POV Audrey
Two months have transformed everything I thought I knew about happiness.
The bridal salon's private suite wraps around me in soft ivory and champagne tones as I stand before the floor-length mirror, studying my reflection in the second wedding dress of the afternoon.
"Absolutely not." Kara's voice carries the authority of someone who has rejected seventeen gowns across three separate appointments. "The neckline is wrong, the silhouette does nothing for your waist, and you look like you're attending a funeral rather than marrying the love of your life. Next."
"You said the same thing about the last one." I turn sideways, examining the drape of fabric across my hips. "At some point, Kara, we have to actually choose something."
"You will walk down that aisle looking like the goddess you are, not like someone who settled for adequate because her best friend ran out of patience." She waves toward the attendant hovering near the door. "Bring the champagne, please. We're going to need fortification before we tackle the next round."
The attendant disappears, and I sink onto the velvet settee beside Kara.
"Speaking of the wedding, there's something Shane and I have both noticed, and I need to understand what's happening before I walk down that aisle."
I catch her gaze in the mirror's reflection, watching her expression carefully.
"You've been openly hostile toward Paul Hoffman at every event we've attended together. The dinner last week, the engagement party, even the merger celebration—you can barely look at him without your entire body going rigid. Paul is Shane's best man, Kara. Whatever tension exists between you two will be standing at the altar on the most important day of my life."
Kara's jaw tightens with familiar stubbornness.
"You've already asked me about this, Audrey. Multiple times, in fact. And my answer remains the same—I don't want to discuss Paul Hoffman, his presence at your wedding, or anything else related to that insufferable man. Some subjects are better left buried, and this is absolutely one of them."
"Your refusal to discuss it is exactly why I'm pressing now."
I shift to face her directly, abandoning any pretense of examining my reflection.
"My wedding should be perfect, Kara. A day filled with joy and celebration and the people I love most supporting me as I marry Shane. What it should not be is undermined by feuding witnesses who can't maintain basic civility during the ceremony. I need to understand what I'm walking into."
The champagne arrives before she can deflect again. Kara accepts a glass with the desperate gratitude of someone who needs liquid courage, taking a long drink before finally meeting my eyes.
"Fine. You want the truth? Paul and I were classmates at Stanford Law. We studied together, competed for the same internships, pushed each other to excellence. Somewhere along the way, we became friends with benefits—casual, convenient, no strings attached. At least, that's what I told myself." Her laugh carries no warmth. "Then I made the catastrophic mistake of falling in love with him."
My shock must be visible because she looks away, shame coloring her cheeks.
"You never mentioned any of this. In fifteen years of friendship, Kara, you never once told me you had history with Paul Hoffman. I thought we shared everything—every heartbreak, every humiliation, every secret worth keeping. How could you hide something this significant?"
"Because the shame of it kept me silent, Audrey. I told Paul how I felt, opened myself up completely, made myself vulnerable in ways I'd never allowed with anyone else. And he rejected me. Not cruelly—Paul is too polished for cruelty—but definitively. He said he valued our arrangement exactly as it was, that romantic entanglement would complicate our professional trajectories, that feelings were an inconvenience neither of us could afford."
Her voice hardens with old pain.
"I've carried resentment ever since. Watching him succeed, watching him charm every room he enters, knowing he could have had something real with me and chose ambition instead."
I set down my champagne and pull her into an embrace.
"Paul Hoffman is intelligent and handsome and professionally accomplished, I'll grant him that. But he is ultimately a fool of the highest order for losing the best woman alive. You are brilliant, Kara. Fierce and loyal and capable of a love most people never experience. Any man who couldn't see that—who chose career advancement over a future with you—deserves exactly the regret he'll carry when he realizes what he threw away."
"He won't realize anything. Men like Paul don't regret—they rationalize." But her arms tighten around me, gratitude softening her voice.
"Then we must make him regret." I pull back, sudden determination flooding through me. "We are going to find you the perfect dress for my wedding, Kara. Something devastating. Something that will make Paul Hoffman choke on his best man speech when he sees you walking down that aisle."
Kara's laugh escapes genuine this time, tears glittering at the edges of her eyes.
"That's a beautiful revenge fantasy, and I appreciate the sentiment enormously. But we're here to find your dress first, Audrey. Your wedding, your priority. My vengeance wardrobe can wait."
"Then let's find something extraordinary." I rise from the settee, ready to reject another dozen gowns if necessary. "For both of us."
* * *
Shane's message arrives as I'm leaving the salon, three hours and one perfect dress later.
I have a surprise. Meet me at the address below.
The car delivers me to a building I don't recognize, an elevator carrying me upward toward whatever Shane has orchestrated. The doors open onto an observation deck that steals my breath entirely.
Flowers cover every surface in arrangements so beautiful they seem impossible, their fragrance filling the evening air. The deck is empty except for us, the city sprawling beneath like a kingdom of lights.
I approach the nearest arrangement, bending to breathe in the scent of white roses. When I turn back, Shane is on one knee.
The sight stops my heart completely. He holds a ring box in his steady hands, gray eyes holding mine with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
"Shane, what are you doing? The wedding date is already set. I chose the dress today—finally, after Kara rejected approximately a hundred options. We're getting married regardless of whatever romantic gesture this represents."
"I know all of that, Audrey. But I realized something important—we've never done this properly. Our engagement began as an arrangement, a merger of families and companies and strategic interests. You agreed to marry me because your grandfather demanded it, because the board required it, because refusing would have cost you everything you'd worked for."
His voice drops to something raw and tender.
"I don't want that to be our story anymore. I want you to choose me because you love me. Not for the merger, not to appease our parents, not even for our extraordinary eight-year-old son. I want you to marry me because you want to spend your life with me, and for no other reason."
Tears blur my vision as I sink to my knees before him, bringing us face to face.
"I love you, Shane Reed. I loved you through years of hiding and secrets and impossible choices. And I love you now—openly, completely, without reservation or condition." My voice breaks on the truth I've carried so long. "Yes. A thousand times yes."
The ring slides onto my finger, diamond catching the last light of sunset.
His mouth finds mine as the first firework explodes across the sky behind us, painting the moment in brilliant color. More follow—bursts of gold and silver and crimson illuminating our kiss, our embrace, our beginning.
This time, I chose him for love alone.
And love, it turns out, was always the answer.