Chapter 2 - Twenty-Seven Minutes Earlier“Show me.”
Those were the only words I could get out.
Evan glanced toward Lauren.
“I think we should do this somewhere private.”
“This is private.”
“Claire,” Dad said gently, “maybe—”
“No.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off my sister.
“My dress is ruined. Someone sent Mason fake cheating pictures on our wedding morning, and apparently Lauren did something downstairs that security thinks I need to see.”
I stepped toward Evan.
“Show me.”
He nodded.
Evan carried a small tablet connected to Hawthorne Estate’s security system.
He opened a recording.
The timestamp read 10:36 A.M.
Twenty-seven minutes earlier.
The footage showed a service corridor behind the ballroom.
Staff hurried between the kitchen and garden.
Then Lauren entered the frame.
She looked around.
My stomach tightened.
She wasn’t wearing the bridesmaid gown she had on now. She was still dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.
“What is she doing?” Mom whispered.
Nobody answered.
Lauren stepped toward a catering cart.
On the cart were champagne flutes prepared for the bridal party.
She reached into her handbag.
Removed something.
And poured it into one glass.
Tessa gasped.
“What the hell?”
Dad turned toward Lauren.
“What did you put in there?”
“Nothing.”
We all looked at her.
“It was vitamins.”
Tessa laughed in disbelief.
“You secretly poured vitamins into champagne?”
Lauren’s face hardened.
Evan paused the video.
“A server saw her near the drinks. She thought it looked unusual, so she reported it.”
My mouth had gone dry.
“Where is that glass?”
“Secured downstairs.”
“Did anybody drink from it?”
“No.”
Relief weakened my knees.
Evan continued the video.
Lauren walked away from the cart.
But instead of coming upstairs, she entered the administrative hallway.
She checked one door.
Locked.
Another.
Locked.
Then she disappeared through an unlocked conference room.
Three minutes passed.
When she emerged, she held several folded sheets of paper.
Evan changed camera angles.
A second recording showed Lauren approaching the guest-check-in table.
She slipped something underneath the seating-chart binder.
Then continued upstairs.
“What was under the binder?” I asked.
Evan looked uncomfortable.
“We found copies of photographs.”
The fake pictures.
My mother covered her mouth.
Dad slowly turned to Lauren.
“You did send them.”
Lauren snapped, “They’re real.”
“No, they aren’t,” I said. “You know Daniel is our cousin.”
“Not every picture was Daniel.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
She smiled again, but it looked forced now.
“Ask Mason about the others.”
My phone buzzed.
Everyone froze.
Mason.
I stared at his name.
My fiancé and I had agreed not to see each other before the ceremony.
Now I wasn’t sure there would be one.
I answered.
“Mason?”
“Claire.”
His voice made something inside me collapse.
He sounded devastated.
Not angry.
That was worse.
“Where are you?”
“In the library.”
“Did you get photographs?”
Silence.
“Mason?”
“Yes.”
“They’re fake.”
“I know the one with Daniel is misleading.”
“The one?”
Another pause.
“There are six, Claire.”
My heart hammered.
“I’ve seen three.”
“There are three more.”
Lauren watched me.
Smiling.
“Send them.”
“You really want to do this now?”
“Yes.”
A few seconds later my phone vibrated.
Three images arrived.
I opened the first.
And forgot how to breathe.
The photograph showed me entering the Harbor View Hotel in Boston.
Except I remembered that night.
It was the night of my company fundraiser.
The second picture showed me leaving a hotel elevator.
The third showed a man standing beside me.
Mason’s older brother.
Nathan.
Mom leaned over my shoulder.
“Oh.”
Dad frowned.
Lauren folded her arms.
“There.”
I looked at her.
“There what?”
“You and Nathan.”
My voice shook.
“You think I slept with Mason’s brother?”
“I think people can draw their own conclusions.”
Mason was still on the phone.
“Claire, what were you doing at the hotel with Nathan?”
I shut my eyes.
The answer was simple.
But I suddenly understood why Lauren had chosen those photographs.
Nathan had struggled with alcohol for years.
Three months before the wedding, he relapsed at our company fundraiser.
