Page 31 of Waiting for You

"I have no idea what it means," I said, my voice cracking. "I can't comprehend the logic. If he wanted to try and start over, why corner me on the sidewalk and insist we should just be friends? Why deliver that whole detached speech at the rehearsal dinner about burying the past and moving on, only to smuggle my engagement ring into the reception? And if he genuinely just wanted to be friends… why pack the ring at all?"

Violet stayed silent, her eyes calculating.

"It makes zero sense," I pleaded.

"Or," she countered, her voice quiet, her eyes finally locking onto mine, "it makes one very specific, terrifying kind of sense."

My pulse slammed like a battering ram.

I turned my head toward the center of the room. Olivia was spinning wildly, Simon's hands guiding her shoulders, her head thrown back in pure laughter.

"Violet… do you think I still have a chance?" I whispered, terrified of the answer.

"I think," Violet said, her voice laced with certainty, "that a man who doesn't want you anymore leaves the damn ring in his dresser drawer."

EIGHT

XAVIER

I leaned against the decorative archway at the edge of the reception hall, scanning the thinning crowd, and I was not thinking about how Sloane's frantic fingers had frozen against the silk lining of my jacket pocket. I wasn't thinking about the silence that followed, or the horrified look that seized her face in the heartbeat before the cellar door swung open. I was not thinking about a single second of it.

I wasn't thinking about it.

I was consumed by all of it.

She knew what it was the moment her fingers brushed the velvet, and she'd looked up at me, her dark eyes bracing for impact. I'd had a handful of seconds to explain before the staffer opened the door and the chance vanished. I hadn't used a single one of them. I'd been failing to use my time with Sloane Ty for eight years, and tonight was no different.

The brutal truth about the ring was this. I'd brought it to hand it back to her. I carried the velvet box to the venue because staring at it in my dresser drawer every morning was a torture I wasn't willing to keep inflicting on myself. If I was going to move on, I needed to cut out every artifact that tied her to my life, and that sapphire ring was the last one. I was going to hand it back, lock the chapter, and end the haunting.

That had been the plan before the rehearsal dinner, before the sidewalk, before the cellar and the banter about the wine, the stupid debate over vanilla cake, the sound of her real laugh tearing through my defenses. Somewhere between drafting the plan and surviving tonight, I'd gotten terrified of parting with the ring, and I refused to examine why.

I tracked her across the ballroom.

She hovered near the edge of the dance floor, deep in conversation with Olivia. Her head tilted toward the teenager, her attention anchored to the girl's face. Olivia was explaining something with her hands, and Sloane let out a ringing laugh. I forced my eyes away.

I wondered if she'd been obsessing over the ring since the cellar. I hadn't stopped. But I couldn't walk over now and claim I'd brought it purely as a symbol of closure, because standing in this glittering room after surviving this evening, the word closure felt like a lie I had no interest in telling.

My phone went off against my thigh. I pulled it out.

A text from Eliza lit up the screen. She was here.

Eliza had made a real sacrifice to be here this weekend. She'd been negotiating the details of her corporate move to New York, a multi-million-dollar transition, and she'd walked out of the boardroom mid-deal to catch a flight for a wedding she'd nearly missed. There was no romantic love in our arrangement, no traditional loyalty. The attraction hadn't survived our first encounter. But there was an unshakeable respect between us. We made sacrifices for each other's professional lives, and catching this flight was one of hers.

I glanced back at Sloane, still with Olivia, an easy smile lighting up her face.

I looked down at the text from Eliza.

I left my scotch on a passing tray and went to find the woman I'd come with.

The mansion ran on its own confusing logic of dark corridors and unmarked wings, but I found my suite at the dead end of a mahogany hallway lined with brooding oil paintings. I pushed the heavy door open.

Eliza stood at the marble vanity, washing her hands. Two sleek overnight bags rested at the foot of the king bed. She wore a burgundy cocktail dress, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. She caught my reflection in the mirror as I came in, her mouth pulling into a weary grimace that crinkled the corners of her eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she sighed, reaching for a hand towel. "The flight got delayed on the tarmac, and then the senior partners refused to let me leave until I signed off on the Stephens acquisition, and by the time my driver finally reached the terminal…" She turned, dropping the towel on the counter. "I missed the whole thing."

"You got here safe," I said, leaning against the doorframe. "That's the only part that matters."

"I really wanted to watch Violet get married." She let out a frustrated breath. "I wanted to be sitting in that crowd."