“I wanted to embarrass my cheating fiancé,” I said. “It was not my finest moment, but it had nothing to do with your family.”
Malcolm glanced at Reid.
“This marriage is another attempt to defy me.”
Reid’s jaw tightened. “At first, maybe it was. But not anymore.”
“What happens when the excitement disappears?”
Reid looked at me.
“Then we find out whether anything real remains.”
The question followed us home.
As our ninety-day deadline approached, Reid became quieter. I assumed he was preparing to leave, so I gathered the divorce documents and made a list of the belongings he had left in my apartment.
On the final day, he picked me up in the same black taxi he had driven the night we met.
He parked outside my attorney’s office but did not turn off the engine.
“I don’t want a divorce,” he said.
I looked at him.
“I know this began for the wrong reasons. You wanted to hurt Blake, and I wanted to escape my father’s control. But somewhere along the way, it stopped being an arrangement.”
He opened the glove compartment and removed a small velvet box.
“I’m not asking you to marry me. We already did that badly.”
I laughed through the tears gathering in my eyes.
Inside was a simple oval diamond ring.
“I’m asking whether you’ll choose to stay married now that we actually know each other.”
I looked down at the divorce papers in my lap.
Then I tore them in half.
“I was hoping you would ask.”
One year later, on the date Blake and I had originally chosen for our wedding, Reid and I exchanged vows again.
This time, we knew what we were promising.
The ceremony took place in the courtyard behind the bakery where I had once lived. Jocelyn and Priya stood beside me, and Reid’s employees filled several rows of chairs.
Even Malcolm attended. He remained near the back until I invited him into the family photograph.
I wore the same lace dress.
For a long time, I had associated it with betrayal. Eventually, I realized it had never belonged to Blake. It belonged to me and to the life I chose after leaving him.
Two years later, Reid and I have a daughter named Maeve. She has his brown eyes, my stubborn chin, and an alarming fascination with car keys.
Blake eventually married Natalie. Their marriage lasted less than a year. By the time I heard, I felt nothing except relief that their lives no longer had anything to do with mine.
We keep the receipt bearing my phone number, the old yacht photograph, and the torn corner of our divorce papers inside a box with my wedding dress.
One night, while putting Maeve to bed, Reid looked at me and smiled.
“Do you ever regret getting into my taxi?”
“Only when you sing.”
“My singing brought us together.”
“No. My terrible judgment brought us together.”
He wrapped an arm around me.
“Reckless decisions aren’t always bad.”
“No,” I said. “Only the ones made for the wrong person.”
Our marriage began as revenge and rebellion.
It lasted because, once we stopped trying to prove something to everyone else, we began choosing each other.
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