The sound wasn’t a crash, but a soft, expensive sigh. A cascade of white hydrangeas, blush peonies, and trailing ivy slid to the marble floor in a funereal heap.
The custom-built floral arch, the one the bride had described as “a gateway to a literal fairy realm,” had just… melted.
Willa Grant didn’t even flinch. She simply pressed two fingers to the earpiece connecting her to her team. “Mads, status on the groomsmen?”
“One down, six to go,” Mads’s voice crackled back, dry as a bone. “Douglass just redecorated a potted fern. Looks like the oyster bar was a bad call.”
“Copy that.” Willa surveyed the floral carnage. Two hundred high-society guests were due to arrive for the ceremony in less than twenty minutes.
This was it. The Newport wedding. The Bridezilla of the Season. The grand finale of her Summer Tour from Hell. And her golden ticket to Bridal Bliss.
She felt a presence beside her and didn’t have to look to know it was Caleb. The air around him always seemed to carry a charge, a quiet intensity that had once set her on edge but now felt like an anchor.
Last night on the cliffs, that charge had ignited, and the memory of his kiss was a warm, steady hum beneath the frantic energy of the day.
“Gateway to the underworld, huh?” he murmured, his camera already up, but not with the predatory glee she remembered from that first wedding. His lens was focused on the mess, but his attention was on her.
“Not on my watch,” she said, her voice crisp with command.
“I need a diversion. A big one. Get the string quartet to move to the north lawn. Tell them to play something dramatic. Vivaldi. Something with urgency. Keep the guests away from the main entrance for at least fifteen minutes.”
He nodded, already moving. “On it.” There was no question, no cynical remark.
They were a single unit, moving with an unspoken understanding that had been forged in the fires of feuding ranchers and garter-snakes.
As Caleb corralled the bewildered musicians, Willa was a whirlwind of controlled chaos. She directed two of her assistants to form a human barricade while whispering instructions to the venue manager about a side entrance.
She found the florist, a woman on the verge of a full-blown artistic breakdown, and spoke to her in a low, calming tone, her hands gesturing as she outlined a new, deconstructed floral installation along the aisle. It was a lie, a beautiful one, but it was working.
She saw Mads across the lawn, discreetly handing a bottle of water and an anti-nausea tablet to another pale-faced groomsman. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, and Willa felt a familiar pang.
The rift between them, born from Mads’s suspicion of Caleb, was a wound she hadn’t had time to tend. Willa had defended him, perhaps too fiercely, but she couldn’t make Mads see the man she’d seen last night—the man who questioned his own cynicism, who looked at her as if she were the only thing in focus.
With five minutes to spare, the guests were being ushered down a re-routed, flower-lined path, none the wiser. The ceremony space, now arch-less, looked intentionally minimalist and elegant.
Willa felt the familiar surge of adrenaline, the quiet satisfaction of a crisis averted. She found Caleb by the sound booth, a small smile playing on his lips.
“You’re a magician,” he said, his voice a low rumble that sent a shiver through her, despite the humid sea air.
“It’s all smoke and mirrors,” she replied, her own smile breaking through. “Just like the rest of this industry.”
She said it as a joke, their joke, but he flinched, a flicker of something dark in his eyes before it was gone. He quickly raised his camera, capturing a close-up of a perfect white rose she’d tucked into a vase.
Before she could question it, a new sound pierced the air. It was a shriek of such primal fury that for a moment, Willa thought a seagull had been grievously injured.
But it was worse. It was the bride.
They found her in the reception hall, a vision in six-figure couture, standing before the magnificent seven-tiered wedding cake. She was pointing a trembling, diamond-encrusted finger at the offending confection.
“What,” she hissed, her voice shaking with rage, “is that?”
The baker, a small man with flour on his nose, wrung his hands. “It’s the passionfruit curd with Swiss meringue buttercream you requested, Ms. Davenport.”
“I requested passion. I requested ecstasy! This,” she scooped a tiny bit onto her finger and tasted it with a look of profound disgust, “is lukewarm disappointment. It tastes like… like a Tuesday afternoon. I demanded a flavor that screamed ‘I have conquered love itself!’ This whispers ‘I’ve settled for a sensible sedan.’”
The meltdown was biblical. Willa stepped in, her body a physical shield between the bride and the trembling baker.
Caleb was filming, of course, but Willa noticed he wasn’t focused on the bride’s contorted face. He was filming Willa’s hands as she calmly took the bride’s arm.
