Chapter 3

For the next three days, I barely stopped moving.

I signed the Paris contract. The studio expedited my work visa.

I redistributed a year’s worth of projects at my New York studio and transferred my longtime clients to my partner, Claire.

Every time I finished something, I crossed another line off my list.

Paris wasn’t an escape route I had invented overnight.

Three years earlier, when one of my collections was selected for an international jewelry exhibition, the Paris studio had invited me to stay.

At the time, Dominic had only recently secured his position as Don, and the Valenti family’s legitimate businesses were expanding aggressively.

I had turned a six-month residency into a three-week stay and flown home to help him through the worst of it.

He always used to say it didn’t matter which one of us went farther.

Only now did I understand that if you keep slowing down for someone else, eventually you forget how far you were capable of going.

So I wasn’t going to Paris to run from Dominic.

I was going back for the life I had willingly set aside.

The strange part was how cleanly seven years began to unravel once I finally decided to let them end.

On the fourth evening, Dominic showed up at my studio.

He set my favorite chestnut cake on the table.

“Enough already. I had Elena return the key to the Tribeca condo.”

I looked up.

“Why?”

“Because you were upset.” His brows pinched together, as if he couldn’t understand why I was asking. “It’s one room. She doesn’t have to use it.”

Even now, he still thought this was about a room and a ring.

I didn’t explain.

Dominic took the platinum band from the inside pocket of his suit.

This time he didn’t bother with the box. He reached for my hand directly.

“Serena. I admit I took the joke too far at the engagement party. I’ll put the ring on you myself. Happy?”

I pulled my hand away.

The movement was small, but final.

“Dominic, I told you. I don’t want it anymore.”

His hand stayed suspended in the air.

For the first time, real irritation crossed his face.

“What exactly do you want from me?”

“You want me to fall out with Elena over a ring?”

“Or should I take back a company reward in front of the entire family and tell everyone my fiancée got jealous?”

I looked at him in silence.

He took that silence as an answer, and his voice grew colder.

“You were never like this before, Serena.”

“You used to know the difference between business and personal feelings. You didn’t obsess over Elena.”

“You’re right,” I said.

Dominic blinked.

“What?”

“I wasn’t like this before.”

Before, I had been so afraid of looking petty that I kept forcing myself to understand everyone else.

But understanding someone is not an obligation.

I lowered my eyes to the sketch in front of me.

“I have a meeting.”

His face darkened.

Then his phone rang.

Elena’s name lit up the screen.

Whatever she said made the tension leave his face immediately.

“You forgot your access card again? Stay there. I’m coming.”

After he hung up, he looked at me.

“Come home for dinner. I want to talk to you.”

I gave a noncommittal hum.

At the door, he looked back.

“I’m leaving the ring here. Put it on when you come to your senses.”

The door closed behind him.

I stared at the platinum band on my desk, then picked it up and put it into an envelope with the two-dollar plastic ring.

What was mine, I would not give away.

What wasn’t mine, I no longer wanted.

That evening, I went to my attorney’s office.

The condo, the parking space, the engagement expenses—we settled everything line by line.

I had never imagined wanting to calculate things this precisely.

Now numbers felt more honest than feelings.

My attorney pushed the final document toward me.

“Are you sure?”

I signed my name.

“I already wasted seven years. I’m not wasting an eighth.”