As I walked, my gaze drifted from my breathtaking groom to the front row of pews on the left side of the aisle.
That was where my immediate family was seated. That was where Claire was standing.
I watched her face as the realization hit her.
Claire was standing next to our mother, her chin held high, that familiar, smug, superior smile permanently affixed to her lips. She had likely been expecting to see Ethan standing awkwardly at the altar in a rented, ill-fitting suit.
But as her eyes tracked from me, up the aisle, and landed squarely on the face of the groom… the smile died.
It didn’t just fade; it was instantly obliterated.
Claire’s body went completely, rigidly still, as if she had been struck by lightning and frozen in place. The color drained from her meticulously contoured face so rapidly that she turned an ashen, sickly grey within seconds. Her jaw physically dropped open.
Her eyes widened to a degree that looked almost painful. I could see the sheer, unadulterated terror exploding behind her pupils.
Her brain was violently attempting to process the impossible data her eyes were sending it. The man she had mocked at the engagement dinner, the man whose ring she had called cheap, the man she believed was a financial loser dragging her sister down… was the billionaire CEO who signed her paychecks. The man who had the power to vaporize her entire career with a single, softly spoken word.
Just as my father and I walked past her row, close enough to hear her breathing, I saw Claire’s knees visibly buckle for a fraction of a second. She grabbed the wooden edge of the pew to steady herself.
