
Celeste turned.
Audrey, Maisie’s nanny, was already moving toward her, but I got there first.
I took the clippers from Celeste’s hand.
She opened her mouth.
I switched them off.
Then I hurled them into the empty wall.
The crack sounded like a gunshot inside the bridal suite.
The plastic casing struck the cream-colored plaster hard enough to leave a jagged mark before dropping onto the carpet.
Celeste flinched.
Maisie didn’t.
She just stared at me through tears.
I stepped between them.
Audrey immediately moved behind me and drew Maisie close without touching the damaged wig.
“Stay away from my daughter.”
Celeste’s face changed.
Not guilt.
Anger.
She lunged one step toward Maisie as though she still believed she had the right to finish whatever she had started.
I blocked her.
When she tried to push around me, I shoved her once in the upper chest and shoulder.
Hard enough to separate her from us.
Nothing more.
She stumbled backward into the vanity.
Bottles toppled.
Brushes scattered.
A glass jar rolled off the edge and cracked against the floor.
Then everything went still.
Celeste gripped the vanity.
Her perfect makeup had not moved.
Her dress remained immaculate.
But something behind her eyes had broken.
Maybe because for the first time she understood I wasn’t going to calm this down for the photographers downstairs.
I wasn’t going to tell Maisie that Celeste had only been stressed.
I wasn’t going to protect the wedding.
I looked at my daughter.
Three years old.
Safe.
Terrified.
Pieces of the wig she had proudly shown me at breakfast were lying around her shoes.
That was when the last doubt disappeared.
I reached for my left hand.
Celeste saw what I was doing.
“Grant.”
I pulled off the engagement ring she had given me during our private ceremony rehearsal six months earlier.
Her breathing stopped.
I dropped it onto the floor.
The metal struck the hardwood with a small, almost delicate sound.
“You are no longer the new owner.”
Celeste went pale.
Audrey stared at me.
She clearly didn’t understand.
Maisie couldn’t possibly understand.
But Celeste did.
And that was the first thing that frightened me.
Because I had never told Celeste everything about the ownership transfer.
There were conditions in the Rosemere House agreement known only to me, my attorney, and the escrow officer handling the transaction.
Yet Celeste didn’t ask what I meant.
She didn’t ask what ownership I was talking about.
She slowly turned her head toward the open hallway door.
As if she expected someone to be standing there.
And someone was.
A woman in a charcoal suit stood motionless beyond the threshold holding a thick cream-colored legal folder against her chest.
Brooke Halpern.
My property attorney.
Celeste whispered something so quietly I almost missed it.
“You already changed it.”
I looked at her.
Changed it?
I hadn’t changed anything yet.
Not officially.
Brooke’s eyes moved from the ruined wig to the engagement ring and finally to me.
“Grant,” she said carefully, “before anybody leaves this room, there’s something you need to see.”
Celeste took one step away from the vanity.
“No.”
Brooke tightened her grip on the folder.
“It was delivered to escrow forty-three minutes ago.”
My stomach dropped.
“What was?”
Celeste closed her eyes.
And suddenly I understood why her fear had nothing to do with the canceled wedding.
Whatever Brooke was holding had been sent before I ever walked into that bridal suite.
May you like
And somebody had signed my name to it.
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