I found him drunk in a hotel bar and called a sober companion Mason’s family used.
Nathan begged me not to tell Mason because he was ashamed.
I agreed, believing it wasn’t my story to tell.
That decision now looked catastrophic.
“He relapsed.”
Mason went silent.
“Nathan?”
“Yes.”
“That night?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he begged me not to.”
I heard Mason breathe.
Then another voice in the background.
Nathan.
“Give me the phone.”
A moment later he spoke.
“Claire’s telling the truth.”
I almost cried from relief.
Nathan continued.
“I was drinking again. She found me. She kept me from driving. She got me upstairs until Paul came.”
Mason said something I couldn’t hear.
Nathan replied sharply.
“No, she didn’t do anything with me.”
Then the call went quiet.
“Claire,” Mason finally said.
“Yes?”
“I believe you.”
My eyes filled.
Across the room, Lauren looked furious.
Then Mason added, “But there’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“I received a message at seven this morning.”
“What message?”
“One saying you planned to leave me after the wedding.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“It said you were marrying me because your company needed access to Whitmore Capital.”
Even Dad looked shocked.
Our last names were the same by coincidence—my family was Whitmore, and Mason’s family company happened to carry his grandfather’s surname, Blackwell. Yet the anonymous sender apparently knew enough about my employer and Mason's investment firm to make the accusation sound plausible.
“Mason, my company has never asked you for money.”
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“I’m not accusing you. I’m telling you what someone is doing.”
Those words changed everything.
Someone wasn’t merely trying to embarrass me.
Someone was constructing a story.
Photographs.
Messages.
Evidence.
One piece at a time.
A story designed to convince Mason that marrying me would destroy his life.
I stared at Lauren.
“What was in the champagne?”
She looked away.
“Lauren?”
Dad’s voice boomed.
“Answer your sister.”
“I told you.”
“Vitamins?”
Nobody believed her.
Evan cleared his throat.
“We can have the contents tested.”
Lauren grabbed her purse.
“This is ridiculous.”
She headed toward the door.
Dad moved aside this time.
But Evan didn’t.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. The venue manager has asked that you remain on the property until police arrive.”
Lauren froze.
“Police?”
Mom whispered, “Oh God.”
Lauren laughed.
“For vitamins?”
“For possible beverage tampering,” Evan said calmly.
“You can’t detain me.”
“No one is detaining you. You’re free to leave. But the police have been notified, and we’ll provide them the footage.”
Lauren’s face tightened.
Then she looked at me.
“Look at you.”
Her voice broke.
“You’re loving this.”
I stared at her.
“My wedding dress is covered in glue.”
“You always get to be the victim.”
Something inside me shifted.
Not anger.
Recognition.
I had heard versions of that sentence our entire lives.
When I got a scholarship, Lauren said our parents favored me.
When I was promoted, Lauren said I had better connections.
When Mason proposed, Lauren said some women were simply “born lucky.”
I had always brushed it off as sibling resentment.
Standing there, I finally understood that she had never been joking.
“What did I do to you?” I asked.
Lauren’s eyes filled with tears.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t.”
She pointed toward the ruined gown.
“You get the dress.”
Then toward the window, where the wedding pavilion stood beyond the garden.
“You get the estate.”
She slapped her own chest.
“You get Mason.”
I stared at her.
“Mason was never yours.”
Her face changed.
And suddenly the entire room became silent.
My mother whispered, “Lauren?”
Lauren’s lip trembled.
Dad looked between us.
“What does she mean?”
But I already knew.
Or I was beginning to.
“Mason,” I whispered into the phone.
He had heard everything.
“Did you know Lauren before you met me?”
Silence.
Too long.
“Mason?”
“Yes.”
The answer cut through the room.
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
“We met once.”
Lauren laughed bitterly.
“Once?”
Mason’s voice sharpened through the speaker.
“Lauren, stop.”
“You stop.”
She stepped toward my phone.
“Tell your precious bride the truth.”
I could hear my heartbeat.
“What truth?”
Lauren looked straight at me.
“Three years before you met him, Mason asked me out.”
Nobody spoke.
May you like
Then she smiled through tears.
“And I turned him down.”
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