The Wedding He Stole Was My Great Escape novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Four Hours in the Limousine
Mireille is locked in a limousine on a bridge while her fiancé marries his assistant on a livestream, and she finds the schedule that says she will forgive them by Sunday.
Twelve black SUVs rolled onto the bridge, stopped one behind the other, and every engine went quiet.
I was in the limousine at the back, in my wedding dress, with one heel already on the pavement.
My brother walked down the line and pushed my foot back inside.
"The groom's people can't see the bride before the ceremony," he said. "Bad luck. Stay in the car, Mireille."
My parents stood in the road behind him and watched him say it.
"Why did we stop?" I asked.
"Engine trouble. Five minutes."
He shut the door, and the lock clicked.
The drivers got out and walked toward the far end of the bridge.
Five minutes became an hour.
The sun beat down on the roof until the leather burned the backs of my legs.
My phone had one bar and nine percent battery.
I called Preston, and it rang out.
I texted my mother and father: Come get me.
Both messages said Delivered and nothing else.
The doors would not open and the windows would not go down.
By the third hour I had stopped sweating.
I am an ER nurse, and I knew exactly what the sun was doing to me.
That was when the limousine's speakers crackled.
My brother Tobias had linked his phone to the car that morning to play my wedding playlist.
Now his phone call came through it, and he had forgotten.
"She's stuck on the bridge," Tobias was saying. "Roadside assistance is an hour out. She won't make it to the ceremony."
"Somebody check on her in an hour," Preston said. "Mar runs hot in a dress. Just don't let her call me until it's done."
I hit the voice memo on my phone.
Then my father spoke, calm and reasonable.
"Lorna has been hounded by that man for three years. He will only stop when he sees her married to someone more powerful than he is."
"It's only a ceremony," my mother said. "Mireille is strong. She'll understand."
"What matters now is protecting Lorna," my father said. "We can always give Mireille another wedding later."
They had not forgotten me on the bridge.
They had put me there.
I took off my shoe and hit the window with the heel until it cracked.
I hit it until my arm shook and the glass gave way.
It cut a line across my wrist, and blood ran down into my sleeve.
I reached through for the handle and fell out onto the pavement.
The convoy was gone, and the bridge was empty.
A state trooper pulled up beside me and stared at the gown and the blood.
"This road's been closed since noon," he said. "Somebody paid for a permit to shut it for a wedding convoy."
"They left the bride," I said.
He handed me a bottle of water without another word.
"They locked the bride in a car by herself?"
I drank it standing in the road until a taxi came over the rise, and I flagged it down.
The driver had his phone propped on the dashboard, playing a livestream.
"You getting married today?" he asked, looking at my dress. "Perfect timing. The Ackerly wedding is everywhere right now."
On the screen was the Ackerly Grand's rooftop, packed with my guests, and Preston in front of the officiant.
Lorna Standish stood across from him in cream silk.
She was his assistant, and my mother's goddaughter, and she had pinned my veil that morning and cried a little because she was so happy for me.
At the back of the crowd stood a man in a gray coat holding a manila envelope.
He did not shout.
He stood perfectly still through every vow, and he only moved after the ring went on her finger.
"Now the rings," the officiant said.
Preston took off the Cartier band I had given him on our fifth anniversary, with our initials engraved inside.
He dropped it on the floor.
Then he knelt and slid a diamond onto Lorna's hand.
"I promise that from today the only thing you will ever know is happiness," he said.
Tobias was weaving through the guests, telling the social media manager to pick ten commenters and send each one a thousand dollars.
"Let everyone celebrate Preston and Lorna," he said.
My mother leaned toward Lorna.
"Did he see the livestream?" she asked. "If he did, he'll give up now."
My father turned to the cameraman.
"Get in closer," he said. "Make sure that man understands he doesn't stand a chance."
The camera swung to the back of the crowd.
Two guards took the man in the gray coat by the arms and walked him out.
He went without a struggle, hands open, and he never let go of the envelope.
Nobody on that rooftop remembered I had been locked in a car for four hours.
Nobody asked if I was alive.
"That groom was supposed to marry me," I said.
The driver looked at me in the mirror, then shut the stream off.
"I'm sorry," he said. "At least you saw who he was before you said yes."
"Take me to the Avalon, in Brooklyn," I said.
When I came through the apartment door, the white lace garland Preston had hung on our balcony was still catching the light.
On the sofa sat a stack of new Crate and Barrel sheets that my mother had picked out for us.
On the kitchen island, held down by a fruit bowl, was a page in my brother's blue pen.
12:00, bridge, all drivers kill engines.
12:05, T locks M in the limo.
4:00, ceremony, L in the cream dress.
5:30, M home, T brings champagne.
At the bottom he had written: She'll forgive us by Sunday.
So I folded the schedule into my bag, next to the recording of their voices.
Then I took off my ring and set it in the fruit bowl.
The reception started at six, and it was already 5:40.
I was still wearing my dress.
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