Gina closed her gritty eyes and let her head fall back against the seat of the limo with a sigh. She hadn’t been sleeping well in the week since she had last seen Rory. They had been avoiding each other, each choosing to keep their distance, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t consumed her every thought, waking and asleep.

“It’s always been me and Dev and this band. It was the thing that held me together. The thing that made my whole world make sense when it was spinning out of control.”

Didn’t he get it? That was exactly why she couldn’t risk it all on him. One of them needed to be sensible, and if that had to be her, so be it.

But the decision tore at her insides every minute of every day.

The expression on his face when he’d walked out had haunted her and her stomach flopped restlessly. One of the side effects of her heartache was that she’d lost five pounds. Normally, this would’ve thrilled her to no end. Especially on the cusp of her ex’s wedding day. But her desire to stick it to Peter for vengeance’s sake had faded along with everything else since Rory had walked out.

She just didn’t care about much of anything anymore.

She straightened and repeated the pep talk she’d been trying to drill into her head for the past week.

Suck it up, girlie. You have an amazing life and you don’t need a man to complete it.

But god, did she miss him.

She checked the time, wishing this limo ride could go on forever. Anything to keep from having to walk into that venue. Seeing Peter would be no more than an irritation. Seeing Rory, with a date, no less?

That was going to be like a knife through the heart.

Cheri and Dev sat across from her in the limo, the two of them radiating and glowing with love, their fingers interlaced. That was a pipe dream. She thought that maybe Rory could have been the one, but she’d gone and shut him out like every other guy that had ever gotten close to her since Peter.

Gina’s date, none other than Mac himself, sat beside her quietly. Against her advice, he had gone out and gotten trashed at a party the night prior, so he wasn’t much in the mood to be attending the wedding either. Gina felt a little guilty that she had basically forced him into being her last-minute date, but there was no way in hell she was going to show up alone.

“Mac, switch places with me real quick,” Cheri said, locking her eyes with Gina’s.

Mac groaned as he shifted across the way. Gina feared the motion would make him sick and winced as she watched him situate himself on the opposite side of her, looking a little green around the gills.

Cheri took a seat beside her and clamped her hand down on Gina’s. She craned her head toward her best friend and knew immediately that Cheri was well aware of the battle tearing its way through her mind. She squeezed again and offered her a warm smile.

“You’re going to survive,” Cheri whispered in her ear. “And you look fucking stunning, so both of those men are going to be drooling over you.”

“That’s not the point,” Gina whispered back. “I don’t care what Peter thinks anymore. All I care about is getting through today without bursting into tears or humiliating myself.”

“We’ve talked about this,” Cheri said with an encouraging smile. “You’re going to go in there with your head held high and whatever happens, happens. You are the most beautiful, loving girl I’ve ever known.”

“Oh, really?” Gina arched her brow, and laughed softly—the first laugh she had uttered in over a week. “You mean, I’m not a stone cold bitch?”

“Sometimes. But I wouldn’t change that one bit. Because deep down, you’re the salt of the earth and would do anything for the people you care about. That means something, Gina.”

Her words made tears prickle the back of Gina’s eyelids and she blinked furiously, nodding. “That’s why you’re my favorite little Bug.”

It was going to be all right. It was just another day, after all. No matter what happened, the world would continue to turn and she would wake up and face a new day tomorrow.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to get tipsy ASAP to dull the pain, though.

More than an hour later, she was well on her way. Champagne glass clutched in a death grip, she sat at her table still not believing her “luck”.

She and all the band were seated at the same table. Right across from her was Rory with his date, Wendy. The two of them looked so happy in love for the cameras, even though they had only known each other for a week.

Wendy glowed positively, which only twisted the knife.

As for Rory, he looked edible. Finer than the life-size wedding cake in the background. He probably tasted better too. Hell, she knew for a fact he tasted better than cake.

And you chose to never taste him again, she reminded herself.

Rory cocked his head, catching Gina’s gaze, his own filled with banked anger and something else she couldn’t pinpoint.

It was too late, but she tried to pretend to look away anyway. She could feel his eyes burning holes in her face as she took a long pull from her glass. Her palms felt slick as she set it on the linen tablecloth, scanning the room in search of anything else to command her attention.

The wedding itself was atrocious and tacky. Cameras were flashing everywhere, the opulent decor so over the top that it came complete with an ice sculpture of the groom, no less. To Gina, weddings should have been intimate affairs, not tabloid material and fodder, but it did reinforce her feeling of relief. This could’ve been her life. At this point, she was just grateful she’d managed to dodge that bullet.

