Inside she spotted the back of her mother’s coiffed platinum hair and explained to the hostess she’d walk herself back. She weaved around a waiter, past a flaming tray of Baked Alaska, and spotted Celeste and Trey. Smile pasted firmly on her face, she raised a hand to wave, the action frozen midway when the couple next to Trey came into view. Trey’s mother and father craned their necks around to shoot daggers at Sadie. Sadie’s smile dropped like dice on a Craps table.

She hadn’t seen Trey’s parents since Celeste and Trey’s wedding. They’d made it clear then whose side they were on.

Trey’s. Natch.

Sadie survived brunch. Barely. She downed a mimosa, mumbled apologies to her mother, who repeatedly reminded her she was late for “Celeste’s big day,” and was tempted to order a second glass of champagne and orange juice. She refrained. Champagne gave her loose lips and, in her state of frustration, Lord only knew what might bubble out of her mouth.

After dessert was served—chocolate soufflé with raspberry sauce and white chocolate shavings—Celeste tapped her water glass with a fork. Her wide blue eyes were her father’s, Sadie’s stepfather’s, but she and Celeste shared their mother’s fair hair, fair skin, and petite figure that nipped in at the waist and swelled in all the right womanly places. Celeste was shorter than Sadie, which was a feat considering Sadie barely hit five two, and her hair was shorter, a sloppy pixie cut Sadie would have never been able to pull off.

“Thank you all for coming out for my birthday,” Celeste squeaked in a small voice that made her sound cherubic and adorable, like an angel. A fiancé-stealing angel, Sadie thought with a snort. See? Had she ordered a second mimosa, she’d have announced that last thought.

“Trey and I asked you all here not only because I’m turning twenty-six—”

Bitch.

“—but also because we have a big announcement to make.”

The raspberry Sadie popped in her mouth turned rancid on her tongue. There were only two words that could follow that kind of a statement, so it came as no surprise when Celeste said, “We’re pregnant!” and squeeeed high enough for dogs to hear.

Expecting the announcement of a bun in the oven hadn’t made it any more palatable.

Celeste dug out the blurry ultrasound pictures, and Sadie quickly planned her exit. Trey was glowing. Frickin’ glowing. She realized then the reason it irritated her to see how happy he was with Celeste. His happiness further broadcasted how Sadie had failed to please him.

“It’s got your nose!” Trey’s dad joked about the indiscernible blob on the photo.

“Do you know the sex yet?” his mother asked.

“Not yet. We’re only twelve weeks,” Celeste said, nuzzling her husband.

Yeah. Sadie needed to get the hell out of here. She turned to say good-bye to Mother, but something about Miriam DeWalt’s stalwart expression made her pause. Shouldn’t she be weeping tears of glorious joy? Her perfect daughter had married the perfect son-in-law and they were having a perfect baby. Instead, Mother sat with her hands folded in her lap, a contented smile on her thin lips.

“You knew!” Sadie whispered the accusation, not that anyone could have heard her over the celebratory racket at the other end of the table.

Sadie’s mother shrugged. “She had to tell someone, darling.”

And not her, Miriam implied. Not the jilted, bitter older sister. As usual, Sadie was the last to know. Just like when Celeste and Trey had begun spending extra time together on the patio at her mother’s house. Just like when Trey had asked Sadie’s stepfather for Celeste’s hand in marriage before he’d broken off the engagement with Sadie. Just like now, when Celeste had made sure Sadie was in a position where she was forced to behave while being skewered with the news that not only was her younger sister married and pregnant before her, but would hence be bearing the child of the fiancé Sadie had failed to keep at her side.

Sadie stood from her seat so abruptly, everyone at the table turned toward her. “I have an appointment,” she muttered, silently adding, with a very big bottle of wine. “Happy birthday, Celeste.”

Sadie dropped her napkin over her dessert while Celeste did her impersonation of downtrodden, Woe is me Eeyore. Sadie spared a glare for her turncoat mother before marching for the door. “Thanks for the meal.”

She almost made it to the exit when Trey’s voice rang out behind her. “You can’t be happy for us, can you?”

She turned to face him, sliding her sunglasses onto her nose in the process. “I beg your pardon?”

Trey led her by the elbow into the coat closet. She let him. “Your sister just announced she’s having a baby.”

