Chapter 2

I pulled off the veil and dropped it on the floor. My voice left no room for argument.

"Until this account is settled, there's no wedding today."

The room broke into an uproar.

The murmuring rolled up onto the stage like a rising tide.

Something like embarrassment flickered across Roy's face.

I looked away and hid the struggle in my eyes.

The truth was, Roy hadn't always been like this.

Seven years together, and we'd never once fought over money.

Anything I looked at twice while we were out shopping would be sitting in our living room the next day.

Back then he loved to say it.

"When you love someone, you buy her the things she loves most and the best of everything."

The gifts piled up at home until there was no room left for them.

Then Sophie came back.

She started loudly preaching her whole leading-lady independence theory.

She branded a woman like me, who accepted gifts, as a self-degrading kept wife.

Without asking me, she listed everything Roy had ever given me on a secondhand platform at rock-bottom prices.

【A friend bought these for his freeloading girlfriend. Cheap, must go.】

And every cent from those sales went straight into her own pocket.

Then she got Roy to start building the fine habit of splitting every cost with me, right from the wedding.

She hooked her hand around Roy's arm, her tone looking down on me from above.

"Long-term dependence on someone else only leaves you unable to live on your own."

"You need to help her build the habit of independence. Don't let love make her lose herself."

I thought Roy would refuse.

But he took the whole theory to heart, and then carried it out to the extreme.

He tried to talk me around.

"Sophie's an expert on this feminism stuff. She knows it inside out. Listen to her, you can't go wrong."

"Darlene, I'm doing this for your own good too."

And now every cent he'd saved off me had gone to Sophie.

Roy pulled the stack of bills out of my hand, tore them up in front of me, and threw them in the trash.

"Don't bring up old accounts anymore."

"Be sensible about this. Don't embarrass your parents."

I turned my head toward the floor without thinking.

At the head table sat Roy's parents and Sophie's relatives, and nowhere among them were the two familiar figures I was looking for.

My eyes went cold.

"Roy, where are my parents?"

He pushed his glasses up his nose, his tone matter-of-fact.

"They wouldn't split half the gift money with the Delgados."

"They can't eat at this reception for free."

"Everyone from the Henson side, I talked them out of coming."

Slowly I clenched my fist, the knuckles straining white.

"Then why are Sophie's relatives here?"

"More people makes for a fuller room."

"They came to help out, being kind about it. Stop nitpicking."

Behind him, at some point, Sophie had slipped the ring off the tray and onto her own hand.

"This diamond's nice, plenty of fire to it. One day I'll buy myself one too."

Roy glanced back and didn't stop her.

"If you like it, wear it and have some fun with it for a few days."

I went to snatch it back.

The second my hand shot out, someone smacked it down, hard.

I stared at Roy, my eyes stinging.

"That is my ring."

He pulled out the receipt and the transfer records and shoved them in my face.

"Half of what paid for it is mine too, so I have the right to decide where it goes."

"Giving it to you doesn't make it all yours."

Sophie stood behind him, holding up her phone for a selfie.

The ring pressed against her cheek and smeared into the foundation caked on her face, thick and greasy, never coming clean again.

My chest heaved a few quick times.

"Fine."

"Then marry her instead."

But the moment I gathered up my skirt and turned, everything in front of me lurched into a spin.

My hand grabbed at Roy's sleeve on instinct, and the next second I dropped into darkness.