Chapter 1
The first snicker hit before my heels even reached the end of the marble aisle.
I kept walking.
One foot in front of the other.
White lace dragging soft behind me, the fabric catching on the raised, pale scars that snaked down my left jaw.
Hundreds of eyes burned into me.
Not with joy.
With curiosity. With judgment. With the same cruel fascination people have for car crashes they slow down to stare at.
Whispers rippled through the ballroom like wind through dry grass.
Look at her face.
How can he stand to touch her?
Poor Liam. He must be desperate.
My name is Audrey.
Three years ago, a fire ate through half my face.
Ate through my home, my safety, the last pieces of the life I’d had after my mom died.
I kept walking.
Some guests gaped, mouths hanging open like they’d forgotten how to close them.
Others snapped their heads away, cheeks pink, like looking at me left a stain on their eyes.
Then I heard her.
Aunt Beatrice.
Her voice cut through the noise, sharp and bright as shards of broken glass.
“He must be blind to marry someone who looks like that.”
She said it loud enough for three full tables to hear.
A few people snickered.
I lifted my chin higher.
The scars pulled tight across my temple, down my cheek, under the edge of my gown’s high lace collar.
Once they’d been raw, oozing, red with agony.
Now they were pale, permanent.
A map of the night I’d almost died.
A map of every lie Beatrice had told since.
I reached the altar.
Liam’s hand closed around mine.
Warm. Solid. Unshakable.
“Do you want to go?” he whispered, so low only I could hear. “We can leave right now. Screw all of them.”
I looked into his eyes.
The only eyes that had never flinched when they looked at my face.
The only eyes that had traced every scar with gentle fingertips, kissed the worst of them, and told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“No,” I said, soft but steady. “Let them show us exactly who they are.”
He smiled.
That quiet, fierce smile that had carried me through twelve surgeries, endless skin grafts, and six months too afraid to look in a mirror.
Standing next to him, I felt whole for the first time since the fire.
Standing within ten feet of Beatrice, I remembered every single thing she’d taken from me.
After my mom died, she’d taken me in.
Told the whole town she’d rescued her poor, orphaned niece.
Never mentioned I cooked every meal, scrubbed every floor, worked two jobs after school to pay her bills.
Never mentioned she’d forged my name on $80,000 worth of loans to prop up her failing event-planning business.
I’d found the documents once, hidden in her closet.
She’d cried. Begged. Swore on my mother’s grave she’d pay every cent back.
Then the fire happened.
After that, she’d decided I was too broken. Too damaged. Too ugly to ever fight back.
Dinner started.
My cousin Chloe stood.
Champagne glass raised high, red lips stretched into a smirk that looked exactly like her mother’s.
“A toast,” she purred, letting her eyes drag slow over my face. “To Liam.”
The room went quiet.
“Some men marry for beauty.”
She paused.
Let the words hang.
“Others… settle for personality.”
Scattered laughter bubbled up around the tables.
Liam’s mom went pale, hand flying to her mouth.
His best man stared hard at his plate, shoulders tight with rage.
Liam tensed, ready to stand.
I laid my hand light on his wrist.
“Not yet,” I breathed.
Beatrice took my silence for surrender.
Slowly, she rose to her feet.
Adjusted the diamond necklace around her throat.
The one I’d paid for with my mom’s life insurance money.
She smiled out at the crowd like she was the bride. Like this was her day.
“We all wondered if Audrey would ever get a wedding,” she said, voice thick with fake, syrupy pity. “Considering… her condition… Liam truly deserves a medal for what he’s doing.”
I stared right at her.
“My condition?”
Her gaze flicked to my scars, then darted away, like looking too long made her skin crawl.
“Do we really have to spell it out?” she said, and tittered.
The entire ballroom went dead silent.
Liam reached for the microphone.
I stopped him with the tiniest shake of my head.
Beatrice thought she was destroying me.
She had no idea every forged signature, every stolen dollar, every lie she’d ever told was already written down, notarized, and sitting in a briefcase by the door.
She also thought Liam was just a regular insurance guy with a little family money.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
The man standing beside me owned Hale Corporation.
May you like
The company that employed nearly half the people in that very room.
They just didn’t know it yet.
