Ellen lay on the plush bed of her hotel room, staring up at the ceiling. She couldn't stop replaying the events of the previous night, the wedding party that seemed to linger in her thoughts like an unwelcome guest.
Her head buzzed with the memory of it all. The laughter, the clinking of champagne glasses, the murmur of conversations that had felt so distant and yet so piercing all at once. And then there was Edrick—Ellen Winters' ex-boyfriend, not hers. She had to keep reminding herself of that fact every second. She didn't know him. She didn't have history with him. But even so, the mere presence of him stirred something within her that was difficult to shake off.
