Chapter 1 - The Wedding at My Gate
At 6:42 on Thursday morning, three wedding trucks rolled up to my gate for a wedding I had never agreed to host.
By 6:47, my sister had called me nine times.
By seven, a florist was crying in my driveway, a caterer was threatening to charge somebody twelve thousand dollars, and a man in a black polo was telling me he had been hired to build a temporary dance floor over my lawn.
The wedding was supposed to start at four that afternoon.
According to two hundred invitations, it was supposed to happen at my house.
I stood behind the locked iron gate in sweatpants, holding coffee in one hand and my phone in the other.
The first driver lifted his clipboard. “Ms. Whitcomb?”
“That’s me.”
“We’re here for Brielle Price’s wedding setup.”
“There is no authorized wedding setup here.”
He blinked. “I have a signed schedule.”
“I’m sure you do. You still can’t come in.”
Behind him, a white van idled at the curb with roses pressed against the windows. Another truck carried rental chairs. A fourth vehicle was already turning onto the road.
My phone lit again.
BRIELLE.
I declined the call.
Four days earlier, my younger sister had thrown a bowl of marinara sauce into my face in front of our parents because I told her the same thing.
No.
Not maybe. Not we’ll discuss it. Not if you make me feel guilty long enough.
No.
The driver lowered his clipboard. “Ma’am, I need to call my supervisor.”
“Please do.”
My security camera chimed. Another car had stopped outside the west gate.
This one I recognized.
My mother climbed out first, still wearing the silk robe she used when she wanted everyone to know she had been emotionally inconvenienced before breakfast. My father followed, jaw tight. Then Brielle stepped out of the back seat in oversized sunglasses and a white tracksuit with BRIDE written across the chest in gold letters.
She walked straight to the intercom.
“Open the gate, Delaney.”
I pressed the speaker button. “No.”
Her head jerked toward the camera.
“Stop being dramatic. The vendors are here.”
“I can see that.”
“Then open the gate.”
“No.”
My mother pushed beside her. “Honey, we do not have time for this.”
I almost laughed.
They had arrived at my property with vendors, flowers, chairs, catering equipment, a string quartet, and apparently the belief that if enough people showed up at once, my answer would become irrelevant.
Brielle took off her sunglasses.
Her face was already made up for the wedding. Perfect foundation. False lashes. Pale pink lipstick.
“You are not ruining my day over a stupid principle,” she said.
“It stopped being a principle when you sent people to my home without permission.”
My father stepped toward the intercom. “Delaney, open the gate. We’ll sort it out inside.”
“No.”
Brielle stared into the camera for a long second.
Then she smiled.
It was not a happy smile.
It was the smile she used when she believed she had already arranged the ending.
“Fine,” she said. “Then explain the contract.”
She held a folded document up toward the camera.
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At the bottom of the first page, under PROPERTY OWNER AUTHORIZATION, was my name.
And beneath it was a signature that looked almost exactly like mine.
