That is the thing I most want anyone reading this to understand about how it is really done.

It rarely looks like force.

It looks like concern.

It looks like someone who loves you noticing, sadly, that you don’t seem like yourself lately — until the day you realize they were the ones making sure of it.

Chapter 2 — The Devastated Fiancé

The other voice in the room belonged to Gabriel, Christian’s talent manager, and Gabriel sounded sick.

“You could have just ended it, Christian,” he said, low and furious.

“You could have called off the wedding publicly.

Why are you doing it like this?” And Christian answered with the patience of a man explaining something obvious to a child.

“Because if I dump my fiancée a week before the wedding, all of America goes looking for the reason, and the reason is Sabrina, and then Sabrina and I are destroyed.

I need Genevieve to be unable to walk down that aisle — through no fault of mine.

I need the world to see a devastated groom nursing a fragile bride, canceling the wedding out of devotion.

Grief buys sympathy.

A breakup buys an investigation.” I lay there in the dark and felt the shape of it settle over me.