The moment I stepped into the church in my white gown, I should have felt like the happiest woman alive. Instead, my stomach twisted with anxiety as I scanned the crowd for Beckett's reassuring smile. The organ music swelled around me, but something felt wrong—the whispers were too loud, the glances too pointed.

Then I saw her.

Emmy Walker stood in the third row, wearing a white dress that rivaled my own wedding gown. Her golden hair cascaded in perfect waves, and her smile held a secret I couldn't decipher. As our eyes met across the church, her lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Who invited her?" I whispered to Sarah, my maid of honor, who squeezed my hand in silent support.

"I don't know, but ignore her. This is your day, Rose."

But it wasn't just Emmy's inappropriate attire that unsettled me. It was how she leaned toward the woman beside her, whispering details about our wedding that only someone intimately involved in the planning would know.

"The florist nearly used pink roses instead of white peonies," I overheard her say. "Beckett was so upset—he knows white peonies are my favorite."

My favorite flowers were lilies. The peonies had been Beckett's insistence.

I forced myself to look away, focusing instead on Beckett waiting at the altar. His smile seemed strained, his eyes darting occasionally to where Emmy sat. The minister's words blurred as I repeated my vows, the gold band suddenly heavy as it slid onto my finger.

* * *

The reception was a blur of congratulations and champagne that couldn't wash away my unease. I was making small talk with Beckett's aunt when the microphone squealed for attention. Emmy stood at the center of the room, champagne flute in hand, her white dress catching the light.

"I'd like to make a toast to the happy couple," she announced, her voice carrying across the suddenly silent room.

Beckett stiffened beside me, his hand tightening around mine until it hurt.

"Beckett and I have known each other since we were children," Emmy began, her smile beatific. "We've shared so many special moments together."

Something in her tone made my skin crawl.

"Like last summer at his family's lake house," she continued, her eyes finding mine across the room. "Remember that night under the stars on the dock, Beck? Or that weekend in the cabin last month when you said no one understood you like I did?"

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. I felt the blood drain from my face as she continued, each word a carefully placed dagger.

"The way you kissed me in the boathouse just two weeks ago..." Her voice dropped to a theatrical whisper that somehow carried to every corner. "You said our connection was something special—something that wouldn't change just because of a ring."

I couldn't breathe. The room spun as guests exchanged shocked glances. Some looked away in embarrassment; others stared openly, hungry for drama. Beckett's mother, Victoria, sat stone-faced, not a flicker of surprise crossing her features.

"Emmy, that's enough," Beckett finally said, but his voice lacked conviction.

"I'm just congratulating you," Emmy replied innocently. "And reminding Rose what she's getting into." She raised her glass. "To the bride—may you someday find what Beckett and I have always shared."

I stood frozen, humiliation burning through me like acid. Sarah appeared at my side, her arm around my waist the only thing keeping me upright.

"Let's get some air," she whispered, guiding me away as Beckett's best man wrestled the microphone from Emmy's grasp.

The rest of the reception passed in a nightmare of pitying glances and awkward conversations. Beckett avoided my eyes, spending most of the evening in hushed arguments with Emmy in corners where they thought I couldn't see.

By the time we reached the hotel, exhaustion had numbed me to the point where I just wanted this day to end. The bridal suite door had barely closed behind us when an insistent knocking shattered any hope of confronting my new husband about Emmy's revelations.

"Beckett! Open up!" Emmy's voice carried through the door, accompanied by male laughter.

When Beckett hesitated, I yanked the door open myself. Emmy stood there, arm linked with a tall man I didn't recognize, her white dress now stained with wine.

"You promised me the suite," she slurred, pushing past me into the room. "I told Jason we'd have the best room in the hotel tonight."

"What are you doing?" I gasped as she began rearranging the rose petals scattered across the bed.

"This room was always meant to be mine," she replied, her eyes cold despite her drunken sway. "Just like Beckett."

A sharp pain stabbed through my abdomen, doubling me over. I clutched at my stomach, a wave of nausea and dizziness washing over me.

"Emmy, get out," I heard Beckett say, but his voice seemed far away as another cramp tore through me.

Something was very wrong. As Emmy and her companion continued to disrupt our wedding night, I stumbled to the bathroom, collapsing against the cold tile floor as warm wetness trickled down my thighs.

The antiseptic smell hit me first, sharp and clinical, cutting through the fog of sedatives. My eyelids felt heavy as lead, but I forced them open to find myself staring at a stark white ceiling. The hospital room came into focus slowly—the IV drip beside my bed, the steady beep of monitors, the crushing weight of emptiness in my abdomen.

