Trevor didn’t answer right away. Instead, he gently took my phone from my hand and turned the screen toward himself. He let out a slow breath as another incoming call appeared. First it was my father, then my mother, and then Khloe. The constant stream of calls made the marina’s peaceful background noise suddenly feel distant, as though the entire room had shifted slightly off balance.

For a moment, Trevor simply stared at the screen. Then he looked up at me. “They’re all at Victor’s event,” he said calmly. His voice was steady, a sharp contrast to the chaos buzzing from my phone. “The ‘millionaire fiancé’ turned out to be a guy with a rented venue, fake investors, and a very public plan that just collapsed in front of about two hundred people.”

I blinked, trying to process what he had just said. “What?” was all I could manage. Trevor tilted the phone back toward me. A new message had arrived from my cousin. The words were short but impossible to ignore: Police are here. Someone ran background checks. Everything’s falling apart. Suddenly, the endless calls made sense.

Trevor handed the phone back as though it had become heavier than before. “Your family left here to impress someone who was already lying to them,” he said quietly. “And now they’re stuck in the middle of it.” His words carried no satisfaction or judgment—only a simple acknowledgment of reality.

For a moment, I couldn’t move. The cake knife rested between us on the table while the frosting slowly softened in the warm air. Around the room, thirty-seven empty chairs seemed to stare back at me like silent witnesses to years of disappointment and misplaced priorities. My phone rang again, but this time I didn’t react. Instead, I looked at Trevor.

He didn’t seem surprised anymore. He looked steady, grounded, as though he had already chosen where his attention belonged. “So what happens now?” I asked. He squeezed my hand gently. “Now,” he said, nodding toward the cake, the six people who had stayed, and the life we had built together, “we finish your wedding.” Outside, the marina lights flickered on across the water. Inside, I set the phone face down, picked up the knife, and for the first time that day, I stopped looking at the empty chairs.