The boxes were printed with the logo of a commercial catering and event company, and beneath it, in bold letters, the words WEDDING RENTAL, TABLES AND SEATING, 150 GUESTS. I stared at the screen until the number stopped looking real. One hundred fifty. Not forty-seven. Danielle had told me a family reunion, four days, stock the fridge, but the truck at my gate was carrying folding tables and chairs for a crowd three times that size. My quiet beach house, the one with only my name on the deed, was about to be the unpaid, unpermitted venue for something she had been planning for far longer than a weekend.

I pulled up the reservation confirmation the security guard photographed and forwarded to me, and the last piece fell into place. Danielle had booked a full wedding at my property, my nephew’s wedding, and she had already collected deposits from a photographer, a DJ, and a caterer, all promising them a private oceanfront estate. She had sold my home as her own to a dozen vendors. She never intended to ask me, because asking risked a no. She intended to change the locks in her own mind, move a hundred and fifty strangers onto my land, and dare me to cause a scene at a wedding. Then Theo tugged my sleeve, pointed at the screen, and asked the question that decided everything. “Isn’t that our house?”