"Oh, you're awake." Emmy's voice drifted from the corner, sickeningly sweet. She sat in the visitor's chair beside an empty spot where Beckett should have been, her white dress from yesterday replaced by a soft pink sweater that made her look angelic. "I've been so worried about you."

I tried to speak, but my throat felt raw. The events of last night crashed back—the cramping, the blood, Emmy's intrusion into our bridal suite. My hand instinctively moved to my stomach, finding only the hollow ache of loss.

"The baby?" I whispered.

Emmy's face arranged itself into a mask of sympathetic sorrow. "Oh, Rose. I'm so sorry. The doctors said... well, these things happen sometimes. Especially with the stress of the wedding and everything."

I stared at her, unable to process her presence here while my husband was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Beckett?"

"He was here all night," she said, smoothing her skirt with delicate hands. "But he was just so upset, so devastated. I told him I'd stay with you while he went home to shower and change. He needed some comfort after such a shock."

Comfort. From her. While I lay here alone, processing the loss of our child.

"He'll be back soon," Emmy continued, her voice like honey over broken glass. "He's just having a hard time dealing with... well, you know how sensitive he is."

The door opened, and Beckett walked in, his hair still damp from the shower Emmy had mentioned. He looked tired, hollow-eyed, but there was something else in his expression—something cold and distant that made my chest tighten.

"You're awake," he said, not moving closer to the bed.

I reached for him, desperate for comfort, for some acknowledgment of our shared loss. "Beckett, the baby—"

"Don't." His voice cut through me like a blade. "Just don't."

Tears spilled down my cheeks. "I lost our baby. Our child is gone, and you're acting like—"

"Like what? Like I don't believe you?" He stepped closer, but not in comfort. His eyes were hard, accusatory. "Because I don't, Rose. I don't believe any of this."

The room spun around me. "What are you talking about?"

Emmy rose from her chair, moving to stand beside Beckett with practiced ease. She pulled a manila folder from her purse, her movements deliberate and theatrical.

"Rose," Beckett said, his voice deadly quiet, "were you ever actually pregnant?"

"Of course I was pregnant! How can you even ask me that?"

"Because Emmy found something." He took the folder from her hands. "Medical records. Your real medical records."

Emmy's voice was soft, understanding, perfectly pitched to sound reluctant. "I didn't want to believe it either, Beckett. But when I saw Rose's behavior at the wedding, how she seemed so... calculated about everything, I had to check. I have a friend who works in medical records, and she helped me verify..."

"Verify what?" I struggled to sit up, panic clawing at my throat.

Beckett opened the folder, his hands shaking slightly. "These show no record of pregnancy, Rose. No positive tests, no prenatal appointments. Nothing."

"That's impossible." My voice cracked. "I was pregnant. I felt the baby. I had morning sickness. I—"

"You had what you wanted to have," he said, his words falling like stones. "You trapped me into this marriage with a lie, didn't you? The whole pregnancy was fake. This miscarriage is just your way of covering it up now that you got what you wanted."

The accusation hit me like a physical blow. I stared at him, at this man I'd married less than twenty-four hours ago, watching him destroy me with Emmy's poison dripping from his lips.

"I would never—" I started, but he cut me off.

"The timing is convenient, isn't it? Right after Emmy's toast, right after everyone saw what we really have together. Suddenly you're having a medical emergency that gets you all the sympathy and attention."

Emmy placed a gentle hand on his arm, her touch possessive even in this moment of my devastation. She nodded sympathetically, as if she too was a victim of my supposed deception.

"I loved that baby," I whispered, the words torn from somewhere deep inside me. "I loved our baby, and I lost our baby, and you're standing there accusing me of—"

"Of lying. Of manipulation. Of trapping me into a marriage based on fraud." His voice was ice, and behind him, Emmy's eyes glittered with triumph masked as concern.

I closed my eyes, feeling something fundamental break inside me. When I opened them again, both Beckett and Emmy were watching me with identical expressions of pity and disgust.

"Get out," I whispered.

"Rose—" Beckett started.

"Get out!" The words tore from my throat, raw and desperate. "Both of you. Get out."

As they left together, Emmy's hand finding Beckett's arm in a gesture of comfort, I curled into myself on the hospital bed. The monitors continued their steady beeping, marking time in a world where my husband believed I was capable of faking a pregnancy, where my grief was seen as manipulation, where the woman who had orchestrated my humiliation was now his source of truth.

