“Yes. Perfect… I know.”

He waited. She couldn’t think of what to say next. If only she could breathe. She forced her lips to move. “I know we are. Perfect. But… I can’t.”

She waited for him to argue with her. To fight for her. To convince her she was wrong. She waited for him to take her in his arms and tell her this was merely a panic attack. But his expression didn’t change except for an almost imperceptible tightening at the corner of his mouth. “Your friend Meg,” he said. “This is because of her, isn’t it?”

Was it? Would she be doing something so unimaginable if Meg hadn’t appeared with her love, her chaos, and her swift, brutal judgment? “I can’t.” Her fingers were icy, and her hands shook as she tugged at her diamond. It finally came off. She nearly dropped it as she pushed it into his pocket.

He let her veil fall. He didn’t beg. He wouldn’t know how. Nor did he make even the slightest attempt to change her mind. “All right, then…” With a brusque nod, he turned and walked away. Calm. Controlled. Perfect.

As the door shut behind him, she pressed her hands to her stomach. She had to get him back. Run after him and tell him she’d changed her mind. But her feet wouldn’t move; her brain wouldn’t work.

The knob turned, the door opened, and her father stood there, with her mother just behind, both of them pale, tense with concern. They’d done everything for her, and marrying Ted had been the best thank-you gift she could have given them in return. She couldn’t humiliate them like this. She needed to get Ted and bring him back. “Not yet,” she whispered, wondering what she meant, knowing only that she needed a moment to pull herself together and remember who she was.

Mat hesitated and then shut the door.

Lucy’s universe collapsed. Before the afternoon was over, the world would know that she’d dumped Ted Beaudine. It was unthinkable.

The sea of cameras… The herds of reporters… She’d never leave this small, musty room. She’d live the rest of her life right here, surrounded by hymnals and choir robes, doing penance for hurting the best man she’d ever known, for humiliating her family.