“Yeah.” I snort at her clever title. “He was charming and sweet, and I felt a connection I hadn’t felt with any of the others. Certainly nothing that remotely touched on what I had with Lyle, but by this point I was twenty and figured he’d changed his mind.”

“Never.” He cuts me off, shaking his head.

“But still, I held out hope…tried not to let anything get too serious. Then my father got sick. Really sick. And he was given just weeks to live and I—I freaked out.” Tears well in my eyes. “From the time I was a little girl, my dad and I talked about my wedding day. I knew how much it meant to him to walk me down that aisle.” I take a Kleenex from the talk show host to dab at my eyes. “And it meant everything to me. So, I proposed.”

“You proposed?” Helen’s head jerks back, stunned by my admission.

“I did.” My chuckle lacks any warmth. “We’d just gotten back together after a few months apart.” I pull in a deep breath. “It was the day my daddy was given roughly two weeks to live. In the heat of the moment, I went for it. And he said yes.”

“Wow.” Her eyes widen. “So, take us to your wedding day. What made this Trent fellow leave his pregnant bride on the day of the wedding. Was it just cold feet?”

“Oh, God,” I mutter, on the verge of hyperventilating. “I can’t.”

“I’ll take it from here.” Lyle smooths a comforting hand over my back.

Helen nods at my knight, encouraging him to continue with the story.

“This is the part where I’m pacing outside her bridal suite, hating myself for screwing this up. I’m about to go back to my seat because despite how desperately I want to, I can’t break this wedding up. I know the situation with her father, and had just passed him in his tux with that father of the bride glow on my way back there. I just couldn’t do it.” He clears his throat. “Then the groom shows up and goes into that room, and I overhear her telling him that she’s pregnant. That she just found out and that it might not be his.”

There’s an audible gasp from the audience.

“Remember, they’d just gotten back together after months apart.”

I’m shaking to the bone while all my dirty laundry is being aired for the world.

“The other potential father is not in the picture. It was a one-time thing on a girls’ trip…a trip she’d taken to get over him. He flipped out and completely lost it. He told her to get rid of the baby and that he didn’t want to ever see her again.”

“Wow.” Helen leans in closer. “And that’s where you came in.”