I pressed my hand to my empty stomach and wept for more than just the baby I'd lost.

I stared at my phone, the blue light illuminating my tear-stained face in the darkness of our bedroom—no, my bedroom. The room Beckett hadn't slept in for weeks. My thumb scrolled mechanically through his Instagram stories, each new image like a knife twisting deeper into my chest.

Beckett and Emmy at the Obsidian nightclub. Beckett and Emmy sharing a cocktail. Beckett and Emmy dancing, his hands possessively on her hips, her back pressed against his chest, her head thrown back in ecstasy.

The caption under the latest post read: "Finally free to love who I want." The timestamp showed 11:47 PM—exactly six months to the day since I'd lost our baby. Since I'd lost everything.

My fingers clutched the edge of the comforter as I watched him kiss her, deep and passionate, in a video that had already garnered dozens of congratulatory comments. Victoria Richards, my mother-in-law, had even left a heart emoji. The ultimate approval.

I switched off my phone and laid it face-down on the nightstand, where a framed photo of our wedding day still stood. I'd kept it there out of some misguided hope that Beckett would remember the promises he'd made that day, that he would believe me about our child. But tonight, watching him celebrate the anniversary of my greatest loss with the woman who had orchestrated my humiliation, something finally broke free inside me.

I was done waiting for him to remember he had a wife.

* * *

"Rose Ward? I'm sorry, but Mr. Wells is in a meeting right now." The receptionist at the Richards Family Foundation looked at me with barely concealed pity. Everyone knew the story by now—or at least Emmy's version of it.

"Please," I whispered, my voice hoarse from disuse. "Tell him it's about the Sunshine Orphanage project. He'll understand."

The orphanage had been my parents' passion project before they died, the place where Marcel had grown up. It was our connection, the one thing I knew would bring him running.

Ten minutes later, Marcel burst through the door of the waiting room, his tall frame rigid with concern. He stopped when he saw me, his dark eyes widening at my appearance.

"Rose?" He approached slowly, as if I might shatter. "My God, what's happened to you?"

I tried to smile, but my lips trembled too much to form the shape. "I need your help," I managed, before my voice gave out completely.

He was beside me in an instant, his arm around my shoulders, solid and warm. "When did you last eat?" he asked, his voice gentle but firm.

I couldn't remember. Days blurred together in the empty house where I drifted like a ghost while Beckett lived his real life with Emmy. Where he brought her to family dinners, introducing her as his "real partner" while Victoria nodded approvingly and I picked at my food in silence.

"Let's get you out of here," Marcel said, guiding me toward the exit. "My flight from London just landed three hours ago, but I'm here now. Whatever you need, I'm here."

I leaned into his strength, too exhausted to pretend anymore. "They think I lied about the baby," I whispered. "Beckett, his family, everyone. Emmy convinced them I made it all up to trap him."

Marcel's body stiffened beside mine. "And what does your doctor say?"

"I haven't... I couldn't..." The words stuck in my throat. After that day in the hospital, I hadn't been able to face another doctor, another clinical room where my grief might be dissected and dismissed.

"First thing tomorrow," Marcel said, his voice brooking no argument, "we're getting you proper medical care. And then we're getting you a proper divorce lawyer."

* * *

The private clinic Marcel took me to the next morning was discreet, expensive, and thorough. Dr. Patel reviewed my medical history with careful precision before conducting her own examination.

"Mrs. Richards," she said afterward, her kind eyes meeting mine directly, "I can confirm without any doubt that you experienced a miscarriage approximately six months ago. The physical evidence is clear."

Something inside me crumpled at her words—validation of the loss I'd been told was a lie, the grief I'd been forced to question. Marcel's hand found mine, squeezing gently as tears slid down my cheeks.

"I'm also concerned about these blood test results," Dr. Patel continued, frowning at her tablet. "The vitamin levels show unusual fluctuations consistent with tampering or substitution of your prenatal supplements."

Marcel's grip tightened. "Tampering?"

"It's impossible to prove conclusively at this point," Dr. Patel said carefully, "but these patterns are consistent with someone replacing standard prenatal vitamins with something else—possibly just sugar pills, possibly something worse."

Emmy's face flashed in my mind—her constant presence in our home during those early weeks, her insistence on organizing my medications "to help."

"I'd like complete copies of all Mrs. Richards' medical records," Marcel said, his voice controlled but cold. "And a detailed report on these findings, signed and notarized."

Dr. Patel nodded. "Of course. I assume this is for divorce proceedings?"

"Yes," I said, my voice stronger than it had been in months. "It is."