My Fiancé Chose My Dying Cousin Instead of Me

I told Colt I was flying to Chicago for a marketing conference. He didn't ask questions. He never did, not about my work, not really. He just said, "Good, that'll give you something to focus on," like I needed a distraction from the wedding I was helping plan for the woman who stole him.

I landed in London at six in the morning and went straight to Mendez Capital from the airport, my suitcase still rolling behind me through a lobby made of glass and pale stone. The building looked out over the Thames like it owned the view. A woman at the front desk didn't blink at my luggage. She just said, "Mr. Mendez is expecting you," and led me up to the top floor.

Marco stood when I walked in. He didn't smile right away, which I appreciated. I'd had enough smiling faces lately to last me a decade.

"Ms. Pierce." He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "You look like you flew here straight off a plane."

"I did."

He studied me for a second, the way you'd study a contract before signing it. "I know who you are," he said. "I know what you built for Burke Enterprises. Their West Coast numbers didn't happen because of Colt's charm."

"No," I said. "They didn't."

"So tell me why you're really here. Not the résumé version."

I folded my hands in my lap. "I'm leaving him. All of it — the company, the relationship, the city. I need it to be permanent. I need a reason not to go back, even on the days it would be easier to."

Something shifted behind his eyes, quick and quiet, like he'd been waiting to hear someone say a true thing out loud. "That's an honest answer."

"I don't have time to be anything else."

He leaned back. "Senior Director, European operations. You'd run point on client strategy, report directly to me. It's a real job, not a consolation prize."

"I don't want a consolation prize."

"I know." He said it simply, like it was obvious, and something about the way he said it made my chest go tight in a way I didn't examine too closely. "Welcome to London, Ms. Pierce."

I flew back to New York that same night. Nobody noticed I'd been anywhere but a hotel conference room.

---

The boutique on Fifth Avenue smelled like white tea and money. Sabrina floated through the racks with a flute of champagne she wasn't supposed to have, given her supposed condition, though nobody in the room seemed to remember that detail anymore. She'd stopped performing frailty weeks ago. She only brought it out for Colt now.

Then she stopped in front of a private mannequin near the fitting rooms, and her whole face changed.

"This one," she said. "I want to try this one."

I knew the dress before I even saw the label pinned inside the collar. I'd sat for three fittings in that exact gown. I'd chosen the lace myself, imported from a small atelier outside Florence, and stood in front of a mirror imagining Colt's face when he finally saw me in it. I'd commissioned it months ago, back when I still believed there was a proposal coming.

"That's a custom piece," the boutique manager said carefully. "It's already tailored to—"

"I don't care whose it was," Sabrina said, already reaching for the zipper. "If it's here, it's available."

She looked at me over her shoulder, waiting for me to object. Waiting, maybe, for one more thing to take.

"Try it," I said. "If you love it, it's yours."

Her smile went soft and triumphant. She didn't ask why I said yes so easily. She never asked why anything came easily to her. It just did, and she took it, and moved on.

The fitting room curtain stayed closed for almost ten minutes. I heard fabric strain, a sharp breath, a muttered curse. I sipped my sparkling water and watched the bubbles rise.

When the curtain opened, the room went quiet in that particular way rooms go quiet right before something breaks.

The bodice fit — barely, painfully — cinched so tight her collarbones looked carved. But the dress had been tailored to my measurements, not hers, and Sabrina was built wider through the shoulders, fuller through the back. She turned toward the three-way mirror to admire herself, arms lifted, chin tilted just so for the phones already coming up around the room.

The seam gave with a sound like tearing paper.

It split clean down the spine of the dress, delicate Italian lace shredding in a straight vertical line from her nape to the small of her back, exposing skin and the plain white slip underneath. She gasped and grabbed at the fabric, stumbling half a step, her champagne glass shattering on the marble floor — a sound I recognized, a sound that lived in my chest now like a second heartbeat.

The boutique erupted in gasps, in phones lifting higher, in one bridal blogger who didn't even try to hide that she was filming.

Colt burst through the front door at exactly the wrong moment, already mid-smile, ready to surprise us. He froze, then lunged forward, ripping off his jacket to cover Sabrina's bare back while she clawed at the ruined lace and made a sound halfway between a sob and a shriek.

He shot me a look over her shoulder. Accusing. Furious.

I sat on the velvet settee, crossed my ankles, and took another sip of my sparkling water.

"It's a beautiful dress," I said, to no one in particular. "Just not for everyone."