Chapter 1: The Setup and the Fallout

I drugged Caleb and set the whole thing up so the world would catch us—just so he'd have to ask the governor for permission to marry me.

The truth was, I orchestrated everything—laced the wine, watched the clock, and made sure the doors would swing open right at sunrise. I thought it was the only way someone like me could ever get a boy like him. The guilt pressed down on me, but I convinced myself it would all work out once we were together. I didn’t realize I’d set my whole future on fire. My mom always warned me that every shortcut had a price, and as the sun rose that morning, a pit of dread gnawed at my stomach. I remember her voice: “You can’t force love, Rachel. Choices come back around.”

But instead of saving me, Caleb would rather be punished than marry me, leaving me the butt of every joke in town.

Word spread fast in Maple Heights. By noon, whispers trailed me through every grocery aisle—at Piggly Wiggly, at the Dairy Queen, at the high school lockers. The phones at my dad’s office rang off the hook with reporters asking about the “scandal.” I couldn’t even step outside without neighbors peeking through their blinds, mouths pressed tight in judgment.