The smell of fresh flowers filled the bridal suite, mingling with the nervous excitement of hairspray and cheap champagne. My heart was practically a hummingbird, fluttering with a joy I thought was absolute. Today was my day. The day I’d dreamt of since I was a little girl, surrounded by the women who were more than just friends. My bridesmaids. My sisters.
We’d known each other since grade school, navigating everything from awkward crushes to terrible breakups. They were my constants, my anchors. When he proposed, their tears of happiness felt like my own. They were my family, the only real family I felt I had.
There were three of them, lined up in their matching dresses, giggling as the makeup artist fussed with my veil. Sarah, always the practical one, double-checking the rings. Jessica, the bubbly one, making sure I had enough M&Ms. And Emily, the quiet, thoughtful one, who just squeezed my hand every so often to reassure me. I trusted them with my life. I trusted them with my future.
I needed a moment, a last-minute bathroom dash before the whirlwind began. “Just a second,” I whispered, pulling my dress up carefully. The door clicked shut behind me, not quite latched. As I washed my hands, their voices drifted through the narrow crack, muffled but audible.
The cast of “Blue Bloods” at the 2010 CBS Upfront at The Tent at Lincoln Center on May 19 in New York. | Source: Getty Images
“Is she seriously going through with this?” That was Sarah. Her tone was sharper than I’d ever heard it. A joke, it had to be a joke.
Then Jessica’s airy laugh. “Looks like it. All that effort, and it’s finally paying off.”
My blood ran cold. Effort? Pay off? What were they talking about? I leaned closer to the door, my heart starting to pound a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
“I still can’t believe how easy it was,” Emily said, her voice soft, almost regretful, but with an underlying steel I didn’t recognize. “She’s so… oblivious.”
Oblivious. The word hung in the air, a venomous cloud. My hands started to shake. This wasn’t wedding jitters. This was something else entirely. I held my breath, straining to hear more.
“Well, you know what our brother said,” Sarah scoffed. “She had to be. We needed her to be.”
“Blue Bloods” cast members at a panel discussion at PaleyFest on October 18, 2014, in New York. | Source: Getty Images
Brother? My fiancé was an only child. He’d told me that repeatedly, his parents passing when he was young, leaving him alone, just like me. My own parents… a difficult, distant past I rarely spoke of. We’d bonded over our shared sense of being untethered, building our own family.
A cold dread seeped into my bones. No. It couldn’t be. It was a mistake. I was mishearing.
“Just be glad it’s almost over,” Jessica chirped, a sickening cheerfulness in her voice. “Once the papers are signed, it’s done. We can finally get what’s owed to us, and we never have to pretend again.”
Pretend. The word echoed in the small bathroom, each syllable a hammer blow to my heart. My vision blurred. My head spun. I stumbled back against the wall, a silent gasp catching in my throat.
“I just feel bad for her,” Emily added, her voice a little quieter now, but still devoid of any real empathy. “She really does think he loves her.”
Sarah scoffed again. “Love has nothing to do with it. This is about family. About protecting what’s ours. And she conveniently holds the key.”
The key. Family. What in GOD’S name were they talking about? My “sisters,” my closest friends, were talking about me like I was a pawn in some twisted game. And they were talking about their brother. My fiancé.
Jillie Mack and Tom Selleck at the 35th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on September 25, 1983, in Pasadena, California. | Source: Getty Images
I had to see their faces. I had to know if this nightmare was real. I pushed the door open, just a fraction, enough to peer through the crack. They were gathered around my dress, not looking at me. Their faces were alight with a conspiratorial glee I’d never witnessed. And then, I heard the final, crushing blow.
“Honestly, it was brilliant of him to find her,” Sarah continued, adjusting a fold of my gown. “An orphan with no close family, no one to ask questions. Perfect target for the family inheritance our grandmother left to her and not us, for some insane reason. All he had to do was marry her to get it back into the family.”
My world imploded.
I wasn’t an orphan. My grandmother. The grandmother I’d never known, who’d supposedly disinherited my own estranged parents. The one he had mentioned once, vaguely, in passing, claiming he knew someone with the same last name. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was a meticulously crafted lie.
These weren’t my friends. They were his sisters. His blood sisters, who had pretended to be my lifelong companions, befriending me, guiding me, pushing me into the arms of their brother, all to steal what was rightfully mine. They knew my history. They knew my grandmother. And they had been playing me for a fool, for years.
The wedding dress felt like a shroud. The flowers, the champagne, the entire day, a sick, elaborate joke. My heart wasn’t fluttering anymore. It was shattering, into a million tiny, irreparable pieces.
They weren’t my sisters. They were the architects of my betrayal. And I was standing there, moments away from marrying their brother, the man who had orchestrated it all.
Tom Selleck and Jillie Mack during 41st Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California, 1984. | Source: Getty Images
I didn’t make a sound. I just closed the bathroom door, slowly, quietly. And for the first time in my life, I truly felt alone. Every single relationship, every shared laugh, every tear, every single moment I thought was real, was a lie. A calculated, devastating lie.
And I had to walk down that aisle. I had to face them.
I HAD TO.
Because now, the game had changed. And I was no longer the oblivious target. I was the one who knew the truth.
