Chapter 2

The whole room went silent for a moment, then broke into an uproar.

Derek was startled for a second, then his brow furrowed hard. "Your mother did do something wrong, and now she can't even be called out for it, is that it?"

Tracey stood up and, crying, took the flowers off the front of the car.

After all that handling, the bouquet had already started to wilt.

She shoved the flowers hard into my arms. "I didn't think you'd be so petty. Fine, I'm giving the flowers back to you now, I don't want them. That works, doesn't it?"

Before I could react, the dense thorns on the stems had already dug into my palm, a sharp, piercing pain. "Ah!"

I looked down and saw blood seeping from my palm.

Derek's gaze fell on my hand, and for an instant his expression softened with concern. "How could you be so careless..."

The next second, Tracey tore off her bridesmaid dress, weeping with tears streaming down her face. "This morning you saw me come out in my bridesmaid dress and your face just fell."

"You've been making a scene this whole time, and what it really comes down to is you don't want me as your bridesmaid, you don't want me beside you when you get married!"

"Fine, I won't be your bridesmaid, and I won't wear the dress either. Just stop saying spiteful things about calling off the wedding!"

Someone among the groomsmen chimed in at once.

"Tracey was only trying to lighten the mood. Why is the bride such a sore loser!"

"The bride's just jealous that Tracey's prettier than her, afraid of getting upstaged, so she keeps finding ways to give her a hard time."

"No wonder the bride always fought Tracey over everything when they were little. Turns out she's been jealous since childhood."

Tracey's bridesmaid dress was already torn, a rip in the fabric at the shoulder, and her makeup was washed away by her tears.

She looked up at me, her voice choked, and asked, "Are you satisfied now? Stop making things hard for Derek!"

Derek instantly took back the concern he'd shown me. He pulled off his jacket and draped it straight over Tracey's shoulders. "It's all right. I'm here."

Then he turned his head, his voice low. "That's enough out of you. Go apologize to Tracey right now."

I ignored him. My palm was still hurting, and blood was already dripping from my fingers onto the floor.

My phone buzzed.

I unlocked the screen with one hand. It was a picture from Hubert.

A luxury wedding car, its hood blanketed with large red roses that hid half the engine cover.

Tracey leaned in and caught a glimpse of my screen. "So it wasn't that you were mad about me taking the flowers. You thought the bouquet Derek had ready wasn't good enough, so you found outside help to bring flowers over?"

"Jemmy, have you been reading too many novels?"

"That's enough already. It's just a wedding. Does it really call for such a big production?"

Derek's expression changed in an instant, and he snatched my phone away. "What outside help? Bringing flowers over?"

But before he grabbed it, I'd already locked the phone.

I shook my head. "None of this has anything to do with any of you."

Derek tried to unlock it twice and failed both times. "Tracey already gave you the flowers back. Hurry up and cancel those lousy flowers."

As he spoke, he tossed the phone back to me, then paused. "Jemima Fox, I'm asking you one last time. Are you going to apologize to Tracey or not?"

I looked up. "No."

His brow furrowed. "Fine, then take off your wedding dress right now and give it to Tracey to wear!"

"Tracey's bridesmaid dress got torn because of you. You owe her this!"