Chapter 1She Stole My Groom And The Curse

I asked my best friend to try on her bridesmaid dress. Instead, she walked out wearing my bridal gown.

That should have been the first red flag.

On the morning of the wedding, the final flag was waved. Sienna and my fiancé, Preston, stumbled out of the same hotel room together, clothes disheveled, hair a mess.

The hotel staff froze in shock. My parents were screaming, on the verge of hysterics.

Preston walked over to me, guilt written all over his face, and pulled me into a hug.

I didn't scream. I didn't fight. Instead, I smiled calmly and told them, right then and there, that they could have the wedding. "Take the ceremony," I said. "It's yours."

Sienna smirked, triumphant. She thought she had won.

She had no idea.

Because the moment Preston wrapped his arms around me, the antique silver cross my grandmother left me shattered against my chest.

Nana had warned me once: If the cross breaks, it has taken a death blow for you.

It blocks a disaster.

An Absolute Calamity.

* * *

"Meredith, listen, last night was a mistake. I grabbed the wrong dress in the dark, and Preston… well, he’d had too much whiskey. He didn’t realize it wasn’t you."

Sienna, my maid of honor and supposed best friend, was saying the words, but the smirk playing on her lips told a different story. It was a look of triumph, sharp and unmistakable.

I knew exactly what that look meant.

Preston came from old money. He had that effortless, Ivy League charm and the kind of inheritance that meant he’d never have to work a day in his life. In the six months he’d spent courting me, the gifts had piled up—Diamond tennis bracelets, vintage handbags—totaling more than most people earn in a decade.

I had finally said yes. And this was how the morning of my wedding began.

The scene in the hotel suite was grotesque, almost comical. Sienna was standing there in my custom Vera Wang gown—now shredded at the hem and ripped at the shoulder—her exposed skin a roadmap of what had happened the night before.

Preston, my fiancé, stood with his head hanging low, unable to meet my eyes.

My father, usually a man of quiet dignity, lost it. He lunged past the hotel staff, landing a clumsy kick on Preston’s thigh, screaming obscenities that echoed down the corridor. The staff held him back, but the fury in the room was suffocating.

Preston stumbled, straightened his tuxedo shirt, and finally walked over to me. He pulled me into a tentative, apologetic hug.

"Meredith, I’m so sorry," he whispered, his breath stale with last night’s alcohol. "But what’s done is done. Maybe… maybe it’s best if you just let us be happy."

The audacity took my breath away.

I wasn’t blind. I had seen the way he looked at her over dinners. Sienna was curvier than me, louder, more willing to play the games men like Preston enjoyed. During our engagement, he had dropped hints about what he wanted in the bedroom, hints I had deflected, saving that intimacy for marriage.

Everyone in the room—the staff, my parents, Sienna—braced themselves. They expected a slap. They expected me to scream.

Instead, I smiled. It was a calm, hollow thing.

"Okay," I said.

The room went silent.

"The venue is paid for," I continued, my voice steady. "The guests are arriving. You two should just get married. Right here. Today."

Preston let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for hours. "Meredith… I knew you were classy. Thank you."

My parents looked like they were going to have strokes. My mother looked ready to grab a broom from the housekeeper and beat me with it.

"Meredith!" my dad roared. "You’re letting these—these animals get away with it? Where is your pride?"

I didn’t answer. I grabbed their arms and dragged them toward the elevator, away from the wreckage of my wedding.

Around the corner, out of sight, I reached into my blouse and pulled out the silver chain I’d worn every day since I was a child.

"Mom, Dad," I said quietly, opening my hand. "Nana’s cross."

The antique silver crucifix, once smooth and solid, lay in my palm in two jagged pieces.

The anger instantly drained from my parents' faces, replaced by a pale, trembling fear. My mother hit the elevator button repeatedly, her eyes darting to the security cameras.

"Did that… did that just happen?" she whispered.

My father’s face went from flushed to chalk-white. His hands shook. "No. It can’t be."

I nodded. "It shattered the second Preston hugged me."

My parents exchanged a look of pure terror. The elevator doors Dinged open.

"We’re moving," Dad announced, his voice tight. "Now."

As we stormed out of the hotel lobby, we passed the life-sized cutouts of the bride and groom. My father kicked Preston’s cardboard standee across the marble floor, then grabbed the one of me.

My mother was already on the phone with the wedding planner, her voice low and frantic. "Take everything down. Every photo of Meredith. Every banner with her name. Burn it if you have to. There can be no trace of her left in that ballroom."

Seeing the genuine panic in their eyes, the numbness in my chest cracked. I pulled out my phone and deleted every photo of Preston, every contact, every digital footprint.

We fled the hotel like criminals. By nightfall, we had packed our lives into boxes and were driving out of the state.