He was filming the subtle shift in her posture as she absorbed the heiress’s rage and began to gently diffuse it.
He was documenting her, and in the midst of the chaos, she felt a wave of profound love for him. He saw her. Not just the problem-solver, not just the “Happily Ever After Helper,” but the person holding it all together.
“Let’s find a solution, Analise,” Willa said, her voice an oasis of calm. “We have raspberry coulis and a white chocolate drizzle in the kitchen. We can turn this into a symphony of flavors. A triumph.”
As Willa masterfully steered the bride away from the cake and toward a new, improved fantasy, Caleb lowered his camera. He ran a hand through his hair, his brow furrowed.
The producer’s voice echoed in his head: “More drama! The Bridezilla is our star!” But watching Willa, he knew his producer was wrong.
The story wasn’t the screaming bride. The story was the quiet strength that could tame her.
The entire premise of his documentary felt cheap and false in her presence. He needed to tell her. Tonight. After this was all over, he would tell her everything.
He had to help. He spotted the DJ setting up and jogged over, instructing him to get the pre-approved playlist ready to go the second the couple was introduced, to cover any lingering tension.
He was so focused on his task, so wrapped up in being a part of Willa’s team, that he didn’t notice he’d left his laptop bag unzipped on a chair in the dimly lit media corner.
But Mads noticed.
She had been watching the whole exchange from a distance, her heart a cold, hard knot in her chest. She saw the way Caleb looked at Willa, the supposed adoration in his eyes.
And she saw how Willa soaked it in, how it fueled her, blinded her. It made Mads’s stomach turn. This wasn’t a partnership; it was a performance.
And Caleb was the only one who knew the script.
Her chance came when another groomsman—the best man, this time—made a desperate, green-tinged dash for the restrooms. Willa was still with the bride. Caleb was with the DJ.
The corner was empty.
Protecting Willa wasn’t a choice; it was an instinct, as automatic as breathing.
Mads moved toward the chair, her steps quiet and deliberate. Her hands trembled slightly as she reached into the canvas bag and pulled out the slim, silver laptop.
It was asleep, not off. She lifted the lid. The screen glowed to life, no password required.
His desktop was clean except for a single folder labeled “W.I.E. Project.” Wedding Industry Exposé. Her breath caught in her throat.
She clicked it open. Inside were video files, audio clips, and one dominant project file for a high-end editing software. The project’s title was For Better or For Footage.
Her blood ran cold. With a shaking finger, she double-clicked it.
The editing timeline loaded, a complex tapestry of video and audio tracks. It was a nearly completed film.
She could see clips from the Napa wedding—the panicked bridesmaid after the snake incident. She saw footage from Wyoming—the father-of-the-bride’s drunken, brawling toast.
And then she saw Willa.
There was a clip of her on the balcony in Wyoming, exhausted and vulnerable, her face illuminated by moonlight. Mads recognized the moment instantly; Willa had confessed to her on the phone later how she’d felt so raw and honest with Caleb that night.
Mads clicked play on the audio track layered beneath the image.
It was Caleb’s voice. His voice, the same one that had whispered Willa’s name on the cliffs last night, was now clinical, detached, and utterly damning.
“…and so they buy the dream,” the recorded voice-over said, smooth and condescending. “They hire planners like Willa Grant, emotional mercenaries paid to construct a flawless fantasy. But even the best helper can’t patch the cracks in a foundation built on illusion. They sell you the ‘happily ever after,’ but what they’re really managing is the crushing weight of expectation…”
Mads felt sick. She scrubbed further down the timeline.
There was footage from today. A breathtaking slow-motion shot of the floral arch collapsing, followed by a clip of Analise Davenport screaming about the cake.
And layered over it all was Caleb’s narration.
“The fantasy requires a villain, and in the theater of modern marriage, the Bridezilla is a willing star. But who is the real victim? The woman demanding perfection, or the industry that profits from selling it as an attainable commodity?”
He wasn’t just a cynical videographer. He was a predator.
He had used the chaos, used their clients, and worst of all, he had used Willa’s heart as his narrative centerpiece. He had taken her most genuine moments of kindness and twisted them into evidence for his scathing thesis.
Mads closed the laptop, the click echoing in the cavernous, silent space. The symphony of disasters outside was nothing compared to the apocalypse she was about to unleash.
She had the proof. And it was going to break her best friend’s heart.