The Runaway Bride's Revenge

"I only chased Celeste to get under Everett's skin." That was the groom. My groom.

Weeks before our wedding, on a yacht a thousand miles south, a drink in his hand and an audience that thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. "Caught her, and the fun just died." He laughed. "But I'm a sore loser.

So I figured I'd skip the wedding. Leave her standing up there alone. Tell me that's not funny." I spent ten years chasing the first man I ever loved.

I gave him up and chose Sebastian instead. Funny. Looks like I'm the one skipping a wedding now. They say the Sinclair heir tore New York apart looking for his runaway bride.

He never found her. Chapter 1 A month before the wedding, Sebastian disappeared. I turned New York inside out. Nothing. Day seven, a text: someone had spotted him in Miami.

I was on the last flight out. I found him on a yacht in the marina, light spilling gold across the black water.

My hand was up to knock when I heard him laugh. "I only chased Celeste to get under Everett's skin." My hand stopped in the air. He didn't sound drunk. He sounded clear.

Easy. "And honestly? Once I had her, she got boring." The men around him laughed, low and ugly. "That's our Sinclair. Picked the one flower nobody else could reach." He liked that.

I could hear him liking it. "You should've seen her chase Everett. Ten years, no shame, the whole city watching. Earnest little thing. Almost a pity." "Pity how?" A slow exhale.

Smoke, probably. "Shame I could have all of her and still not be the one she loved first." Someone whistled. "Ten years she spent on Everett.

You really think she ever cleared him out of her head?" "You've had her three years, Sinclair. Why's it eating you now?" His voice went flat and cold. "Because I worked for her.

Years of it. And a man doesn't like working that hard for second place." "Word is she's losing her mind looking for you. A week now, man. She okay?" Another drag.

That lazy, satisfied sound. "Skipping the wedding, leaving her up there alone. Tell me that's not the best part." I waited for it. Some flicker. Guilt. Tenderness. Anything.

There was nothing on his face but a man who'd finally gotten even. A man who'd been waiting for this. My nails went into my palm.

My chest pulled tight, like something thin had slid clean between the ribs. My thumb was already moving.

I found my phone in my coat, hit record, and let his voice run straight into it until he'd said every last word. I used to think Sebastian was where the running stopped. My ending.

The safe place. I'd even made sure, before I said yes, that what I felt for him was love and not just gratitude. The night he proposed, he lit a whole skyline on fire for me.

Bought an island, named it Celeste Island after me, filled the dark with floating lanterns. I called it romance. It was a performance. Years of it.

A long, patient way to spite a man I didn't even want anymore.

I was twelve when the Ashfords took me in, a smalltown girl flinching at her own footsteps in a house that ran on old money.

Everett stepped between me and the kids who made a sport of it. Once. I loved him for a decade over a single afternoon. I chased him until the whole city knew.

He looked at me like something stuck to his shoe. So I stopped.

And there was Sebastian, who'd been holding an umbrella over my head in the rain the whole time. "I don't need you to see me, Celeste," he'd said that night. "I just need you to be free." I'd swept my heart clean for him.

I'd started letting myself picture the rest of my life. Instead I'd handed him the blade and held still while he used it. He wanted a bride who never showed. Fine.

I'd just be gone before he was. Chapter 2 Inside, the voices kept going. They were workshopping it now, like a game. "You want to really wreck a woman? You don't leave early.

You wait. Let her climb all the way to the top of the staircase, then kick it out from under her." "Exactly. Go home, Sinclair. Pick the dress with her. Mail the invitations.

Smile through every fitting. Then vanish on the day and let her stand up there alone. Trust me. She'll lose it." Delighted, ugly laughter.

I stood at that door and waited for him to say it was too far. That she's a person. That he loved me. The silence stretched. Then, easy as anything: "Yeah. I like it.

Let's do that." The deck didn't move. I did. Something in my chest folded over once and stayed folded.

I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, swallowed it down, and stopped the recording only after he'd signed his name to all of it. You want to play, Sebastian? Then I'll play.

I'll smile through every fitting. I'll mail every invitation. And on the day, I want to see your face when you find out the bride beat you to the door.

I scrubbed every trace of Miami off my calendar and flew home.

In the apartment where we were supposed to start a life, I took down every gift he'd ever given me and cut them apart, one at a time. Strange. I wasn't thinking about anything.

I couldn't explain why my face kept getting wet. It only really got into the bone at night. Withdrawal, I told myself. That's all this was.

I laid the wedding dress flat on the floor. Custom. Six months in the making. The one I'd loved on sight. I took the scissors and opened it from waist to hem in one clean line.

Love does the same thing. One tear and it's finished. You can stitch it shut. It never lies flat again. I gathered all of it. The ruined gifts. The split dress.

I laid them out in the study, the one room he never went into. Exhibits. For later. I couldn't sleep. Scrolling, halfnumb, a suggested account slid up my feed.

The handle alone stopped me. @lovingbash: [The man I've loved for ten years is getting married next month. I think I'm finally brave enough to tell him how I feel.

Wish me luck.] Location: Miami. I almost kept scrolling. Then I looked at the photo under it. A man's hand. Relaxed. Familiar. A wedding band still on the finger. His hand.

His ring. I was still staring at it when my phone lit up. Not him. Everett. "Guess who I just ran into down in Miami." "I don't care, Everett.

Stop calling me from new numbers." I should have hung up. Same as always. I didn't. Chapter 3 I was about to hang up when his voice dropped, smug under the surface