SOUGHT AFTER PEACE

The algorithm knew my fiancé was cheating on me before I did. It led me, five days before my wedding, to a secret Instagram account. My maid of honor was wearing my wedding dress.

The account was a shrine to her three-year affair with my fiancé, Arden.

They had crafted a perfect narrative for their followers: they were tragic soulmates, and I was the cold, calculating villain keeping them apart.

The comments were full of hate for me.

But the final twist of the knife was seeing that my best friend, Dallas, had "liked" a comment wishing I'd have an "accident" and break my leg again.

I had saved his life. My family had saved hers from ruin. Why this elaborate, public cruelty?

On my wedding day, I was a no-show.

Instead, as the elite of New York society watched, the ballroom screens lit up with a presentation I' d prepared, exposing every photo, every text, and every single lie.

Chapter 1

Heidi Matthews POV:

The algorithm knew my fiancé was cheating on me before I did. It led me, five days before my wedding, to a secret Instagram account where my maid of honor was wearing my custom-designed wedding dress.

The email from Vera Wang' s atelier had arrived that morning. A polite, clinical notification that the final steaming and delivery of my gown would be delayed by a day. A minor logistical snag, nothing more. I was an architect; my entire life was built on managing timelines and unforeseen complications. I simply made a note to adjust the schedule.

I pulled up the final design photos on my tablet, the ones I' d approved months ago. It wasn't just a dress. It was a structure, a piece of architecture for the body. The silk crepe fell like a waterfall, the bodice was a marvel of minimalist engineering, and the veil, seeded with hundreds of tiny, shimmering pearls, was meant to catch the light in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza like a captured constellation. My constellation.

My phone buzzed. It was a text from Dallas Mckinney, my best friend, my maid of honor.

Can' t make it to the tasting, H. Feeling absolutely wrecked. Food poisoning, I think. You and Arden go ahead. I' ll just live vicariously through your ecstatic descriptions of mini-quiches! Love you!

A pang of disappointment, sharp and quick. I typed back, Feel better! We' ll save you a doggy bag of everything.

I was about to call Arden Ellis, my fiancé, to let him know it would just be the two of us, when his call came through.

"Heidi, baby," his voice was rushed, a familiar sound when he was closing a deal. "Something' s come up at the office. A whale of a client just swam into the harbor. I' m so sorry, I can' t get away for the tasting."

"Oh. Okay." The words felt small in my throat.

"I know, I' m the worst. Make it up to you tonight, I promise. Big time."

Two cancellations in ten minutes. It felt…odd. Like a gear slipping in a perfectly calibrated machine. I shook my head, chasing the feeling away. I was being paranoid. This was wedding week. Everything felt magnified, supercharged with meaning. Arden was ambitious, and Dallas had always had a delicate stomach. It was just a coincidence.

To distract myself, I scrolled through my phone, landing on a popular New York gossip blog. Tucked away in the comments section of an article about the upcoming "wedding of the season"-ours-was a line that snagged my attention.

Forget the bride. Everyone knows the real love story is with the maid of honor. Tragic, really.

My thumb hovered over the screen. It was just anonymous internet chatter. Trolls. People with too much time on their hands.

But another comment replied to the first. For real. He' s only with the heiress out of obligation. The maid of honor is his soulmate. I follow her finsta, and the angst is REAL. They' re star-crossed lovers.

Finsta. A fake Instagram. My heart gave a strange, heavy thud. What was the account name? I had to know. My fingers flew across the screen, typing a reply I would later be grateful for.

What' s the account? I love a good tragic romance.

Just as I hit send, the front door of my Upper East Side apartment swung open. Arden and Dallas tumbled in, tangled together in a fit of laughter.

They were bickering, a familiar performance.

"I' m telling you, it was your fault we were late!" Dallas said, playfully swatting Arden' s arm. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkling. She didn' t look like someone suffering from food poisoning.

"My fault? You were the one who insisted on stopping for gelato," Arden retorted, his hand lingering on her waist for a second too long.

"Because you promised me gelato after that brutal meeting!" she shot back.

Meeting? Gelato? Not food poisoning. Not a whale of a client.

My voice was quiet, cutting through their laughter. "I thought you had food poisoning, Dallas."

"And Arden, I thought you had a client."