PART 1
I woke up the morning after my wedding feeling happier and more certain about my future than I ever had before. For the first time in my life, everything seemed to have fallen perfectly into place.
Then, within minutes, that certainty was replaced by a rush of fear. The things between my fingers were small, cold, and definitely not a hotel key card.
I stood frozen beside the armchair in our honeymoon suite, wearing a hotel robe tied loosely around my waist. My heart was pounding so loudly that I could almost hear it echoed in the silent room.
Callum was still asleep three feet away, buried beneath the white duvet, one bare arm stretched across the pillow where I had slept. I didn’t dare look down at my hand again, so I looked at him instead.
Twenty-four hours earlier, I had been standing across from this man in a garden filled with fairy lights, promising him everything. Now I was standing over his dark tuxedo as if it were evidence in a serious crime.
I need to go back and explain how I got here. My name is Valerie, and I am twenty-seven years old. Until that morning, I would have told you that I had the least dramatic love story of anyone in my group of friends. Considering my dating history, that would have been something of a miracle.
