When my phone rang at 6:30 a.m. the morning of my Poruwa ceremony, I was showered, dressed in my bedazzled robe that read Bride, and sipping on my coffee.

“Mike,” I said, in way of greeting.

“Kaavi, hi, I hope I’m not waking you up. I wanted to catch you before— Today IS the big day, right?”

“Today is the ceremonial day, yes. And you didn’t wake me. What’s going on?”

“It’s not good, Kaavs.”

We weren’t close enough for him to call me that, but I let it slide. There were bigger fish to fry.

“Tell me.” I steeled myself.

“There’s a reason Zoe Bassett was so hard to get ahold of. She’s, well, she’s gone into hiding.”

“What do you mean, hiding?”

“I mean she’s afraid for her life. We still haven’t been able to talk to her, but my colleague spoke to her best friend. She’d been dating Spencer for about two years. Zoe’s very well-off, according to her. Had a nice trust fund set up by her grandparents before they died. A trust fund that Spencer tried to help himself to, apparently.”

I was clenching my fist so hard around my phone that it bit into my hand.

“And?”

“She’d been trying to end things for a while, but apparently Spencer had been, well, look, there’s no easy way to say this. Spencer had been violent toward her. Put her in the hospital. She’d even filed a charge, but dropped it for some reason. Her friend claims she was blackmailed. Anyway, she managed to get away. She’s changed her name now, and is trying to recover.”

“When did she leave?”

“Early August, the year before last.”

Just before Spencer met me at the reunion. I’d been his meal ticket right from the start. How could I have been so blind?

“Look, Kaavi, from what she said, he’s a lot more dangerous than you’d think.” Didn’t I know?

“Don’t worry, Mike. It’s not like I can’t take care of myself.”

“I’ve heard a lot of people say that, Kaavi. I just hope for your sake that you know what you’re doing. Zoe was, well, from what I heard, she had to spend a large chunk of her trust fund on a plastic surgeon. Please be careful.”

31

KAAVI

The Night before the Wedding

I drank a lot of champagne and thought long and hard about what my options were. The day passed by in a blur. The makeup, everyone fussing over me, the various people who traipsed in and out of my room, telling me over and over again how lovely I looked, what a beautiful bride I was. The exhausting photo shoot that I cut short because I just couldn’t put myself through it.

On top of all that, I had to appease a heartbroken Andre, who wasn’t buying what happened to “his” dress. He probably thought I’d destroyed it on purpose so I could just wear the Hayley Paige, but honestly, I didn’t have enough energy left in me to care.