She looks up. Her eyes are red-rimmed but dry. She’s not crying. But I think she’s in that place I know too well, the hollowplace after the adrenaline, where your body has processed the disaster but your brain is still three steps behind.
“This is so fucking stupid,” she says. “Art’s—”
“Don’t.” I stop in front of her, and everything I’ve been holding since the moment Art dropped to one knee comes surging up my throat. “Don’t say his name right now.”
She stands. “You don’t get to say that when you told me to say yes.”
“I know.”
“You looked at me across that table and you nodded, and how could youdothat?”
She shoves my shoulders, her eyes glassy.
My chest smarts.
“I know what I did.”
She shoves me again, and again I let her, because if she needs something to hit, I’ll be that for her.
I’d be anything for her.
“How could it be so easy for you?”
“Easy?” The word rips out of me. “You think that was easy?”
“You didn’t even flinch.”
“Because a hundred people were watching!”
I grab her wrists before she can shove me again and hold them between us. Her pulse flutters against my fingers.
“You think I didn’t want to flip that table? You think I didn’t want to rip that ring out of his hand and tell every person in that room that you’re mine?”
I stop, running a palm down my face.
“That I’m what?” she whispers.
“Mine,” I say again.
Something snaps in my chest. Not the controlled breakfrom last night, and not the slow surrender in the armchair. This is jealousy and grief and the image of Art’s hand sliding up her thigh while I sat three feet away and pretended I didn’t care.
“He’s your best friend.”
“I fuckingknowthat. I’m his best friend, and I’m the man who’s so in love with you I can’t breathe, and I don’t know how to be both of those people anymore.”
She sucks in a breath, her perfect mouth popping open.
I close the distance in one step, backing her against the ivy-covered wall, her wrists still locked in my grip.
“You’remine, Genevieve, and he doesn’t get to have you just because he dropped to one knee in front of a crowd and said the right words.”
And then I lean down and kiss her.
I kiss her like I’m trying to burn Art’s touch off her skin, and she lets me, my hands pulling her into me until there’s nothing between us but the thin fabric of her dress and every lie we’ve ever told.
She gasps into my mouth when I spin her around, her palms flattening against the stone, and I press my chest to her back, my lips at her ear. One hand slides up her arm, slow, fingers trailing over her goose bumps, until I reach her wrist again and pin it gently against the wall. The other grips her hip, squeezing softly, before I tug up the bottom of her dress and slip my fingers underneath, cupping her between the legs.
“This is mine, too,” I say. “Not his.”