Chapter 4 A Bride in Waiting.

The lace of the gown whispered against Isla's skin as the seamstress yanked it into place for the last fit. The bodice hugged her waist like a secret she'd not intended to keep, its fine lace curling up her collarbone like a repressed breath. She stood still, tight-backed and detached, staring at herself in the full-length mirror of the bridal suite, but all she saw was the stranger staring back at her.

"You look like royalty," Nina called from the side of the room, her voice husky but laced with challenge.

"I feel like a pawn," Isla whispered.

Nina got up, her heels clicking across the marble floors of the high-end bridal boutique. Her reflection aligned with Isla's in the mirror-tall, lovely, unafraid. "A pawn doesn't look like she's walking into war with her head held high."

Isla's fingers shook as she smoothed the fabric over her hips. The gown was lovely-ivory with vines embroidered along it like veins, the illusion neckline shimmering in the light of the chandelier. But nothing could take away from the weight in her chest. She was not the sort of woman who had dreamed of her wedding day. Her life had been one of survival, not dreams. But one time, she had dreamed of marrying for love. Not coercion.

"Are you sure?" Nina asked, finally voicing what had resided in her furrowed brow the entire morning. "You can still change your mind. Bolt. We can vanish."

Isla's gaze met hers in the mirror, her words little more than a whisper. "My father would die, Nina. You know that."

Nina winced as if she'd been slapped. She folded her arms and turned her head. "Yeah," she said. "And Milton knows it too. That's the only reason he's got you in that damn dress."

There was a thick silence after that. Neither needed to speak what they both knew. This wasn't love. This was a deal with too many zeros and too much hurt involved.

However, Isla had allowed the final hem to be pinned by the seamstress. She stayed static, a specter among lace, a bride offered up.

Later, the pre-wedding shoot was done outside the Milton Grand Hotel, on the roof beneath an orchid and sky arch. Isla had her hair curled, her makeup glossed into perfection. Every flash of the cameras captured the smile, but none captured the tremor in her heart.

Alexander stood beside her, immaculate in his black formal. He didn't touch her. Didn't look at her unless the photographer instructed him to. But Isla sensed the burn of his gaze when he thought she wasn't aware. It wasn't lust. Not even hatred any more. It was confusion-a man wrestling with himself, staring at a battlefield he no longer controlled.

"Look at each other," the photographer prompted, gesturing with a cheerful obliviousness that felt like cruelty. "Let's try a candid shot. Imagine this is the happiest day of your life."

Isla turned her head slowly. Alexander's eyes met hers, grey and unreadable.

"Happiest day," he repeated under his breath. A scoff touched the edge of his voice.

Isla forced a smile. "You're doing an excellent job pretending."

"So are you."

They held the pose. Shutter clicks were heard.

It was only later, as Isla changed quickly back into her everyday attire, that Alexander remained on the rooftop with his aide, muttering over a tablet filled with travel schedules and press releases. Nina walked over to him, the stilettos of her shoes clicking like gunfire across the stone pavement.

"She's tougher than you suppose," she said bluntly, moving into his space. "But if you hurt her more than you already have-if you break her-promise, Alexander, I'll break you."

Alexander did not lift his head. "Isla made her choice."

"No, she made a sacrifice," Nina snapped. "There is a difference. And you know it."

For the first time, his eyes rose. Cold. Calculated. But also, perhaps... tired.

"You think I don't already know I'm the villain of her story?"

Nina tilted her head. "Then reform what you're doing. Write the damn thing differently."

The ride out to the Milton hotel that evening was a wordless and interminable one. Isla sat in the back of the black limousine, by the window, watching the city turn to sunset and dark. The closer they got to the estate, the more her stomach clenched. The ceremony tomorrow was going to include royalty, billionaires, media moguls-and Alexander's father.

James Milton hadn't hidden his disdain. Not just the wedding, but Isla herself. Her blood, her heritage, her very presence. At the rehearsal dinner two nights ago, he hadn't even tried to conceal his disdain.

"Wedding her will destroy you, son," he'd warned Alexander in public in front of several board members.

Alexander had said nothing in reply. Not in public. But he'd become icier since then.

That night, Isla stood in the hotel suite, looking at herself again in the mirror. The dress was hung away, hair unpinned. She wore a soft robe, and her skin crawled with exhaustion of dishonesty. Her phone buzzed with media alerts. Headlines were obsequious:

> Cinderella or Scandal? Alexander Milton Weds the Daughter of the Man Who Murdered His Mother

> Milton Wedding Sparks Corporate War: Power Play or True Love?

> Who Is Isla Grant? The Invisible Girl Now Wedded to a Billionaire

> She flipped the phone around and allowed her to drop it onto the bed. "".

Her chest swelled and contracted in ragged breaths. She stood there, remembering her father in the hospital, his bony fingers wrapped in hers, the contortion through the pain. "You're the best thing I ever did, kid," he'd wheezed a week before. "Even if I don't deserve you."

She blinked back a sting in her eyes.

There was a knock on the door that shuddered her out of her thoughts.

She swiped at her face and yanked it open-to find no one there. Just a little white envelope taped to the door.

Her name, in bold cursive.

There was a note inside, written in cursive script:

> Tomorrow, you'll walk down that aisle for a man who broke you. But I hope you remember who you are. Not his wife. Not your father's daughter. Just Isla. That's enough.

No signature. No clues.

She read it twice, carefully folded it, and stuck it in her pocket.

Alexander sat meanwhile in his suite, looking at the wedding rings in a velvet case. His phone rang once more-another news outlet requesting a last-minute interview. He let it ring.

Instead, he gazed at a photo on the edge of his desk. His mother. A soft smile, a tilt of the head, a face full of warmth he had wasted years trying to blot out of his mind because remembering hurt.

Would she be proud of what he was trying to do? Or horrified?

He closed the box.

Walked to the door of his suite.

Paused outside Isla's room.

His knuckles quivered, ready to knock.

He thought of all the things he could say. Should say. Things she had to know.

But what he did was let his hand fall and step back.

It was darkening outside. Isla lay on the edge of the bed, city lights glinting like stars behind the curtain. Her head was muddled, heavy. But deep inside beyond the noise there was a voice she'd not heard in a long time-her own.

This union was never hers. She'd known that. But maybe-just maybe-how she arrived could still be hers.

She folded the wrinkled letter again and smoothed the ink with her thumb.

Tomorrow, she'd wear the dress. Smile into cameras. Recite vows.

But tonight, she'd sit in quiet and remember her name.

Isla.

Not a pawn. Not a victim.

And maybe, just maybe, not broken beyond repair.