Chapter 21: The Wedding

Lana's POV

I walked down that aisle alone, because I had told the usher to go away.

Four hundred faces turned with me.

Press stood in a line along the back wall, and every lens followed my dress.

Halfway down I passed Meghan's empty chair, and a man in a church suit with a cane at his knee.

Then I passed Mitchell, standing at the end of a row with his hands at his sides.

I didn't look at him.

If I looked, I wouldn't be able to do this.

Lawrence waited under the arch of orchids, smiling the soft smile I had once mistaken for kindness.

He held out his hand.

I stopped one step below him.

"Beautiful," he whispered.

"Thank you for coming," I said, to the room.

The officiant frowned at his book and cleared his throat.

"Dearly beloved," he began.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Before anyone promises anything, I'd like the room to hear something."

Lawrence's hand closed on my elbow, gentle as a vise.

"Lana."

"Meghan," I said, and lifted my voice. "Play it."

For a second nothing happened.

Then a speaker hissed in every corner of the ballroom, and a car door shut somewhere in the past.

Lawrence's own voice came out of the ceiling.

It was bright and easy, the voice he used for toasts.

Mitch. She's on her way up.

A woman near the front gasped.

Lawrence let go of my arm.

The room had gone so quiet I could hear the chandeliers tick.

Then the recording clicked off, and four hundred people looked at the groom.

"That's a forgery," Lawrence said, at once, smooth as glass. "It's been cut together by my brother."

"It was left at eleven fifty-two on the night of the gala," I said. "It has a time stamp."

"Mother." He turned. "Tell them."

Constance had risen from the front row.

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