“I didn’t want to regret it later.”

“I get it. Does she know we’re all about to wreck her life?”

It’s doubtful that she does. When the five of us demand a buy-out or threaten to sell our shares, my mother is going to have a rude awakening. The lifestyle she’s been afforded will be gone because my father will have to scramble to come up with the money, which means less alimony.

That house will probably be the first thing he tries to sell.

“Not really my concern today.”

“I know, I just . . . I’m glad you invited her, that’s all.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, the women in our lives are pains in our asses, but we love them,” Josh says before taking a long pull of his drink. “Speaking of, where did Stella run off to?”

“I don’t know, I wanted to dance with her.”

“Me too.”

I look around but don’t see her. “I’ll go find her,” I tell him.

As I start to walk over to the tree line, Jessica comes rushing over from across the tented area. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. I’m just looking for Stella.”

She peeks around. “Well, she’s not here, we should dance.”

“You said you wanted to sit.”

“I did. I sat. I’m fine. Let’s go. I like this song.”

I look over to the floating dance floor in confusion. “There’s no music playing.”

“We make our own music,” she says a bit too quickly.

“Jessica, what are you talking about?”

She laughs, and then I hear something in the woods. Her hand grabs mine, tugging me away. “Come on, babe. It’s our wedding day.”

“So you’re going to pretend? Like . . . it’s nothing?” Stella’s voice is muffled, but I know it’s her.

There’s a low reply, but I can’t make it out.

“We have to deal with this. We can’t . . . we can’t pretend anymore.” There is a layer of hurt and desperation in Stella’s voice.

I turn to my wife with a brow raised. “Is that why you want to dance?”

She releases a low breath, which is much more of a defeated sound. “Let your sister work this out.”

“You know what’s going on?”

Jess snorts. “I know everything.”

“Then who the hell is at our wedding that she—”

I’ll kill him.

I’ll fucking kill him.

I turn, moving quickly in the direction of where the voices are.

“You still have feelings for me, I know you do!” Stella says, and I pick up the pace.

Still?

“I don’t.” I hear Jack, clear as fucking day. “I do . . . I can’t.”

“You can’t pretend with me, Jack.”

“We can’t,” he says.