Fifteen minutes before my wedding, I found my parents tucked behind a marble pillar on two flimsy plastic chairs, while my fianc

The air in the Grand Biltmore Hotel bridal suite smelled overwhelmingly of white roses and expensive hairspray, a suffocating combination that had been making me slightly nauseous since seven that morning. I stared at my reflection in the gilded floor-to-ceiling mirror. The woman looking back at me was draped in ten thousand dollars of French silk and Alençon lace, her hair pinned into a flawless, architecturally impossible chignon. She looked like a woman who had won the lottery. She looked like a woman about to marry into the formidable Sterling family.

But beneath the heavy tulle and the tightly laced corset—which felt increasingly like a physical manifestation of my relationship with Harrison Sterling—a cold dread was beginning to coil in my gut.

“Fifteen minutes, Miss Vance,” the wedding coordinator, a hyperactive woman named Sylvia, chirped from the doorway. Her headset blinked with a tiny green light. “The string quartet is taking their seats. The groom is at the altar. It’s almost showtime.”

“Thank you, Sylvia,” I murmured, my voice sounding distant even to my own ears.

I needed a moment to breathe. I needed to see my parents. They had arrived early, driving four hours from upstate in my father’s reliable, decade-old sedan. I had specifically asked Harrison to ensure they were comfortable, perhaps enjoying a glass of champagne in the VIP lounge before the ceremony.

I slipped out of the suite, lifting the heavy skirts of my gown to avoid snagging them on the plush carpet. The hallway outside the ballroom was a chaotic symphony of catering staff carrying silver trays and florists making last-minute adjustments to the floral arches.

I bypassed the main entrance, intending to peek through the side doors to catch a glimpse of the seating arrangement. The Grand Biltmore ballroom was a cavernous space that looked like a set piece from a golden-age Hollywood film. Crystal chandeliers the size of small cars hung from the frescoed ceiling, catching the light and throwing rainbows across the room. Two hundred guests filled the space, a sea of tailored tuxedos and designer silk dresses.

At the very front, near the altar where a microphone stood beside a towering obelisk of white hydrangeas and roses, Harrison stood laughing. He looked devastatingly handsome in his bespoke Tom Ford suit, the very picture of the young, dynamic heir to the Sterling Hospitality Group. Beside him stood his mother, Margaret Sterling. Her diamonds caught the light so aggressively they almost hurt the eyes. She was holding court, greeting senators and hedge fund managers with the practiced grace of a queen among her subjects.

I scanned the front row, the reserved section adorned with velvet ropes and gold nameplates. I saw Harrison’s sister, his uncles, and several board members.

I did not see my parents.

A cold prickle of alarm ran down the back of my neck. I moved further down the side corridor, my eyes searching the rows of guests. Second row. Third row. Nothing.

It wasn’t until I reached the very back of the ballroom, near the heavy brass doors of the service entrance, that I found them.

They were tucked away behind a massive, unadorned marble column. And they weren’t sitting on the velvet-cushioned chiavari chairs that populated the rest of the room. They were sitting on two cheap, folding plastic chairs, the kind you might find at a community center bingo night.

My mother, wearing the lovely navy blue dress she had saved up for months to buy, was staring straight ahead, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. My father, in his best gray suit—which smelled faintly, comfortingly, of the cedar and sawdust from his hardware store—sat silently, staring at the scuffed floorboards as though the humiliation were a physical weight pressing down on his shoulders.

My heart felt as if a fault line had cracked open right through my chest.

My mother noticed the movement of my white dress in her peripheral vision. She turned, and the forced, trembling smile she immediately pasted on her face broke something inside me.

“Eleanor,” she whispered, half-rising from the plastic chair. “Oh, sweetheart, you look breathtaking.”