Last Birthday Wish

St. Clair Academy's senior prom was being held in the old gym. Hundreds of warm fairy lights hung from the rafters, a rented band tested its sound equipment on the temporary stage, and the air smelled like perfume, floor wax, and flowers that had already started to wilt.

Nico walked in beside me while a black Cadillac Escalade idled at the curb. His driver stayed behind the wheel, and two members of the Moretti security team watched the school entrance through tinted windows.

Everyone in Rose Harbor knew the Morettis controlled the north-shore docks, several clubs, and a number of businesses no one discussed in polite company. Nico was Vito Moretti's only son, which meant he was also the only heir to everything bearing that name.

Inside St. Clair, though, he still had chemistry assignments and football practice like every other senior. Coach Ramirez made him run laps when he missed drills. Teachers marked him late when he strolled into class after the bell. For eleven years, I'd clung to that version of him because it made loving him feel simple.

I straightened his black bow tie and pinned a white orchid to his left lapel. It had taken three florists to find one with the faint green edging I wanted, the exact shade of his eyes.

"Hold still," I said when he reached for the pin. "Unless you want blood on your tux."

Nico looked down at me, amusement softening his mouth. He caught my wrist before I could pull away and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. "Ivy Carter, you have me all night. You happy now?"

I was. God help me, I believed him.

Celeste Bell arrived five minutes before the opening dance. She'd transferred to St. Clair the year before, after her father died while working for the Morettis. He'd left behind a daughter and a wife whose multiple sclerosis had progressed too far for her to manage the stairs alone. The Moretti Foundation covered Celeste's tuition, and Nico had taken it upon himself to make sure she was looked after at school.

At first, that meant showing her around campus and helping her deal with the financial-aid office. Then it became lunch together, study sessions for economics, weekend movies, and dinners at restaurants where someone always happened to post a picture of them.

I'd spoken to Nico about it twice. The first time, he'd kissed my forehead and told me I was reading too much into things. The second time, he'd tossed his car keys onto the cafeteria table and asked whether he needed my written permission before helping someone.

After that, every time I admitted Celeste made me uncomfortable, Nico spent more time with her. The message couldn't have been clearer: the harder I pulled, the harder he would push, just to prove no one told Nico Moretti what to do.

Tonight, Celeste wore a silver-gray gown and carried a crooked red boutonniere in her palm. She stopped in front of us, looked at Nico first, then turned her wide, careful eyes on me.

"Ivy, would you mind if Nico gave me the first dance? I've never been to prom before, and he promised he'd teach me."

The conversations around us thinned out. A few people openly turned to watch.

"Celeste," Nico said gently, "you don't need anyone's permission."

Her face brightened before she seemed to catch herself. "But Ivy's your date."

"It's one dance." Nico finally looked at me, and the tenderness from a few minutes ago had already hardened into impatience. "Don't turn this into a federal case."

Celeste removed the orchid from his lapel. As Nico turned toward the dance floor, she snapped its stem behind his back and gave me a triumphant smile before pinning her red flower in its place.

I looked at Nico for three seconds.

In those three seconds, I remembered being six years old and watching him chase a bully off the church steps for me. I remembered my sixteenth birthday, when he'd slipped a thin gold ring engraved with the Moretti crest onto my finger and promised he'd replace it with another ring when we were older.

I remembered the Columbia housing brochure where he'd circled an apartment and divided the study in half, already deciding which desk would be mine and what plants would sit by the window.

I stepped back. "Go ahead."

Nico's brows drew together. He hadn't expected me to agree, at least not that easily. But the band had started a slow cover of an old love song, and Celeste had already slipped her hand around his arm. After one brief hesitation, he led her onto the dance floor.

He'd always mistaken my silence for a tactic. It had never occurred to him that silence could mean there was nothing left to say.

I collected my coat from the checkroom and left the gym alone. The first dance wasn't even over when my phone buzzed in my hand.

[Celeste just wanted one good night where she didn't have to think about her family. Are you seriously jealous right now?]

[Knock it off, Ivy.]

[If you're still acting like this at Columbia, don't expect me to introduce you as my girlfriend.]

I stopped beneath the school archway and read the three messages twice. There was no apology, no question about where I'd gone, and no sign he'd noticed I had left without the flower he'd discarded.

The night before, I had logged into my admissions portal, declined Columbia's offer, and accepted a full scholarship and a summer research placement at the University of Washington.

Nico had planned our entire future without asking what I wanted. Now he could live it alone.