“Yes, I heard.”

Trey let out a humorless laugh. “Don’t you think the sisterly thing to do would be to offer to throw her a baby shower? Or, I don’t know, say you can’t wait to be an aunt? At the very least, offer your congratulations?”

“I’ll send a greeting card,” she snapped. “She should have told me. I should have known before today.” And that was the key, wasn’t it? The emotion causing her gut to swirl and her eyes to burn had nothing to do with the fact that Celeste was ahead of Sadie in life and had everything to do with hurt. Celeste hadn’t come to her. Her only sister.

“This isn’t being done to you, Sadie. Celeste and I are bringing a child into the world. This moment is about us.”

Sadie ground her teeth but she couldn’t keep from saying, “Oh, that part I got, Trey. It’s always been about you and Celeste.” When she learned of their affair, Trey had framed it that way, too. Celeste and I didn’t mean to fall in love. But we are. We deserve happiness.

Meanwhile, Sadie deserved what? To be left at the altar? To dismantle the wedding she’d planned brick by brick while Trey enjoyed his new fling? Only it wasn’t a fling. It’d turned into an engagement. A wedding. And now a baby.

Sadie turned to leave but Trey blocked the doorway with one outstretched arm. “Wrong again, Sadie,” he said. “Things have always been about you.”

“Well, this has been nice,” she said, her voice dripping with derision. She pushed his arm away and he backed up, staying in front of her as she walked.

He lifted his hands. “Wait. I’m not berating you. Let me finish, please.”

Sadie didn’t want to let him finish, but she also didn’t want him chasing her out of this coat closet and making a scene. If her mother and Celeste saw them arguing, they would pounce on Sadie in tandem. Resigned, Sadie crossed her arms and shot out one hip, letting Trey know he had a very, very limited window to dispense whatever speech he had in queue.

“When I asked you to marry me, I meant it,” he said. “I know to you, it seemed very spur of the moment because it was a random afternoon in a mall, but I assure you, I’d had it planned for at least a year.”

She blinked behind her sunglasses, digesting the new scrap of info.

“We got along well, were great friends, things were good between us. So I thought, why not now, you know? What are we waiting for? After dating for almost two years, I figured we’d end up married anyway.”

Well. Not exactly a profession of undying love, but then, what did she expect?

“But after the engagement, Sadie…well, I don’t want to use the term bridezilla, but—”

The word sent her defenses sky-high. Even as she uttered a harsh “I was not,” part of her wondered if Trey had a small, barely discernible, itty-bitty smidge of a point.

“Our engagement turned into your project du jour, and you know it. The three-ring binder you had under your arm twenty-four seven was more your fiancé than I was.”

Ah, the binder. She loved that binder. Tabbed markers separated everything from color swatches, flower ideas, dress designs, cakes, and the vows she’d written for both of them. She’d cataloged and detailed the menu choices and had chosen meals specifically based on the food intolerances of her guests. Sadie had made it her mission to have a complaint-free wedding. A perfect wedding.

“You were so wrapped up in the planning,” Trey said, snapping her out of her memories of the planning, “I’m not sure you would have noticed if it was me waiting for you at the end of the aisle or someone else.”

Sadie frowned. “I had to be wrapped up in the planning, Trey. You wouldn’t lift a finger to help out.”

“Not true.” His calm, collected demeanor was grating her nerves. “Remember the appointment for the photographer? The appointments for several photographers? I went, and you steamrolled over me, choosing the package you thought was best, choosing the price point you thought was best.”

“But you told me to spend whatever I needed,” she said, clinging weakly to her position.

“And I meant it.” He touched her arm. “It wasn’t about money, Sadie. It was about the time we weren’t spending together. Once you painted a bull’s-eye on becoming my wife, you were so laser-focused, there wasn’t any room left for me in your life. Cripes, we saw so little of each other, it was like we’d broken up. Remember the weekly dinners at your mother’s house? When you bothered to show, it was an hour late, and you made calls on your cell phone half the time you were there.”

Sadie shook her head, but the movement didn’t hold much conviction. Probably because, while she wasn’t about to admit it aloud, Trey was right. She hadn’t attended many of Mother’s Sunday dinners during that time. Once the fifteen-month marathon leading to her walk down the aisle had begun, there simply hadn’t been enough time to do it all…