Hadley’s POV
The front door stuck the way it always did in humidity, and I had to shoulder it open.
Eight hours on the bookstore floor, three more in a lecture hall.
All I wanted was a shower and a pillow that wouldn’t ask me anything.
Instead, every light in the living room was on.
My parents sat on the couch with that particular stillness that never precedes anything good.
“Hadley.
We need to talk.” My father’s voice had an edge I rarely heard aimed at me.
I let my bag slide off my shoulder.
“Can it wait?
I’m barely vertical.”
“No.” My mother lifted a cream envelope between two fingers, the way a prosecutor holds exhibit A.
“This arrived today.”
Gold script caught the lamplight, and my stomach folded over before I’d read a word.
I didn’t need to read it.
“Jocelyn’s wedding invitation.” She announced it the way you’d mention traffic — as if my cousin hadn’t taken a wrecking ball to my life six months ago and strolled away humming.
“That backstabbing witch is not my cousin.”
My father’s face darkened three shades.
“Hadley Marie Vane.
That’s enough of that language.”
“She slept with Emmett.” My voice cracked clean down the middle of the sentence.
“In my bed, Dad.
Four years I gave him.
In my own room.”
My mother produced one of her trademark sighs.
“Emmett was the one with a girlfriend.
Jocelyn was just…
confused.
He manipulated her.”
A laugh scraped out of me, short and tasting like copper.
“Confused.
Is that the official family position?
She looked me in the eye afterward and smiled, Mom.”
“This childish feud needs to end.” She steamrolled on as though I hadn’t spoken.
“Your aunt is heartbroken that you keep skipping family gatherings.”
“I’m so sorry my trauma is inconveniencing everyone’s holiday schedule.”
My father rose to his full height — a gesture he’d perfected over decades of ending arguments through sheer presence.
“You’re going to this wedding, Hadley.
That’s final.”
“I’m — what?” I searched his face for some flicker of irony.
Nothing.
Granite.
“You heard me.
Your mother wants peace in this family, and you’re going to help make it happen.”
“By watching the man I thought I’d marry walk my cousin down the aisle?” My eyes burned.
“Do you have any idea what that would do to me?”
My mother’s mouth compressed into a line so thin it nearly disappeared.
“It’s been six months.
You need to move on.”
“I have moved on!
Moving on doesn’t mean I throw them a party and applaud while they slow-dance to our song!”
“ENOUGH.” My father’s shout cracked through the room and I flinched — full-body, involuntary, the kind that shames you as it happens.
“This isn’t a debate.
You’ll be there with a smile on your face, or you can find somewhere else to live.”
The ultimatum hung between us, cold and absolute.
I turned before either of them could watch my face collapse and fled down the hall.
My mother’s voice chased me, something conciliatory.
I slammed the door on it.
My bed caught me the way beds do when you’ve used up every reserve of composure.
After that the rest came in waves — six months of swallowed grief, shaken loose all at once.
And now this.
My own parents were still choosing peace over me, and somehow that cut deeper than the first betrayal.
“They’re actually making you go?” Cora’s eyes stretched wide as she slid a paper cup across the breakroom table.
“That’s cruel.
Even for your parents.”
I’d called her the second I got out of bed, voice still wrecked, and she’d dropped her whole morning to meet me on a fifteen-minute break.
She’s been my best friend since kindergarten — the girl who shared her animal crackers unasked and once punched a boy for pulling my braid.
When the Emmett-and-Jocelyn catastrophe detonated, she planted herself in front of me and dared the shrapnel to get past.
“Dad says he’ll kick me out if I don’t show.” I watched the steam curl off the coffee.
“I can’t afford my own place yet.”
“Those self-righteous—” She bit the word in half, and then her whole expression shifted.
“Wait.
When is this wedding?”
“Next Saturday.”
A grin spread across her face, slow and wicked, the kind I’ve both feared and worshipped since middle school.
“Perfect.
The Sinclair Masquerade Ball is the same night.”
“The what?”
“Only the most exclusive event this city sees all year.
My dad got an invite through a business contact.
I’ve got two spare tickets.”
“Cora, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.
Tell your parents it’s a networking event for your career, which isn’t even a lie.
Half the city’s business elite will be crammed into that ballroom.”
“They’ll never buy it.”
“Leave that to me.” She caught my hand and squeezed.
“There is no timeline in which you sit through Jocelyn marrying your ex-boyfriend.
You’re coming with me.
End of discussion.”
Three days later she’d talked my parents and her own boyfriend into the whole scheme, going so far as to have her father ring mine to rave about the professional connections I’d be an idiot to pass up.
My father, who could never resist the scent of upward mobility, relented before dinner was cold.
“See?
Problem solved.” She announced it like a general accepting a surrender, sprawled across my bed with her phone already open to boutique websites.
“You’ll stay at mine Friday.
Saturday we get ready together.”
Something in my chest loosened — a knot I hadn’t known was there.
“Have I told you lately you’re the best friend a person could have?”
“Not nearly often enough.” She winked without looking up.
“Now.
We need to find you something devastating to wear.”
The night arrived faster than I was ready for.
Standing at Cora’s mirror, I barely recognized the woman looking back.
Black hair past my shoulders in loose waves, and a deep red satin dress that traced lines I usually keep under work polos and oversized cardigans.
“The final touch.” Her voice went almost reverent as she lifted an intricate golden mask out of its tissue paper.
I settled it over my eyes and tied the ribbon, the silk cool against my temples.
The stranger in the glass looked mysterious and luminous, nothing like the girl who’d spent six months crying into sheets that still smelled faintly of someone else’s perfume.
That woman looked like she’d never been betrayed by anyone.
Like she wouldn’t allow it.
“You look incredible.” Cora adjusted her own silver mask and stepped into the frame behind me.
“If Emmett could see you right now he’d choke on his own regret.”
Nolan rapped on the door frame, already in his suit.
“Ladies?
Car’s waiting.”
We started out, and panic clamped down on my chest without warning.
What was I doing?
I’m not the kind of girl who crashes exclusive parties and lies to her parents and walks into rooms full of strangers pretending to be someone worth knowing.
“Wait.” I grabbed Cora’s wrist, my pulse going in my temples and my fingertips and the hollow of my throat.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not — I’m not brave like you.
Maybe I should just stay here.” The thought of a ballroom full of people whose lives hadn’t recently detonated made my stomach lurch.
“Please, Cora.
Let me stay?”