As she caught Rory’s gaze again, she remembered something else she was also thankful for.

The open bar.

She forced a tight smile as she pushed her chair backwards. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.”

She needed to get away from Rory long enough to breathe and to sort the shit out in her head. A few minutes alone and she’d be able to—

“Oh! I’m so sorry!”

In her rush across the room, she’d barreled straight into the bride and groom.

Daphne gave her a brittle smile and eyed her up and down. “No problem.”

“Congratulations, Peter,” Gina said with a half-forced, half-sincere smile. Sure, he was a fucking prick who had cheated on her, but the two of them never could have worked out long-term. “This has been a beautiful wedding so far.”

Peter pursed his lips and nodded, almost like he couldn’t believe she was congratulating him. Perhaps he expected something else. Maybe hoping she’d make a scene in front of all the cameras. If that was what he was looking for when he invited her, then he was going to be sorely disappointed.

“You must be Gina,” Daphne said, offering out her hand.

Gina took her hand and shook it. “That would be me.”

As Daphne shot a suspicious glance to Peter, Gina felt a rush of sympathy for her. She’d be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life…or until she realized what a snake he was. Gina resisted the urge to tell her to run, because what was the point? She’d been in her spot. She knew deep down what Peter was, and she’d ignored it. Daphne would either wake up and smell the coffee or she wouldn’t. Who knew? Maybe they were perfect for each other. In either case, Peter was no longer her problem.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she said with a forced smile.

No shit she had heard so much about Gina. Peter and Gina’s breakup—and Daphne’s role in it—had been splashed across the blogs all over the world. But Gina felt no anger as she nodded.

“I hope at least some of it was good.”

“It was,” Peter interjected. “I saw that you were here with someone.” He cleared his throat and then took a quick glance at Mac with his head down on the table, taking a rest and breaking all rules of etiquette in the process. “Is it something serious?”

Gina smiled as she shot a desperate glance back toward the bar. “Time will tell.”

“Hey, may I have this dance?”

The low, female voice caught Gina’s attention as she turned to find Bug standing beside her, smiling brightly.

“Absolutely,” she said, her knees weak with relief. She was a terrible actress and pretending to give a shit about Peter and his bride while also pretending she wasn’t completely falling apart and broken hearted after losing Rory was killing her.

Cheri looped an arm through Gina’s and tugged her toward the dance floor.

“Thank you for dragging me away from the glowing couple,” Gina said to Bug as they danced in a slow circle. “I honestly thought about thrusting a shrimp fork into my temple just to end it.”

“I don’t know why you let them get to you like that. They’re out of your life and it’s not like they’re coming back into it. You should Let It Go like Elsa Snow.”

“Oh, it’s gone. I just literally can’t stand being around him. I don’t know what I ever saw in him. He’s faker than Daphne’s lips.” She glanced back to Rory and his date, dancing on the opposite side of the ballroom floor and her heart gave a squeeze.

Cheri blew out a sigh and patted her shoulder gently. “You know, he’s been watching you all night, so maybe you should talk to him.”

“No way,” Gina stammered and spun Cheri in a circle so that she could have her own back to Rory. Dressed to the nines, he was absolutely fucking gorgeous, sexier than she could ever recall, and watching him with Wendy in his arms only made everything feel worse. “We have nothing left to say.”

“Fine,” Cheri said as she broke away from Gina, took a measured step back. “Well, my rescue mission is complete, so I’m going to go to the bar. Come if you want to.”

“You don’t have to ask me twice.” Gina trailed behind Cheri, willing herself not to turn back and see if Rory really was watching her.

She knew Bug would love for them to be together, but things were going exactly as planned with the band. It made no sense at all to ruin it by re-opening this wound that could never be healed. Things were exactly the same as they had been a week ago.

Except for now you know what it’s like to truly have loved and lost.

And if she’d thought she’d been heartbroken when Peter had cheated on her?

It paled in comparison to how she felt now.

On autopilot, she ordered a drink and then navigated her way back to the table, burying herself as deeply in the corner as she could manage. If she could just hide out for another hour and get through dinner, she and Mac could make a stealthy exit.

Until then, she was just going to have to hold the broken shards of her heart together somehow. Later, when she was home and alone in her bed, she could finally let herself fall apart.

A single fear lingered deep in her mind as she caught sight of Rory laughing at something Wendy said.

What if, like Humpty Dumpty, she could never put herself back together again?