Her stomach churned over again. She could feel sweat prickling under her arms and in her cleavage. The dress felt too big and hot, stifling even.

The corset was making it hard to breathe.

The vicar was talking about the sanctity of marriage, the joining of a man and woman before God.

Dylan was staring at her and biting on his bottom lip. His eyes were narrowed as if trying to see into her mind.

And what was it he’d see?

Terror.

The acknowledgement of that emotion was like a real physical punch to the guts. Megan wavered, her balance going off kilter for a split second.

Dylan reached out and gripped her arm, tight.

“Megan, what’s the matter?”

“I…?”

The vicar paused.

“What is it?” Dylan asked, frowning.

Megan couldn’t say anything. She looked up at his face—there was concern there yes, but also irritation. She wasn’t behaving as she should.

“I’m a little…hot…” she whispered.

“Everyone is. It’s a hot day.”

So she just had to cope, did she? Despite the fact she was wearing a dress that weighed a ton and a corset that meant her lungs were only functioning at half-normal capacity.

Cope.

Yes, that’s what Dylan always expected her to do. Like last month when she’d ordered a meal that hadn’t quite been cooked. He hadn’t wanted to make a fuss because it was a friend’s restaurant, so she’d had to eat around the pink bit in the chicken breast. When they’d gone on holiday and their seats had been separated. She’d had to sit long haul next to a stinky fat man who hadn’t stopped talking while Dylan had sat and watched a movie with extra leg room by the emergency escape—but it didn’t bother him that they’d had to sit apart. He hadn’t even mentioned it.

And what about the time his mother had bought her perfume that had brought her out in a rash, yet he still insisted she wear it when they went to dinner, so that she didn’t appear ungrateful—she wasn’t ungrateful, she just didn’t think hives were particularly attractive.

“And so now, we come to the point in the service,” the vicar said in a loud voice, “that I must ask anyone who has any reason that this couple may not be wed in holy matrimony to speak up now of forever hold their peace…”

Silence fell over the church.

A long, oppressive absence of noise.

“I do!”

Megan gasped and clamped her hand over her mouth.

“What?” Dylan said, his eyes widening.