A Ghost at His Wedding

I died in a car crash. My husband was convinced I faked it.

He viciously stomped on my ashes with his foot. "Tell her the act is up. It failed."

"My mother's death anniversary is coming up. She'd better show her face and pay for what she did."

I was a ghost. All I could do was watch.

Two weeks later, he took another woman to try on wedding dresses. He planned the wedding for our anniversary.

I screamed, trying to tell him the truth. That woman was the one who killed his mother.

But he couldn't hear me.

On their wedding day, the doors burst open. The police walked in.

The slideshow of their smiling faces on the big screen vanished...

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1

Dorian Westbrook was two hours late when he finally blew through the doors of the funeral home in Queens. The lines of his Givenchy suit were a rumpled mess, and a vivid smear of red lipstick marked his collar.

It was clear he'd just torn himself away from a party in Lower Manhattan, fresh from a heated entanglement with another woman.

Finding an attendant, Dorian sneered, "So? Where's Elowen Beaumont's urn? Didn't you call and tell me to pick it up?"

The attendant confirmed his identity and handed him an alabaster box. Inside were my ashes.

Dorian snatched the box, his eyes brimming with scorn. "Is this really Elowen's? For all I know, you just scraped together some poor bastard's ashes to fool me."

Confusion flickered across the attendant's face. "Mr. Westbrook, these are indeed Ms. Beaumont's ashes. We have complete records..."

Dorian grinned. "No need. I believe you."

I breathed a sigh of relief. For whatever reason, my soul was still tethered to the mortal world. I figured it was because I hadn't been properly laid to rest.

He has to believe I'm dead now.

No matter how much he hated me, for the sake of our past, he would at least find some random place to bury me, right?

Before I could even savor the thought, I heard Dorian's sharp gasp. The urn slipped from his hands, crashed to the floor, and my ashes scattered everywhere.

His smile twisted into something venomous. "Oops. So sorry, my hand slipped."

Then, he ground my ashes into the floor with the sole of his John Lobb shoe.

When my gaze met Dorian's unsmiling eyes, my throat tightened, as if squeezed by an invisible hand. I couldn't breathe. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

He didn't stop until my ashes were nothing more than grit in the cracks of the tiles. Only then did Dorian pull back his foot, a smug look of satisfaction on his face.

He smiled at the stunned attendant. "Tell Elowen her little ploy was cute, but a total failure."

"My mother's anniversary at Woodlawn Cemetery is in a few days. She'd better show up there to atone. Otherwise, even if she really is dead, I won't hesitate to drag her name through the mud all over New York."

The threat was pure venom, enough to chill anyone to the bone. I knew Dorian meant every word.

The thought that my body had already been cremated brought me a strange sense of relief.

Before the attendant could react, Dorian took a call and got into his Bentley. Bizarrely, my soul was forced to follow.

I could only sit in the passenger seat, listening to him chat with the woman on the phone. I knew that voice well. It belonged to Lorelei Astor, the Westbrook family's ward.

When Dorian and I were still madly in love, Lorelei had told me to leave him. After I refused, she started spreading rumors about me in the art world and even hired people to ruin my gallery shows.

When Dorian found out, he'd taught Lorelei a brutal lesson, warning her that if she ever touched me again, he'd throw her out of the Westbrook home.

Now, as the conversation turned to me, Dorian's expression iced over.

"Why bring her up? Such a buzzkill. Besides, she's not really dead."

"But what if she really is dead? What would you do then, Dorian?" Lorelei's probing tone came through the phone.

My heart tightened, and I instinctively turned to look at Dorian.

In the past, he would have been heartbroken over a tiny cut on my hand, let alone the thought of my death.

He used to call me his most precious treasure.

But now, Dorian just let out a cold laugh. "Then I'd open a bottle of Screaming Eagle Cabernet and throw a party for three straight days and nights to celebrate."