The Bride Vanished With His Best Man

Audrey POV

"Not Julian," Rhys had said.

"Then who?" I demanded, my fingers digging into the leather steering wheel.

Rhys braced his hand against the dashboard as I took a violent right turn onto Fifth Avenue, the heavy tires screeching against the pavement.

"Keep your eyes on the road," he ordered. "Get us out of Manhattan first."

I shoved my left wrist right into his field of vision. The smartwatch screen pulsed with the jagged red line of the active audio recording.

"Give me a name, Rhys. Try to make another decision for me," I warned, "and I tap send. Forty-two brand partners get the raw audio of you admitting to a two-year cover-up right now."

He didn't flinch. He reached for the center console. "You are driving blind. Pull over."

"Give me the name."

Through the rearview mirror, a black SUV swerved through the traffic behind us. A passenger leaned out the rear window, a camera lens pointed directly at our bumper. My dashboard display flashed red with a breaking news alert. Two hashtags dominated the digital screen: #RunawayBride and #BestManHoneymoon.

Rhys pulled his phone from his suit pocket. "I need to call the crisis line."

I slammed my palm onto the media control dial, locking him out of the car's Bluetooth. I switched the internal system to sync with my personal social accounts.

"Voice to text," I commanded the system.

A green microphone icon appeared on the dash.

"I am not kidnapped," I dictated, staring at the road ahead. "Post."

The screen confirmed the upload. I refused to let Gideon's PR team spin me into a hysterical, unstable woman just to save the merger.

The dashboard chimed loudly. An incoming call from Evelyn, the Whitmore family's lead fixer, overrode the radio.

I hit the speaker button.

"Audrey, thank god," Evelyn's voice flooded the cabin, crisp and entirely devoid of actual relief. "We are releasing a unified statement to the press. Julian suffered a sudden, severe medical emergency at the altar. Rhys is currently escorting the bride to a secure location."

I looked at Rhys. He stared straight ahead at the windshield, his jaw locked tight.

"Escorting," I repeated.

I grabbed the digital camera I kept in the side door pocket. I raised it and snapped a photo of Rhys. The flash illuminated his large hand resting near his pocket, right where he still kept my confiscated cell phone.

"Evelyn," I said, leaning toward the microphone. "You have exactly thirty minutes to retract the word 'escorting'. If you don't, I post this picture. I will let the entire country decide if the best man is protecting me or holding me hostage."

"Audrey, be reasonable. The board is watching your every move—"

I ended the call.

Rhys rubbed his chin. "You are strapping a bomb to your own company."

"You weren't worried about my company when you kissed back last night," I fired back.

He turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto mine. "You kissed me first."

"And you didn't push me away," I said. "Until you remembered your job."

I pulled the bridal car into a grimy gas station just past the city limits. Rhys unbuckled his seatbelt. "We need to strip the ribbons and the magnetic JUST MARRIED placard. This car is a beacon for every paparazzo on the East Coast."

He popped the glovebox and pulled out the emergency toolkit. As he reached for a flathead screwdriver, his leather wallet slipped from his inner jacket pocket. It hit the rubber floor mat and flopped open.

A glint of silver caught the overhead streetlamp.

I snatched the wallet before he could reach it. Lodged tightly inside the clear ID slot was a heavy silver cufflink. The initials J.V. were deeply engraved into the polished metal.

I recognized the custom lettering instantly. Julian wore that exact pair two years ago during the Hamptons charity weekend. The same weekend Celeste officially joined my agency.

Rhys froze, his hand hovering over the toolkit.

"Where did you get this?" I asked, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper.

"Give it back, Audrey."

"Where?" I yelled, slamming the leather wallet against the steering wheel.

He didn't try to grab it. "Outside Room 217 at the Hamptons. Celeste's suite. I found it on the carpet after I watched Julian walk out at dawn."

"The security footage. The hotel cameras in the south wing."

"There was a twenty-three-second backup," Rhys said, his tone entirely flat. "Now there isn't."

He had deleted it.

I pulled the cufflink from the leather slot. Every time Celeste had abruptly changed my travel schedule over the past two years, every time Rhys had casually suggested I shouldn't bother checking Julian's phone—they were all weaving the exact same net.

I didn't hand it back. I shoved the silver square deep into the hidden pocket of my lace bodice.

"Stay in the car," I told him.

I pushed the heavy door open and marched toward the station's dingy restroom. My silk skirt dragged across the oil-stained concrete.

I stood before the cracked mirror and hit record on my smartwatch camera.

"I am safe," I said directly to the lens, keeping my tone perfectly steady. "I left the wedding willingly. Anyone claiming Julian had a medical emergency, or that my mental state is compromised, is lying."

I shifted my shoulder, ensuring the violently torn edge of my veil and the white lily of Rhys's stolen boutonniere were clearly visible in the frame.

I tapped upload.

By the time I walked back to the car, the consequences hit. My watch vibrated violently. A notification from the Whitmore board popped up: Aster House payment systems frozen pending review. Another alert followed from my top three brand partners, demanding a formal clarification in twelve hours or they would pull their contracts.

Then, a text from Gideon.

"Return to the venue immediately. Or your eight percent transfers to the group on Monday morning. You are destroying your own life."

Rhys stood by the front bumper, holding the crumpled magnetic bridal placard and a fistful of white ribbon. "Give me the keys."

He reached out. I stepped back, twisting my body away from him.

The sudden movement snagged the delicate lace of my bodice against the sharp metal latch of the open car door. The fabric ripped with a loud tear.

The silver cufflink slipped from the broken pocket and hit the concrete. It rolled rapidly toward the edge of the gas pumps.

"Hey! That's them!"

A group of college kids piled out of a rusted sedan, phones already raised and recording. The live broadcast light blinked red on their screens.

One of them lowered a phone, tracking the rolling silver object. The camera zoomed in tight on the engraved J.V.

Rhys slammed his heavy shoe down over the cufflink, trapping it against the pavement.

He was three seconds too late.

My watch chimed. A live stream notification popped up, tagged by a celebrity-news account with four million followers.

The headline read: "Why does the best man have the groom's missing cufflink from two years ago?"

Rhys read the screen over my wrist. The muscles in his neck pulled tight.

"Now Gideon will go after Mira."