Chapter 1

The wedding was almost here, and my fiance was holding a knife to his wrist.

I was shaking all over. I lunged to stop him.

He pushed me away, his face gone weak and pale. "Penny, don't stop me. Let me do it."

"Why? Why would you do this?"

I wouldn't let go, not for anything. Then one of his buddies told me, his eyes red.

"Our village has this wedding custom. For the seven days before a man marries, he has to bathe with his childhood sweetheart for seven days, to wash away his bad luck, so he can bring good luck to his wife."

"If he doesn't do it, he has to cut off seven pieces of his own flesh as punishment."

"Sy loves you so much, and he's so loyal to you. There's no way he'd ever do anything to hurt you."

Hearing it felt like a blade dragging through my heart. To keep him from hurting himself, I took the knife out of his hand and told him to follow the custom.

I trusted him. I trusted that he was loyal, that he wouldn't do anything wrong.

But on the third day, I couldn't stand it and went to find him, and what I heard through the door was a room full of laughter.

"Sy, that was a stroke of genius!"

"Playing the self-harm angle to fool soft little Penny. There's no such thing as that wedding custom, no such thing as slitting your wrist, all of it fake."

"If I hadn't made it up, she never would have believed me."

And with that, Simon Gilbert pulled Letitia Finch into his arms, and the two of them kissed like they were on fire.

"I'm going to make the most of the days I've got left. Enjoy myself all the way to the end!"

...

1

"Sy, aren't you afraid Penny will figure out you were lying?"

"Camelback Hollow doesn't have any custom like that. If she goes and asks around, how are you going to talk your way out of it?"

Simon couldn't bear to pull his mouth away from Letitia's, letting her keep both hands locked around his neck.

Like the words they had to say were just an interruption, and they meant to pick right back up.

The other men watching them tangled together like that swallowed hard, envy on every face.

"She trusts me too much. She won't come checking up on me."

"Besides, she's a city girl. She can't understand a word of the Camelback Hollow dialect, so she has no idea what the rules are here."

When he finished, a flush spread over his face, like a boy fresh out into the world who'd never touched a woman.

Letitia let out a deliberate little coo, and only then did the others notice one of her hands, brushing up and down Simon's thigh like it might be an accident.

"Damn! Careful you two don't screw yourselves to death!"

"Right, you only came out of that room this morning, and now you're already—"

"What? Jealous?"

Letitia looked around at all of them, pleased with herself. The next second she took a mouthful of red wine and, right in front of everyone, poured it straight into Simon's mouth.

"Damn, now that's how you do it!"

"I bet Penny doesn't get any of this fun stuff, and that's why Sy went and found himself a little fox like Letty before the wedding."

"I'm telling you, Sy, why don't you just break it off with Penny already? Why put yourself through all this?"

Simon's face went cold all at once, and he turned and glared at whoever had said it.

"In this life, no, in three lifetimes over, I would never break up with my Penny."

"Because she's the only one who really loves me. For me, she gave up a bright future overseas and stayed here in the country."

"If I so much as nick my finger chopping vegetables, she'll worry about it all day long."

"I play around, sure, but I know exactly how much Penny means to me."

Hearing that, Letitia was not happy at all.

Her arm snapped tight around Simon's waist, pulling him closer against her.

"Sy, and what, I never loved you?"

"Ha. Your love is too cheap. Good enough for a hookup. Not good enough to be my wife."

The others still didn't quite follow what Simon meant by that.

But they were friends of many years, so they let him say what he wanted.

"Still, you'd better be careful anyway."

Simon waved it off. "Relax. I'm more careful than any of you."

"Every time Penny comes to see me at the set time, she's really checking whether I've stepped out of line. So Letty and I both put on faces like we can't stand each other, sit apart, and don't say a word."

Outside the door, every drop of blood in me froze solid.

My hand was on the door handle, and I still couldn't find the courage to push it open.

The pain rising up from the bottom of me was almost enough to crush me and swallow me whole.