Chapter 2 - The Text in the Dressing Room
The heavy oak doors of the bridal dressing room clicked shut behind me, instantly cutting off the thumping bass of the wedding band playing in the main ballroom.
The room was opulent, smelled of expensive lilies and leftover champagne, and was scattered with Allison’s discarded garment bags, designer shoes, and makeup cases.
I stood in the center of the Persian rug, dripping water onto the floor, staring at my reflection in the floor-length gilded mirror.
My mascara wasn't running—I had worn waterproof makeup, thank God—but my hair hung in dark, wet ropes down my back. My pale skin was flushed red from the cold water, and my dusty-lavender dress was ruined, sticking to my skin like a soggy rag.
My hands were shaking, but not from sorrow. It was the white-hot adrenaline of a woman who had spent twelve years holding her breath and had finally decided to inhale.
"Thirty-two years," I whispered to my reflection, my voice cold and calm. "Not another second."
They thought I was alone. They thought I had come to this wedding as the sad, single thirty-two-year-old big sister who had to watch her younger sister get married to a wealthy heir.
They thought I had no one in my corner.
They had no idea that three years ago, on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in a quiet, ivy-covered courthouse in upstate New York, I had placed my hand inside the hand of the most powerful, dangerous man in the tri-state area.
Daniel Reyes.
To the financial world, Daniel Reyes was a titan—the elusive, ruthless founder and CEO of Reyes Global, an international private equity firm that owned shipping ports, real estate empires, and pharmaceutical giants. He was a man whose name made boardrooms tremble and politicians take notes.
To the Hayes family, however, Daniel Reyes was a ghost.
Five years ago, before Daniel built his empire, he had approached my father’s struggling logistics firm with a restructuring proposal. Arthur, in his infinite arrogance and snobbery, had treated Daniel like a street peasant, throwing his proposal in the trash and publicly insulting Daniel's family background at a industry gala.
When Daniel built his multi-billion-dollar empire two years later, Arthur’s company was completely blacklisted from every major trade network in the Northeast. Arthur had spent the last three years trying to figure out why Reyes Global refused to do business with him, entirely ignorant of the fact that the man he had insulted was now the king of the industry.
And Arthur had no clue that the quiet daughter he just pushed into a fountain was Daniel’s wife.
When Daniel and I married, we agreed to keep our marriage private. I wanted to protect our love from the toxic, fame-hungry jaws of my family. I didn't want Arthur using my husband's name to pay off his debts, and I didn't want Allison treating my life like a competition. Daniel had respected my choice, giving me space, waiting patiently for the day I was ready to walk away from the Hayes family forever.
Today was that day.
I walked over to the vanity table, grabbed a dry towel, and began drying my hair and arms. Then I reached into my small, waterproof leather clutch sitting on the table.
My phone screen illuminated.
There were three missed calls from Daniel, sent over the last twenty minutes while the wedding ceremony was taking place.
My fingers flew across the glass screen as I typed out two words:
Come now.
I set the phone down on the marble vanity.
Not even three seconds passed before the screen buzzed in my hand.
Already close. Outside in two minutes.
A cold, fierce smile finally broke through the numbness on my face.
I unzipped the dripping lavender dress, let it drop to the floor, and stepped over it. In my garment bag hanging in the wardrobe closet—a bag I had brought as a spare— sat an exquisite, dry, floor-length midnight-black velvet gown with a delicate diamond-cut neckline. It was a dress Daniel had custom-ordered for me for an anniversary trip to Paris two months ago.
I pulled the black velvet over my head, zipped it up, and slid my feet into a pair of dry, black leather heels. I pinned my dark hair back into a sleek, low bun, fastened my diamond stud earrings, and applied a fresh layer of deep crimson lipstick.
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I didn't look like a girl who had been pushed into a fountain.
I looked like a queen preparing for war.
