Olivia pressed play.
The screen was small, but I didn’t need more than three seconds to recognize Victoria Montgomery.
The security footage showed the service hallway outside the bridal suite the previous evening.
The image was silent and slightly grainy, but the sequence was painfully clear.
At 8:17 p.m., a venue employee carried my original garment bag through the service entrance and placed it inside the bridal suite.
At 8:41 p.m., Victoria appeared.
She was wearing the same dark coat she had worn to the rehearsal dinner.
She looked down the hallway, opened the bridal-suite door and disappeared inside.
Less than two minutes later, she came back out carrying my garment bag.
The real one.
She walked out of camera range.
Four minutes later, she returned carrying another garment bag.
The one currently hanging open behind me.
The one containing the clown costume.
Olivia lowered the phone.
Neither of us spoke.
For the first time that morning, my laughter disappeared completely.
Knowing Victoria hated me was one thing.
Knowing she had actually entered my bridal suite, taken the wedding gown I had saved for and replaced it with a costume designed to humiliate me was different.
This wasn’t an impulsive insult.
She had planned it.
She had waited until I trusted her.
Then she had used the one responsibility I gave her to hurt me on the most important morning of my life.
Olivia looked furious enough to march directly into the garden.
“We stop everything,” she said.
“We show Ethan right now.”
I looked through the window.
Guests were settling into their chairs beneath the flowers and greenery Ethan and I had chosen together.
My parents were in the second row.
My father was adjusting his tie.
My mother was holding a tissue even though the ceremony hadn’t started.
Across the aisle, Victoria sat perfectly straight in cream silk.
She looked calm.
Almost radiant.
She thought I was upstairs crying.
She probably imagined someone would soon tell Ethan that I had panicked, that I couldn’t go through with the wedding, that perhaps Victoria had been right about me all along.
I picked up the red clown nose from the table.
“No,” I said.
Olivia stared at me.
“No?”
“The wedding starts on time.”
“Lily, she stole your dress.”
“I know.”
“And you’re still wearing that thing?”
I looked down at the ridiculous colored fabric.
“Yes.”
Olivia’s expression shifted from anger to disbelief.
Then I handed her the phone.
“But send that video to Ethan first.”
Her eyes widened.
I continued before she could interrupt me.
“Don’t tell him what I’m wearing.
Just send him the footage and tell him I’m coming down the aisle.”
Olivia studied me for a long moment.
“You really want to do this?”
“I spent a year defending myself to Victoria.
