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He has a firm grip on my upper arm, so I have no illusions that he’s going to let me go. No, he plans to hand deliver me to my father at the back of the church.
“Check the dressing room for her flowers,” Brian says.
Mina nods and leaves me alone with him. When we get to the back of the church, Erica, the rest of my side of the wedding party, and my father are all back there. I can’t believe he’s walking me down the aisle. It really is the most vile thing in the world.
He’s the one forcing me to marry Aidan instead of agreeing to help me run away. Even after everything else this past year, I’ve never quite seen my dad as a coward before now. How could he just let this happen? How could he literally escort me to this man and hand me over, and with hundreds of witnesses? It’s so gross.
This is a debt being paid, a financial arrangement. A property transfer. How traditional.
A few minutes later, Mina returns with my bouquet—off-white roses and pale pink lilies. She hands them to me, and for a moment I see the barest amount of pity in her gaze, as if she could ever understand me and what I’m going through.
Then this strange woman moves in close. She feigns a hug like we know each other and whispers in my ear. “Give it a chance.”
She doesn’t say give him a chance. Just it. This whole fucked-up situation. As though I could ever just accept this.
Then she joins Brian in their seats at the back of the church. The place is packed with everyone Aidan and I know. How mortifying. I have to keep reminding myself that none of these people—well definitely none of the people on my side of the church—knows what’s really happening here.
For all they know, I’m in love. But surely eyes widened and whispers commenced when they saw his name on the invitation. Surely they realized he was “that Stryker”.
There are multiple photographers who have been snapping away this whole time. Candid photos, photos of the enormous church with all its stained glass, the guests. And now they turn their focus to the bridal party as the string quartet begins to play and bridesmaids start moving down the aisle.
My ears are ringing. This is really about to happen. The aisle is too long and from the back of the church, I can’t see Aidan yet. I don’t want to see him. I just want to run away.
There are six bridesmaids, not counting Erica, and I don’t know a single one of them. They’re Aidan’s family or friends of Aidan’s family. My mother suggested I should include some of my sorority sisters in the bridal party, but we’ve fallen out of touch, and if they were included, I would have had to have a bachelorette party and pretend I was happy about all this.
The flower girl and ring bearer walk down the aisle next. She’s got a tight grip on his arm and half drags him down the aisle like this is her wedding and she’s not letting this one get away. He carries an ivory satin pillow on which our rings have been carefully secured. Nina, the flower girl is Aidan’s cousin. She flings the rose petals creating erratic pink carnage all the way down the aisle.
All the appropriate ooh’s and aaah’s happen in response to the kids, and then the music and energy of the room changes, everyone stands, and I start down the aisle. About halfway down, my heart stops as the groom comes into view.
No, it can’t be. This cannot be happening.
I spent weeks stupidly fantasizing about the stranger in the alley, about him somehow rescue-kidnapping me and whisking me away from my sad situation. The betrayal of it all cuts through me as I take him in.
He’s wearing a very nice suit but not a tux. It’s all black. Jacket, shirt, vest, tie, shoes, pants. He is making absolutely no attempt to not look like a nicely dressed criminal. He hasn’t even bothered to cover the tattoos on his fingers, or the snake slithering up the side of his neck.
His intense gaze locks on mine, and I don’t know what to feel. Lust, anger, betrayal, and fear all compete for dominance. I can’t reconcile that this is the man Aidan grew to be, and suddenly I’m even more afraid of him and what he’s capable of.
My father hands me off, and Aidan takes my hand. We turn to face the priest and there is the collective sound of hundreds of people sitting down all at once as the music concludes.
I want to scream for help. He’s too close to me, that woody green scent enveloping me like a thick fog. He feels terrifying and wild like the forest, and right now I am Red Riding Hood about to get lost in the dense trees with only the wolf for company.
And yet none of our guests seem alarmed. No one objects. No one stands and rides to my rescue, certainly not the “stranger from the alley.”
This is the guy who made me feel so unsafe for so many years. This is the man who has kept me on a knife’s edge of fear about my future for the past three months, and I just can’t do this. I’m about to bolt, screaming from the church.
What will he say? What will he do to me for this embarrassment? For revealing the truth of what’s happening right now? Will anyone help me? Will anybody care? Or will they all turn their heads politely away and pretend they aren’t seeing it as I’m dragged kicking and screaming back to the volcano I’m about to be tossed into.
The virgin sacrifice.
Does it even matter that my dress isn’t white?
As though sensing my thoughts, or feeling a shift in my body language as I poise to run, he grips my hand far too tight for me to slip away.
The priest instructs us to face each other, and now there’s nowhere to run from those eyes. He is the opposite of Brian. Whereas Brian’s eyes were soulless, Aidan’s seem to contain too much of every emotion that exists. And somehow that scares me even more. Anything that happens with this man is not going to be carefully calculated. It’s going to be wild and animal, and I don’t know if I can handle it.
I’m torn between my body’s demented demand that he be inside me, and my mind screaming that I can’t allow this to happen, I have to get away to safety, because the one thing I am one hundred percent certain about, Aidan Stryker is not by any definition, safe.
His thumb begins to stroke softly over the back of my hand as the priest coaxes me to repeat vows.