“David! Darling, come here! You’re missing the toasts!”

Sarah’s voice rang out, crystal clear and performatively joyous. I turned to see my wife standing in the center of the garden, bathed in the soft glow of fairy lights. She was wearing a flowing pastel dress designed to accentuate the five-month swell of her stomach. She looked radiant. She looked like the Madonna. She looked like the most expensive fraud I had ever invested in.

I adjusted the cuffs of my bespoke suit, masking the tremors of adrenaline that had been coursing through me for hours. “Coming, my love,” I called back, my voice a carefully honed instrument, capable of masking the hurricane within.