No version of events in which I stayed upright on that promenade and kept control of the evidence.
So I climbed onto the low stone ledge and went backward into the river before either of them could grab me.
The cold erased everything but panic.
The dress dragged me down almost at once.
Satin, lace, beadwork, all of it turned from luxury into weight.
I lost direction.
I swallowed
water.
My legs tangled in the skirt, and for one terrible second I thought my final memory would be bubbles and sunlight breaking apart above me.
Then someone caught me.
He hauled me up with astonishing force and dragged me toward shore.
By the time I was on my back in the mud, coughing river water and trying not to black out, all I could see was a stranger’s face and the hard, disciplined calm in his eyes.
He was in his thirties, soaked to the bone, shirt plastered to his shoulders, pulse hammering in his throat while his hands remained steady.
Later I would learn his name was Dr.
Owen Mercer, a trauma surgeon from St.
Anne’s Hospital, in town for a medical fundraising dinner that happened to be booked in a ballroom across the corridor from my wedding reception.
In that moment he was simply the only person who did not look at me like I was a spectacle.
He checked my airway, my pulse, my pupils.
Then his hand paused at my waist.
He lifted the torn edge of my gown and found the pouch.
Our eyes met.
I managed to whisper, “Don’t let them take it.”
He did not ask questions.
He covered it just as Grant slid down the riverbank on one knee, shouting my name with theatrical horror.
“I’m her fiancé,” Grant said.
“What happened?”
