Chapter 2

My father wants to call Ethan before I finish telling him what happened.

I put my hand over his phone.

"Not yet."

Richard Bennett looks at me.

"He asked you to do what?"

"Live in an apartment and keep seeing him after he marries Victoria."

My mother sets down her coffee.

Carefully.

"And she knows?"

"Yes."

For a moment, neither of them speaks.

Then my father stands.

"I'll speak to Adrian."

"I will."

"This isn't yours to clean up."

"I know. But I want him to hear it from me."

My mother reaches across the table.

"What do you want to do about Saturday?"

Saturday.

Two hundred guests.

A dress I've tried not to look at since I got home.

I take a breath.

"I don't know yet."

"That's all right," she says. "You don't have to decide everything tonight."

My phone vibrates.

Ethan.

Then again.

I turn it facedown.

An hour later, Adrian Caldwell calls.

"Claire."

His voice is quiet.

"Are you home?"

"Yes."

"May I come by?"

I look at my father.

"Did you call him?"

"No."

Adrian hears me.

"The house manager told me you left upset. Ethan says there's been a misunderstanding."

"What else did he say?"

"That you need time to calm down."

I close my eyes.

Of course.

"Come over," I say.

Adrian arrives twenty minutes later.

At thirty-nine, he is only eleven years older than Ethan. People who don't know the family sometimes mistake them for brothers.

When Ethan's parents died, Adrian was twenty-two and Ethan was eleven. They were distant relatives. Adrian took him in, later adopted him, and spent the next seventeen years making sure he had every opportunity.

Ethan now calls those opportunities a cage.

Adrian sits opposite me in my parents' living room.

He lets me finish.

He doesn't interrupt when I tell him about Victoria.

Or the apartment.

When I stop, he looks at the bare finger resting against my knee.

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't do it."

"No. But he used my home to do it. And he seems to think I'm going to let him take over your wedding."

"Are you?"

"No."

He says it without hesitation.

"The venue is yours for Saturday. You can cancel it, use it, or turn it into a party where no one mentions his name. The staff have been told to take their instructions from you."

Something in my chest loosens.

For the first time all day, someone is asking what I want.

Adrian leans forward.

"You don't owe him silence, Claire. And you don't owe either family a wedding."

"I know."

"Any costs our side created, I'll cover."

"I'm not worried about the flowers."

"I didn't think you were."

He looks at me as though I'm still myself.

Not a woman who has been replaced.

Not a problem waiting to be settled.

My parents give us the room.

I watch the door close.

Then I look back at Adrian.

"What if I don't want to cancel?"

His expression changes slightly.

"Then you don't have to."

"What if I want to change the groom?"

He is silent.

I can hear the clock above the fireplace.

"Claire."

"I mean you."

He doesn't laugh.

That almost makes it harder.

"You've had a terrible day," he says.

"I have."

"And I'm not going to take advantage of it."

"You aren't."

"You may feel differently tomorrow."

"Then ask me tomorrow."

He studies me.

We have known each other for years, though never like this.

He has come to my studio's annual fundraiser. Sat across from me at business dinners. Asked about my work and remembered the answers.

Last winter, when a burst pipe destroyed half my stock, Ethan told me insurance would handle it.

Adrian asked what I needed to reopen.

He offered help once.

When I told him I wanted to manage it myself, he respected that.

I have noticed him.

The way he listens.

The way a room settles when he speaks.

I never let myself do anything with those thoughts.

I was engaged to his son.

"You don't need to marry me to make a point," he says.

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Yes. I can leave Ethan without marrying anyone."

"Then why me?"

I make myself hold his gaze.

"Because I respect you. Because I'm attracted to you. Because I've spent four years making excuses for someone who makes me feel smaller, and you never have."

His hand rests on the arm of the chair.

Still.

"I don't want a marriage that exists only when Ethan is watching," he says.

"Neither do I."

"If we do this, it's real. We take the time to learn how to live together. We don't use each other to settle a score."

"I'm not asking you to pretend."

For a long moment, he says nothing.

Then he stands.

"Sleep tonight. I'll come back tomorrow."

"And if I still want this?"

"Then we'll talk about Saturday."

He keeps his word.

The next morning, he arrives without an assistant or a driver waiting at the door.

We walk in my parents' garden.

He asks about my studio.

Where I want to live.

What I expect from a husband.

I ask whether he has ever wanted to kiss me.

He stops beside the terrace.

"Yes."

The answer sends warmth through me.

"Why didn't you?"

"You were engaged."

"I'm not now."

He looks at me for a moment.

Then he touches my cheek.

"May I?"

"Yes."

His kiss is careful at first.

He gives me room to change my mind.

I move closer instead.

When he draws back, I'm holding the front of his coat.

"All right," I say.

His mouth curves.

"About the kiss or the wedding?"

"Both."

We tell my parents together.

My father asks Adrian three direct questions.

My mother asks me one.

"Are you choosing this for yourself?"

"Yes."

She holds my gaze.

Then she nods.

By afternoon, the planner has new instructions. We arrange the license paperwork, call the people who need to know, and keep the original ceremony time.

Sophie meets me at the studio.

My dress is waiting in its garment bag.

"Are we putting it in storage?" she asks.

"No."

She looks at me.

"The dress stays."

"And the wedding?"

"That stays, too."

I hand her the revised details.

She reads the name.

Then she reads it again.

"Adrian Caldwell?"

"Yes."

A slow smile spreads across her face.

"I'll call the stationer."

Only one name needs changing.