Chapter 2 - The Man I Was Supposed to MarryI knew I was probably imagining that the headlights behind me belonged to Grant.
By the time I walked out again, I knew my fiancé planned to kill me.
The evening had started beautifully enough.
Vivian Ashford’s estate sat outside Charlottesville, Virginia, behind black iron gates and acres of perfectly trimmed boxwoods. The white-columned mansion looked like something pulled from an old Southern postcard, except everything inside had been renovated to remind visitors that the Ashfords possessed both history and money.
A lot of money.
Tomorrow, I was supposed to marry Vivian’s only son, Grant.
Nearly two hundred guests had already arrived in town. The flowers were arranged. The champagne was chilling. My wedding dress hung in a suite at the country club.
And I had spent the evening telling myself the strange tension in Grant’s family was simply wedding stress.
“You should go home and sleep,” Vivian told me after dessert.
She kissed my cheek.
Her perfume smelled like gardenias.
“You’ll want to look rested when you become Mrs. Ashford.”
Grant smiled from across the drawing room.
He looked perfect in a navy sweater, sleeves pushed casually to his elbows.
That smile had convinced me to trust him two years earlier.
“I’ll call you before bed,” he said.
I left at nine-fifteen.
Halfway down the long driveway, I realized my coat was still hanging over a chair in the library.
I almost kept driving.
The temperature was supposed to drop overnight, but I had other coats.
Then I remembered something else.
My grandmother’s brooch was pinned inside the lapel.
She had given it to me before she died.
So I turned around.
The front doors were unlocked.
No one answered when I called from the foyer.
“Grant?”
Silence.
I walked toward the library.
Then I heard voices.
Grant’s voice came first.
Calm.
Almost bored.
“Six months is safer.”
I stopped.
Vivian answered quietly.
“Six months still looks suspicious.”
I should have announced myself.
Instead, something in her tone made me remain completely still.
Grant spoke again.
“The policy activates immediately after the marriage. The trust transfer is completed once we file the certificate.”
My stomach tightened.
I knew about the trust.
My grandfather had created it when I was a child.
Most of the money remained inaccessible until I turned thirty-five or married.
Tomorrow would trigger the second condition.
I had never hidden that fact from Grant.
I had simply never imagined he cared.
Vivian lowered her voice.
“And after that?”
Grant laughed softly.
“After that, Emily has a tragic accident.”
Every muscle in my body froze.
For several seconds, my mind refused to process the sentence.
Then Vivian said, “Do not say it like that.”
“Why? We’re alone.”
I pressed one hand against the wall.
My heart was beating so violently I could hear it.
Grant continued.
“She likes hiking. She drives that ridiculous convertible. She swims alone at the lake house. We have options.”
Options.
He was discussing ways to murder me as casually as someone choosing a restaurant.
Vivian said something I couldn’t hear.
Then Grant replied clearly.
“I’m not spending the rest of my life pretending to love her.”
The words hurt in a way I hadn’t expected.
The murder should have mattered more.
Yet somewhere beneath the terror was a smaller, devastating realization.
Every kiss.
Every promise.
Every whispered plan about children.
Fake.
Vivian sighed.
“You need patience. Her family attorney watches everything.”
“I know.”
“And what about Lauren?”
Grant hesitated.
My breath stopped again.
Lauren Devereaux.
His former girlfriend.
The woman Grant claimed he hadn’t spoken to in three years.
“She understands,” Grant said. “Once Emily’s gone, we wait. Then Lauren and I can be together.”
Something inside me changed.
Fear remained.
But underneath it came something colder.
Clarity.
I backed away from the library.
Slowly.
One step.
Then another.
My heel touched the edge of a console table.
A silver picture frame wobbled.
I caught it before it fell.
My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped it anyway.
I reached the foyer.
My coat was ten feet away.
I left it.
I slipped through the front door and walked to my car without running.
Do not run, I told myself.
If they see you, you forgot something and came back.
Nothing more.
I climbed behind the wheel and locked the doors.
My phone lit up.
A message from Grant.
Miss you already, future Mrs. Ashford.
A second message followed.
Tomorrow begins forever.
I stared at those words.
Then I opened my voice recorder.
Because ten minutes earlier, while looking for my coat, I had pressed RECORD accidentally when pulling my phone from my purse.
The timer was still running.
Twenty-three minutes.
I stopped the recording.
My hands went cold.
I had everything.
Grant’s voice.
Vivian’s voice.
The insurance.
The trust.
The accident.
Lauren.
I drove away from the estate without answering him.
At the first stoplight, I called the one person Grant had spent two years convincing me not to trust.
My older brother, Daniel.
He answered on the second ring.
“Em? Everything okay?”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“What happened?”
I looked into the rearview mirror.
No headlights behind me.
Yet.
“Daniel, I need you to listen carefully.”
His voice changed immediately.
“Okay.”
“I’m not getting married tomorrow.”
Silence.
Then: “Where are you?”
“Driving.”
“Pull somewhere public.”
“I can’t explain everything yet.”
“You don’t have to. Tell me where you are.”
I gave him the name of a twenty-four-hour diner near the interstate.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said.
“Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
“If Grant calls you, don’t tell him you’ve spoken to me.”
Another silence.
This one heavier.
“What did he do?”
I glanced at the phone beside me.
At the recording that might have just saved my life.
“He hasn’t done it yet.”
The light turned green.
I pressed the accelerator.
May you like
“But he was planning to.”
And behind me, far down the road, headlights suddenly appeared.
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