Chapter 3

When the call came through while I was still at the hotel, I hadn't expected Eugenia to want to meet me at all.

In the coffee shop, she sat across from me.

I recognized the necklace at her throat. Otto had ordered it last week, two hundred grand, and told me it would be my birthday present the following week.

At the time he'd said, “I'm going to give my wife everything, all the best things in the world.”

Eugenia stirred the coffee in her cup, and the first thing out of her mouth was an order.

“Sandra, let me have this one more time.”

I took a sip of the coffee. Too bitter.

Bitter enough that all my years of kindness to Eugenia felt like they'd been thrown to a dog.

“How much more do I have to give up for you?”

From the tutoring slots with the top instructors before the SATs, all the way to my grad-school recommendation in college.

Every time she said the same thing, “Sandra, you're so brilliant, just let me have this one.”

And every time I agreed, because she was a friend I'd known for over a decade, and I was willing to spare her a little hardship.

But now she even wanted to take my boyfriend.

Eugenia's eyes slowly reddened.

“You have your own talent to fall back on. I don't.”

“I'm slow. I learn everything slowly. I need someone to lean on.”

She said it with such conviction, as if I'd owed her from the day I was born.

She pushed the wedding invitation across the table toward me.

The iris design Otto and I had settled on together had been swapped out for roses.

I like every flower there is. The only one I'm allergic to is roses.

“Will you come be my bridesmaid?”

“I need to watch you see me and Otto get married with your own eyes. Then I can rest easy.”

I didn't answer.

She kept going.

“When it's over, I'll give the bracelet your mother gave me back to you.”

She let her wrist slip out. A jade bracelet swung there.

It was the one she'd asked my mother for the first time they met.

“Ma'am, this bracelet of yours is so pretty. Can I try it on?”

And Otto had said, too, “It's just a bracelet, Sandra. Don't be petty.”

It was the only thing my late father had left me, kept for me by my mother.

My mother's hands had trembled as she handed it over.

Eugenia put it on and never took it off again.

I nodded and agreed.

On the wedding day I set out from the hotel early.

At the bridal suite, the custom gown that had been made for me was now on Eugenia's body, a little tight at the waist.

When the groom's party came to collect the bride, Otto was the first to rush into the room.

When he saw me, his expression went guarded and his face went cold as he warned me.

“Today matters. Don't cause trouble.”

“And Eugenia's carrying now. If anything happens, you can't answer for it.”

Eugenia lowered her head and stroked her belly, a smile on her face.

“I forgot to tell you that day.”

“I'm pregnant. The baby's already three months along.”

I froze where I stood, my nails digging into my palm.

Three months ago was exactly when the hurricane made landfall.

That day, Otto, who had promised to pick me up after work, never came.

He didn't answer his phone. He didn't reply to my messages.

Later, the whole city's traffic ground to a halt.

I was trapped at the office the whole night, no power, no food.

In the middle of the night, a window shattered, glass drifted in and cut into my arm, and blood pooled across the floor.

So that was the night he'd spent locked in a warm bed with another woman.

I stepped back a few paces, making sure I was far away from the two of them.

I thought that would keep anything from going wrong.

Until the ring exchange, when someone came running up onto the stage in a panic.

“The rings are gone. There's only an empty box up there now.”