Less than an hour later, I was sitting alone on the floor of our honeymoon suite listening to a recording that made me question the previous five years of my life.

I had been married for two hours and forty-three minutes.

That number stayed with me.

Two hours.

Forty-three minutes.

Not even enough time for the flowers at the reception to begin wilting.

My name is Ryan Whitmore.

At the time, I was thirty-two years old.

Rachel Richardson and I had been together for five years.

We met at a charity gala in Atlanta.

She was twenty-two then.

Blonde.

Blue-eyed.

Quick smile.

The kind of person who could walk into a room containing two hundred strangers and leave with fifteen new friends.

I had always been slower socially.

Not shy exactly.

Just cautious.

I grew up around people who wanted things from my family.

My father, James Whitmore, built Whitmore Development from a small regional operation into a major commercial real-estate company.

By the time I was in my twenties, people had already decided what they thought my last name meant.

Money.

Access.

Introductions.

Property.

Rachel felt different.

Or I believed she did.

She made fun of how carefully I planned vacations.

She stole fries from my plate.

She could make my father laugh, which was harder than most people realized.

She remembered my mother’s birthday even after Mom was gone.

Five years is a long time to build evidence in favor of love.

We had birthdays.

Holidays.

Arguments.

Makeups.

Trips to Savannah.

A terrible weekend in Charleston where the hotel air-conditioning failed and Rachel spent two days pretending she was “embracing Southern authenticity.”

She moved into my Buckhead penthouse.

She knew where I kept the coffee filters.

Which side of the bed I slept on.

Which songs reminded me of my mother.

What kind of tie I wore when I was nervous.

Those details felt like proof.

That is the dangerous thing about familiarity.

It feels very similar to truth.

Our wedding took place at the Biltmore Estate.

Three hundred guests.

Full orchestra.

Seven-tier cake.

White roses.

Crystal chandeliers.

Rachel had spent nearly a year planning it.

“It should feel unforgettable,” she kept saying.

She was right.

Just not in the way either of us had imagined publicly.

After the ceremony, Rachel sent me upstairs.

“Change out of the tux.”

“You picked the tux.”

“I know, and it’s gorgeous, but you’re going to complain all night that you can’t move.”

“I can move.”

“You walk like somebody wrapped you in cardboard.”

I laughed.

“Five minutes.”

“Five.”

She kissed me.

“My husband.”

I remember that.

The way she said husband.

I thought I had waited my whole life to hear it.

The honeymoon suite was quiet.

I loosened my tie.

Then had what I believed was a brilliant idea.

Rachel loved harmless pranks.

We had done them for years.

Fake spiders.

Hidden birthday gifts.

Jump scares.

Nothing cruel.

Just ours.

I decided to hide under the bed.

Ridiculous.

Childish.

Exactly the kind of thing Rachel would pretend to hate and then bring up for the next decade.

The king-sized bed sat high enough for me to slide underneath.

My Hugo Boss tuxedo immediately started collecting dust.

I remember thinking Rachel would be furious about that.

Then the door opened.

I almost shouted.

Stopped.

The footsteps were wrong.

High heels.

Precise.

Heavier than Rachel’s.

I knew Rachel’s walk.

Five years.

These were not her shoes.

The person crossed the hardwood.

Then sat directly above me.

The mattress compressed.

Springs shifted.

Through the narrow space beneath the bed, I saw black designer pumps.

Diane Richardson.

Rachel’s mother.

I froze.

Diane had disappeared from the reception downstairs.

I assumed she needed makeup.

Or quiet.

Or one of the thousand things mothers of brides apparently needed during expensive weddings.

Then she put her phone on speaker.

“Martha?”

A woman answered faintly.

Diane said:

“Hold on. Let me get comfortable.”

She adjusted above me.

Then:

“I’m calling from the honeymoon suite.”

I almost moved.

Why was she in our room?

Then she laughed.

“No, Ryan’s still downstairs playing host with James’s business people.”

I went still.

Not because she had insulted me.

Diane had made little comments for years.

Rich-boy jokes.

Only-child jokes.

Comments about my father.

Comments about how “protected” I had been growing up.

I had always interpreted them as personality.

Then she said:

“The plan has gone perfectly.”

The room changed.

Not physically.

Everything simply acquired another meaning.

Martha said something I could not make out.

Diane answered:

“Rachel has him completely convinced.”

I stopped breathing for several seconds.

“She did the hard part. Five years.”

Martha laughed through the speaker.

Diane continued.

“He signed the agreement.”

Agreement.

The prenup.

My stomach tightened.

“He thinks it protects him.”

Another laugh.