Chapter Five

Nobody in that study moved for a full three seconds after Ivy said it, and in those three seconds I watched her decide she wasn't finished.

"Don't look at me like that," she said, stepping fully into the room now, mascara streaked, chest heaving. "Like I'm the one being unreasonable. You've wanted this for years, Odessa. Don't stand there and pretend otherwise in front of everyone."

"That's not fair, and you know it."

"None of this week has been fair, why start being reasonable about it now." She laughed, sharp and humorless, and turned to include the rest of the room in it, Desmond, Voss, even Callum by the window. "You all understand what's actually happening here, don't you? It's not some tragic accident that the trust just happens to fall to my sister. It's convenient. She's convenient. Steady, uncomplicated, unlikely to cause a scene, unlikely to have some other life waiting that she'd rather choose instead. Nobody has to worry about Odessa turning this down for anything better. Where else would she go?"

Her eyes swept over me once, deliberate, head to hem, the kind of look our mother had perfected long before Ivy ever learned to copy it. "It's actually a very tidy solution, if you think about it. Practical. He gets his heir. She gets a life she wouldn't have found any other way."

The words landed exactly where she'd aimed them, low, precise, dressed up as an observation about circumstance instead of what it actually was, and I thought of the smaller fork she'd handed me at the engagement dinner without asking, of being steered away from the dessert table like something that needed managing, of every version of this same message delivered so gently over the years that I'd stopped counting it as an insult at all. I felt my face heat despite every ounce of practice I had at keeping it still.

"That's enough," Desmond said, but Ivy wasn't finished.

"It's true, isn't it. That's the whole reason she's standing here signing paperwork instead of laughing in your faces and walking out. Because for her, this is probably the best offer she's ever going to get."

"Ivy." Callum's voice cut across the room, hard, but not for the reason I initially assumed. "That's enough. You're embarrassing yourself in front of counsel."

She turned to him, startled, like the room itself had spoken instead of him. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." He didn't move from the window, didn't so much as glance my way while he said it. "This isn't the place for it."

"Since when do you care what gets said, as long as the paperwork gets signed."

"I don't, particularly." His voice stayed flat, almost bored, a man managing an inconvenience rather than defending anyone. "I care that Voss doesn't need to watch a family argument to do his job. Sit down or leave, Ivy."

Ivy stared at him for a long moment, something complicated moving behind her eyes, and then she laughed, quieter this time, worse for it.

"Wow," she said. "Okay."

She left without another word, and this time nobody called after her.

The silence she left behind sat heavy over the table, and I became aware, all at once, of exactly how many people had just watched that happen, Desmond's careful neutral expression, Voss's studied focus on his folder, Callum already turned back toward the window like the whole exchange had cost him nothing at all.

"I need a minute," I said, to no one in particular, and stood before anyone could object.

I didn't go far, just out through the side door onto a stone terrace overlooking the back gardens, cool air hitting my face like something solid. On my way past the kitchen corridor, two staff members stood folding linens, low voices carrying further than they probably realized.

"...bigger than Ms. Ivy, obviously, so the dress'll need real work, not just a hem."

"Poor thing. Can't be easy, stepping into someone else's wedding like that. Literally, apparently."

A soft laugh, quickly stifled, and then silence as I passed the doorway, both of them suddenly very interested in the linens in their hands. I kept walking like I hadn't heard a word of it, because that was, at this point, a skill I'd had over two decades to perfect.

I hadn't realized how badly my hands were shaking until I braced them against the railing outside.

The paperwork was still sitting on that table. Nobody had asked me to sign it yet. I could still walk to my car right now and drive away from all of it, and some small, exhausted part of me was seriously considering exactly that. Ivy's voice kept replaying anyway, unlikely to have some other life waiting, and I hated most that some traitorous corner of me had heard it and thought, quietly, maybe she's right.

I heard the terrace door open behind me a few minutes later, and this time it wasn't Callum who'd followed me out. It was Desmond, alone, closing the door quietly against the cold.

"I owe you an apology," he said, coming to stand near the railing, though not too close. "That should never have happened in front of you, or at all."

"It's fine."

"It isn't, but I appreciate you saying so." He looked out over the gardens for a moment, hands folded behind his back, before he spoke again, quieter. "I know this isn't the marriage either of you pictured for yourselves. I'm not going to insult you by pretending Callum's going to walk out here and tell you something different than what he actually feels. He didn't love your sister either, not the way people assume, but they had an ease to them, a comfort. I won't pretend you're starting anywhere near that."

"I wasn't expecting him to."

"Good. Better to go in with clear eyes." He said it kindly enough, but the words still landed like something final, a door closing gently rather than slamming. "He's not an unkind man, Odessa, whatever this week might suggest. He's just not a man who pretends to feel things he doesn't. I'd rather you know that now than discover it slowly."

Before I could answer, the door opened again, and this time it was Callum, phone still in hand, barely glancing at either of us.

"Voss needs a signature before he leaves," he said, to his father, not to me. "The revised terms page."

"I'll be right in." Desmond didn't move yet, watching his son's back as Callum turned and walked away again without another word, without so much as a look in my direction, like the entire conversation on this terrace had nothing to do with him at all.

"He'll come around," Desmond said, more to himself than to me. "He usually does."

I stood at that railing a long time after he'd gone back inside, watching the space where Callum had been standing, and understood, with a clarity that settled cold and certain somewhere under my ribs, exactly how little I should let myself expect from any of this.

Then I wiped my face, straightened my dress, and walked back inside to sign my name to a marriage that nobody in that house actually wanted, least of all the groom, because knowing exactly where I stood with him was, at least, a kind of honesty I could work with.