The Livestream That Ended Her Wedding Vows

Six monitors. Six angles. One bride.

Me.

I leaned over the folding table in the third-floor conference room I'd commandeered as my command center, tapping the screen for Camera Four. "Tilt up two degrees. The arch cuts off the groom's head."

"Copy that, Mira."

I straightened, pressed my palm flat against the table, and breathed.

Under the monitor sat a folded photocopy. My condo deed. The notary's stamp still bled blue at the edges. A red checkmark sat in the corner where I'd marked it this morning at 5 a.m., barefoot, in my robe.

Calloway Events. First booking.

The bride was me.

"Mira?" Tomas, my lead camera op, crackled in my earpiece. "Run me through one more time."

"Once more." I pulled my hair off my neck. "Cam One, ceremony wide. Cam Two, groom's face. Cam Three, my face. Cam Four, the arch. Cam Five, guest reactions. Cam Six—" I held up a finger. "Cam Six is the one I'm going to repeat until you hate me."

"Bridal suite hallway."

"Bridal suite hallway." I pointed at the screen showing the cream-papered corridor outside Room 318. "That cam does not turn off. Not when I'm getting touched up. Not when I'm crying. Not when somebody spills champagne. It runs from now until I walk down that aisle."

"Got it."

"Tomas." I waited until he looked into his lens. "My grandmother is in a hospice in Bangor with a tube up her nose. She has maybe a month. She's watching this on an iPad my cousin is holding to her face. If that camera blinks, she misses me leaving the room in a wedding dress. Understood?"

A pause. "Won't blink, Mira."

"Thank you."

I clicked off the comm and exhaled.

The door behind me opened without a knock.

"You're already barking orders," Damon said. "Bride of the year."

Damon Vance. My fiancé in seventy-three minutes. His tie hung loose around his collar. His jacket wasn't buttoned. He looked like a man who had three espressos and zero nerves.

"You're not dressed."

"I'm dressed enough." He came around behind me, set both hands on my bare shoulders, and hummed. "Turn around."

"Damon, I have to—"

"Turn around, Calloway."

I turned.

He found the zipper at the small of my back. The dress was ivory silk crepe, twelve fittings, paid for in installments. He drew the zipper up, slow, until the bodice closed against my ribs.

He bent. Pressed his mouth to my shoulder blade.

"There," he murmured. "Sealed in."

"Like a Tupperware lid."

"Like a contract." His lips brushed up to my ear. "If you fumble your vows, I'm reading mine off my phone, and people will know."

I laughed. Real laugh. Loud enough that Lacey, on her way through the door, paused.

It would be the last time he made me laugh that day.

I didn't know that yet.

"Mira." Lacey Bloom, my assistant, all of twenty-three, came in clutching the bridal bouquet like a newborn. "Bridesmaids are lined up. Hair's done