Page 1 of Left Cold, Wolf Owned
1
HARPER
The dress weighs eleven pounds.
I know this because the seamstress told me at the final fitting, laughing as if it were charming. Eleven pounds of silk and structured boning and forty-two hand-sewn buttons running up my spine. I remember smiling back at her, nodding, acting like a woman thrilled about it. Like, weight was romantic.
Standing at the window of the bridal suite, I watch the last of the guests filter through the iron gates below. The venue is a converted estate—all manicured hedges and cream-colored stone and the kind of grandeur that photographs well. The gardens are past their summer peak, the hedges trimmed back and the flower beds gone to seed in the particular way of late October, and the air coming off the glass is cold enough that I can see the faint vapor of someone's breath below. Dawson picked it. Dawson picks everything.
"Harper, you look incredible." My maid of honor, Jess, appears behind me in the mirror and squeezes my shoulders. She means it genuinely, and I try to receive it that way.
"Thank you." I turn away from the window. "Do I look nervous?"
"You look like every bride." She smooths a piece of hair that doesn't need smoothing. "Beautiful and slightly terrified."
"Comforting."
She laughs and disappears back into the cluster of bridesmaids across the room, all of them bright in champagne satin, their voices overlapping as someone refills prosecco glasses. I drift back toward the mirror alone.
The woman looking back at me is polished within an inch of her life. Chestnut hair swept into an updo that took two hours. Makeup that cost more than my first paycheck. Hazel eyes that look almost green right now, which only happens when I'm trying to stay composed and in control.
I press two fingers to my sternum and exhale slowly.
You're fine. You're ready. This is what you've been working toward.
The problem is, I can't tell anymore whether those are my thoughts or the ones I've rehearsed so many times that they feel like mine.
Twenty minutes before the ceremony is when I start to notice something is wrong.
The photographer arrives at the suite looking apologetic. "We're waiting on Dawson for the couple photos," she says, checking her camera bag. "His groomsmen said he stepped out?"
"Stepped out," I repeat, like I'm testing the phrase for structural integrity. "For what?"
She shrugs carefully. "I'm sure he'll be up in a minute."
Jess catches my eye across the room. I see the flicker of something there—reassurance that she's assembling a little too quickly. I've known her long enough to recognize the difference between "He's fine" and "I don't want to make this worse."
"I'll find him," I say. "It's fine. I'll be back in five minutes."
"Harper—"
"Five minutes, Jess."
I pick up the skirt of my dress with both hands and slip out into the hallway.
The estate has that particular hush of a building that's been rented for an event—hollow and echoey beneath the floral arrangements, the caterers moving through service corridors, and the sound of a string quartet warming up somewhere two floors below. I pass a staff member who stares at my dress and looks quickly away, and I keep walking.
Dawson's groomsmen are clustered near the groom's suite at the far end of the hall. When they see me coming, their body language shifts in a way that I'll think about later—shoulders tightening, conversation dying a second too quickly.
"Hey." I smile. "Where's Dawson? We need photos."
"He's, uh—" The best man, Craig, rubs the back of his neck. "He needed a few minutes. Think he went downstairs."
"Downstairs where?"
"Maybe the east wing? The private dining room or something. I'm sure he's?—"
"Thanks, Craig."
