Page 3 of Twisted Hearts

I’d told her straight up I wasn’t inviting her to this farce. If I decided to go through with it, I didn’t want to see her sadness. I didn’t want her to see me be weak.

I cried for hours. She started telling me I didn’thaveto go through with it.

I didn’t. Logically, that was the truth. I could have stomped right out into that church filled with hundreds of people I barely knew and hundreds more I didn’t know at all and called the whole thing off.

Only I didn’t know what would then happen to my dad.

Leaving meant risking his life, or so I feared. I knew so little. While I was irrevocably pissed at him and barely remembered the man I used to know as a little girl, did I want himhurt? What else could they have meant when they said he’d pay with blood and my fate would be worse? I’d received no answers to my questions over the last six weeks. My mom had watched with me with a strange, nervous look in her eye. My dad had barely been home at all, but that wasn’t all that abnormal.

As for Daniel? I’d spent less time with him in the last month and a half than I had at any other point. I’d had to attend a dress fitting, but other than that, I was told all the details were taken care of.

Absurd. None of it made sense to me, and I was just as much in the dark as I’d been on New Year’s Day. All I knew was that if I walked out the door of the bridal suite and down the aisle to Daniel, I’d be signing my name to a lifetime of misery, abuse, and—from what things had sounded like that day—maybe worse.

The door opened and my phone slipped through my fingers, making me lunge to grab it. I tripped, collapsing onto the tufted ottoman as my mother stepped inside.

“Are you ready?”

“Mom.” I gasped, pressing my hand to my chest. If it had been Daniel, he’d have grabbed my throat in his grip for my foolish, klutzy behavior. “You startled me.”

She dropped her clutch onto a chair and headed toward me. She was dressed in an elegant, champagne-colored gown with one thick strap that crossed diagonally over her shoulder across her chest. Ruched across her breasts and fitted to her trim waist, it flowed like silk to the floor. My mom was gorgeous, with auburn hair that shined from frequent keratin treatments.

“Your bridesmaids are worried.”

My bridesmaids—like they cared about me at all. I hadn’t even had a choice in who stood up with me, not that I wanted anyone I knew to see me. I was one hundred percent certain my cousins and Daniel’s sister had only agreed because who in their right mind would turn down the opportunity to stand front and center when the mayor’s son got married?

Please.If they only knew how horrific he could be.

“They’re fine.” I’d insisted on getting ready in a room alone. I didn’t care if half the city heard and declared me some diva princess for insisting on a private bridal suite.

My eyes darted to the open window. Outside was a row of rose hedges.

If I jumped, the pain from the thorns slashing my skin would be minimal compared to the pain I’d endure for a lifetime if I stayed.

“Are you okay, honey? Truly? I know this isn’t ideal.”

I saw the dimness in her eyes. Once a cobalt blue and always sparkling, they’d dulled over the years.

For well over a year, I had fought being tied to Daniel because I feared it would result in this: the lifeless eyes that would someday become mine if I stayed.

My chin wobbled. This was a risk—a huge one. Mom could go straight to my dad, and he’d haul me down the aisle with an iron grip on my bicep before I could try to run.

The alternative, though…

Mom and I were no longer close. She had been far too beaten down over the years to show affection anymore, but at one time, she’d loved me and showed it. She’d been gentle and patient and baked cookies despite my father constantly reminding her she had a full-time chef for those types of frivolities.

She was the only good thing in my life.

“Honey…” She came to me then settled perfectly manicured but barely aged hands onto my shoulders, brushing back hair and fiddling with my veil. “Talk to me. Nervous?”

The words lodged in my throat like a handful of cotton.

For a moment, there was a flash of fire in her eyes, the mom I remembered. That spark helped, and my wobbling chin firmed. There had been a time when I could tell her anything. I hadn’t done it in years, but could I be honest with her now?

I yanked my gaze off her eyes and stared at the small freckle at the corner of her top lip, the only blemish on a perfectly made-up face and flawless skin.

“He hurts me,” I murmured, voice raspy. It was true in more ways than one. He hadn’t bruised me or hurt me since we’d gotten engaged, but I was smart enough to know it was a brief reprieve, the only blessing in the last six weeks.

My mom’s eyes widened, but I stared at the freckle I used to kiss when the top of my head barely reached her waist.

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