I’d laughed at first, because surely no one says something like that and means it the way it sounds. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His eyes moved over me in a way that made my skin crawl. “It means you’ve got a pretty face. You know that. But the rest…” He gave a little shrug, as if he were commenting on weather or service. “You’ve let yourself become more than most men want to deal with.”
I can still remember the silence after that.
The restaurant around us kept moving. Glasses clinked. Someone laughed at another table. A waiter passed with a tray balanced over one shoulder.
And there I sat, trying to pretend my whole body hadn’t just gone hot with humiliation.
He broke up with me later that night in the hotel. Neatly. Calmly. Almost kindly, if you weren’t listening too closely.
He said we wanted different things. He said attraction wasn’t enough. He said I wasn’t the kind of woman who fit the future he had in mind.
Then he left me there.
Two days still left in Spain. A return ticket already booked. No apology worth remembering. Just a message from the front desk telling me he’d checked out, and a text saying my flight home hadn’t changed.
I blink, and the estate snaps back into focus.
Ethan is still in front of me, waiting, maybe hoping I’ll look wounded enough to satisfy him.
Instead, I say, “I’m here to do my job. That’s all.”
He slips a hand into his pocket. “You always were good at pretending things didn’t bother you.”
Before I can answer, a woman’s voice cuts in behind him.
“Ethan.”
He turns immediately.
Camille Laurent crosses the room toward us in a whisper of pale silk and expensive perfume. She’s beautiful in the way magazines like best. Tall, immaculate, blonde to the point of perfection, every detail so polished it almost stops looking natural. She belongs here in a way I never will, and she knows it.
Her eyes land on me only briefly. “Your mother is asking why the escort cards are still in serif,” she says to Ethan. “And someone has moved the candles.”
He glances back at me, but his attention is already gone. “I was talking to the replacement planner.”
Camille gives me a smile that isn’t one. “Then I hope she knows what she’s doing.”
“I do,” I say.
“Wonderful.” She reaches for Ethan’s arm as if this conversation is already over. “Come with me.”
He lets himself be pulled along, though not before giving me one last look that makes my stomach knot.
Then they’re gone.
The second they disappear into the next room, I let out the breath I’ve been holding. I turn before anyone can stop me and head for the corridor, my pulse far too fast, the binder clutched tight against my chest. By the time I slip outside under the covered stone portico, I’m breathing hard enough to feel lightheaded.
Rain drifts across the lawns in a silver haze. Somewhere on the grounds, staff hurry between tents with their heads down, trying to stay ahead of the weather and the people paying them to control it.
I put a hand on one of the columns and shut my eyes for a moment.
Ethan.
Of course.
Of course the groom would be my ex. Of course the universe would choose now, of all times, to drag him back in front of me. My free hand drops to my middle, hidden beneath the folds of my coat.