Chapter 2No Second Chances for My Amnesiac Groom

The blood drained from my limbs, leaving my veins filled with slush.

Marcus broke the trance first. He bolted down the aisle and grabbed Simon by the collar of his jacket. "Are you out of your goddamn mind, Simon?!"

His voice echoed sharply against the limestone walls. "Seven years! Nora is the bride today! She’s twenty-four weeks pregnant with your twins! Don’t pull this psychotic stunt now!"

Simon pulled his arm free with a light, dismissive scoff, looking at Marcus like he was a toddler throwing a tantrum in a grocery aisle.

"Pregnant?"

Simon turned his head slightly, glancing at me. The sheer indifference in his expression—the faint, patronizing irritation—was a blunt knife sawing slowly into my sternum.

"I don't know her," he said.

The room erupted.

"What is happening? Did he have another episode?"

"Is his amnesia back?"

"Jesus Christ, what about Nora? Look at her bump..."

My mother tried to stand, her hands gripping the pew in front of her, her lips trembling so violently she couldn't form a syllable. I stood frozen in the middle of the aisle, my fingers gripping the stems of white calla lilies until the stalks snapped and green sap stained my satin gloves.

Marcus’s face was gray. He gripped Simon by the nape of his neck and half-dragged him toward the private vestry off the side of the altar.

The heavy oak door didn’t catch. It remained open by a sliver.

I moved toward it like a sleepwalker, my feet carrying me across the stone floor without my permission, until I was pressed against the shadowed molding outside.

Their voices cut through the jamb with razor clarity.

"Are you really going to keep this charade going?" Marcus’s voice was a furious hiss. "Evelyn has a bad week, so you turn Nora into the town joke in front of four hundred people?"

Charade.

The amnesia. It was fake.

The tips of my fingers went numb.

A silence hung in the room for several seconds. When Simon spoke, it was that same low, measured voice I had fallen asleep to for seven years—reasonable, calm, utterly devoid of guilt.

"Evelyn is spiraling, Marcus. Her doctor said the stress could trigger another cardiac event."

"So you destroy your pregnant fiancée?!"

"Evelyn depends on me. She only listens to me," Simon said evenly, as if explaining an algebraic equation. "I have to give her absolute, unmistakable proof that she comes first. It’s the only way to stabilize her."

Marcus sounded incredulous. "And Nora? She’s six months along! You humiliated her at her own wedding! What happens when she finds out this was all staged?"

"Nora will fix herself."

The reply came without an instant of hesitation.

"She’s always been sensible, Marcus. Since she was a kid, she’s known how to handle her own mess. With my intermittent amnesia as an excuse, she’ll rationalize it. She always finds an excuse for me."