Gasps filled the room. No one seemed to know what to do in that moment. Everyone looked at each other, waiting for someone to tell them what to do, but no one dared to move—besides the press, of course, whose cameras were flashing faster than the speed of light in a thunderstorm.

Emily also didn't know what to do and just stood there, frozen, and wondered what she'd done wrong. She couldn't think of anything; she'd done everything according to plan, right?

Her wedding planner had told her to focus on the survivors-getting-married part in her vows, which she had. She hadn't complained about not having a choice in who she'd marry. When Jason had decided for her the business came before Emily and River, she hadn't said anything.

So what had gone wrong?

"What?" Emily whispered, more confused than she was offended.

Jason closed his eyes and his hand curled up into a fist, but not because he was angry; he had trouble trying to find the right words. "I... I can't do this," he said. "This is wrong in more ways than one."

She still didn't understand what he was getting at. Was he trying to cancel the wedding at the last minute? What about the damage he'd talked about? Canceling a wedding at the last minute would be bad press, he'd said, and it would make it seem like he was unpredictable and unreliable as a CEO-to-be. No one would want to be in business with him—it was how he convinced her they had to go through with it. Of all the times they could cancel it, today was the worst of all.

What had changed his mind?

"Jason," Jason's father, Malcolm, hissed. "What are you doing?"

Emily saw out of the corners of her eyes the press was enjoying this, but for her, everything started to dazzle. She found it hard to see straight and started breathing heavily, taking short breaths at a time.

"We better talk about this in private," Jason said, eyeing the cameras recording them. This would be a lot of bad publicity, they both knew that, and a lot of damage control would have to be done in order to fix the mess he'd made—the mess they'd made. Emily couldn't help but think she was part of the problem too.

She saw a girl with her brown hair in a ponytail whisper something to her colleague, who was typing on his phone. How long would it be before this was all over the internet? Everyone would know about it—if being humiliated during your own wedding wasn't already bad enough.

Malcolm and his wife stood up from their seats in the first row, just like Matthew and Brooke did. Jason held out his hand to Emily and she hooked her arm on his. This wasn't about falling in and out of love anymore; they were just saving face. Emily couldn't imagine what effect this would have on the companies that were already in bad weather. The wedding and the merger secured by marriage would have had to save them, but now she wasn't sure of anything anymore.

She did know a little bit about business as she was the daughter of the CEO of Abbington Aviation. Conversations at the dinner table about shares and finances and how hard the economic crisis had been on the company were often brought up at the dinner table. Her father quizzed her sometimes about what to do in a specific hypothetical situation—when an employee is exposed as a fraud, or when the CFO goes on maternity leave—and had always hoped she would be the one who followed in his footsteps. However, the kidnapping had come between him and his dream.

Emily held her head down as she walked back down the aisle in the opposite direction. Her heart was beating rapidly. She could never have foreseen this and there was no guide on how to deal with situations like this—she'd never even heard of someone being turned down at the altar before!

But, as she reminded herself, she needed to focus on the bright side. There was a big probability Jason had done this for her to make her happy, after the conversation they'd just had.

Or maybe seeing the bride in her wedding dress before the wedding actually was bad luck; she didn't know.

And just before she walked through the big doors again and was taken out of everyone's sight for the calmness to return, she saw a glimpse of River sitting in the back. He was still here, she realized. His face was shocked and he tried to ask her a million questions with just the look on his face, but all she could do was shrug her shoulders and turn her head away from him. She didn't have the answers either.

*

"The both of you," Matthew said, and before he could even ask them to sit down on the sofa in the lounge area, he shook his head. He hadn't seen this coming—none of them had.

"I know what you're all thinking," Jason said. He stood close to Emily and was protective of her. "'You're throwing everything away, how hard is it to just get married and ensure the merger of the companies?' Well, let me tell you—it's hard. A lot harder than I expected, and I know Emily didn't want to go through with this, just like I don't want to." He didn't say anything about River which surprised Emily, but she wasn't about to betray him and kept her mouth shut too.

"Well, what were you thinking?" Malcolm said. "We've been planning this for weeks, and only now you're saying you don't want to get married?"

"I didn't know it before now," Jason said. He was defending both him and her, and she was thankful he was—she was still trying to get over the initial shock and was in no way prepared to take it up against her parents.

"What about your future, Jason?" Malcolm asked. "You're throwing it all out the window! You're not showing yourself off as a capable businessman, you know that?"

"I show who I am—true to myself, and I don't let anyone order me around." Jason didn't lose the determined look on his face for a second and didn't seem to doubt his decision the slightest, but for Emily, everything was a whirlwind in her mind, closing in on her and creating chaos. She wasn't even thinking about Abbington Aviation or Dynalogic or the merger. The wedding was on her mind, but most of all River. What must he be thinking right now?

Matthew moved between father and son. "I'm not sure the shareholders will believe that!" Emily rolled her eyes; of course, her father was thinking about the company. She doubted whether the wedding had ever been real to him.

"Emily?" Brooke asked her then. Her mother had noticed she was hiding behind Jason, but wasn't about to let her get away with this. "What do you think?"

"I..." Emily stammered, and she looked at Jason, her mother, then back at Jason. She was at a loss for words, and in not knowing what to say, she didn't say anything.

"Well?" her father pressed.

She bit her lip. "Er, I..." she began. "I agree with Jason."

Brooke narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, you agree with Jason?" She hadn't meant to be mean, but Emily felt attacked.

"I..." she started. She was still gaining confidence to finish her sentence until she realized it was easier to just let it out and see what would happen. "I don't want to marry Jason."

A wide-eyed Brooke stared at her, but an answer didn't come. She had too much trouble processing those words.

Emily felt the need to explain herself. "It was never my wish to marry him," she said. "No offense, Jason."

"None taken." He chuckled, and it felt good to have someone on her side.

"I've always done what you've asked me to do," Emily said, and letting the words out felt good. "I went to school every day, did my homework, studied hard, and I was about to go to a good university because you wanted me to."

"That's not—" Matthew began. His cheeks were bright red and Emily figured it was because he was in the company of Malcolm and he felt like she was making him out to be a bad figure. It pained her to see her father like this; he seemed smaller, weaker. His eyes were tearing up, and she didn't know how he was feeling about all of this but wanted to explain herself first before giving him a chance to do it first.

"Can I talk, please?" she asked. "Thank you." She coughed and tried to remember where she'd left off before the brief interruption. "And I know things came in the way, and that I am not the daughter you're used to seeing. I've changed, and Jason has too."

She got an approving nod from Jason and it gave her the courage to go on. She knew she was on the right track and it was time to tell her parents the truth. They'd been treating her like the girl she was before the kidnapping the past few months, pretending Those Three Years never happened, but they had and they'd changed her. She wasn't about to let them walk all over her and tell her what to do.

"I want to make my own choices, for once," she continued. "That doesn't mean I disagree with everything you say or that I hate you—I just want my freedom back. It's been taken from me for too long."

When she finished, no one dared to speak and the only sound in the room was the slight buzzing of the lights above them. She felt good, like a weight was lifted off her chest, and just saying it already made her feel free. From now on, this was her life.

"I have nothing to add to that," Jason said then, and he pinched her arm, smiling. She smiled back. They both knew this day could only get better from here.

* * *

I know I've been doing this count down for the past seventy chapters, but only one more chapter until the end! Seems like Emily and River might get a happy ending after all :)