ADVERTISEMENT
I smiled.
Grant had built a career reading frightened families before giving them terrible news. But men like him often failed to read women they had taught themselves to dismiss.
He kissed my cheek.
I let him.
His cologne was familiar.
Underneath it, faintly, was jasmine.
Elise wore jasmine.
“Tonight matters,” he said.
“I know.”
“I need you to trust me.”
That almost broke something loose inside me.
Not tears.
Laughter.
Instead, I touched his hand.
“I trusted you for fifteen years, Grant.”
His face softened, but not with love.
With relief.
He mistook my sentence for surrender.
At noon, I went to the hotel.
The Beaumont Grand ballroom was in controlled chaos. Men adjusted lighting rigs. Florists unpacked hydrangeas, roses, and white tulips. Linen teams steamed tablecloths. Waiters reviewed champagne counts. A violinist tested a phrase that floated above the noise like something fragile.
ADVERTISEMENT
