Chapter Six

I signed my name eleven times that afternoon and couldn't have told you what any of the pages actually said. Voss walked me through each one with the patient, practiced tone of a man who did this for a living, and I nodded along and initialed where he pointed and drove home afterward with absolutely no memory of the drive itself, or how I'd ended up parked outside my own building instead of anywhere near the estate.

By Monday morning I was back at my desk pretending the world hadn't tilted sideways, three renderings open on my screen and a client call scheduled in twenty minutes that I had no real memory of preparing for.

"You've read the same line four times," Theo said, dropping into the chair across from me without asking, the way he always did. "I've been counting."

"I'm tired."

"You're somewhere else entirely, which is different." He studied me for a second longer than was comfortable, the same look he gave a bad rendering right before he told me exactly what was wrong with it, patient and a little too perceptive for my liking today. "Did something happen with your sister's wedding?"

"Something like that."

"You want to tell me, or you want me to keep guessing badly until you laugh at one of them? I'll start easy. Caterer dropped out."

"No."

"Someone objected at the rehearsal. Very dramatic, very soap opera. Somebody's ex showed up uninvited."

"Closer than you'd think, actually." I almost smiled despite myself, the first real pull of one all morning. "Still not it."

"I'll get there eventually. I'm very committed." He leaned back, easy, unhurried, like he had nowhere else in the world he needed to be, waiting me out with the patience of a man who'd clearly done this before.

"It's a family thing," I finally said. "It'll sort itself out."

He didn't push, which was exactly why I hadn't told him anything real, because Theo never pushed, he just left the door open and let me decide whether to walk through it, and today I genuinely couldn't. Not yet. Not until I understood it myself, and maybe not even then, and definitely not while I still couldn't say the word husband out loud without something in my chest tightening.

"Well." He stood, sliding a coffee across my desk I hadn't noticed him bring in. "The door's open when you're ready. I'm not going anywhere."

"I know."

He left me to the renderings I wasn't actually looking at, and I got through the client call on autopilot, said all the right things about sightlines and seasonal planting, and hung up with no memory of a single word either of us had said.

My mother called at four, right on schedule, the way she always did when there was wedding business to discuss.

"I've booked the venue coordinator for Thursday," she said, no greeting first. "We need to finalize the guest list update, obviously it's smaller now, and I want to walk through the ceremony order with you before Helena's team locks the program. There's quite a bit to get through, so clear your evening."

"Okay."

"You sound flat. Are you eating enough? Stress does terrible things to appetite, and I don't want you fainting at your own wedding in front of the Ashfords, of all people."

"I'm fine, Mom."

"I'm only asking." A pause, the sound of papers shuffling on her end. "I spoke to the photographer this morning. She wants to know if we're doing a first look or a traditional reveal at the aisle. I told her traditional, obviously, it photographs better, gives us that moment."

"Whatever you think is best."

"Don't do that. Don't just agree with everything I say like you're not actually in this wedding." Her voice sharpened slightly, the particular edge she got when she felt unappreciated for effort no one had asked her to spend. "I am trying very hard to make this feel special for you, Odessa, given the circumstances."

"I appreciate that." I didn't, not fully, not the way she meant it, but I'd stopped correcting her a long time ago.

"And we still need to sort out the dress. I've booked you with Priya for Thursday afternoon, before the venue walkthrough, so we can see what we're actually working with." A brief, weighted pause. "Actually, do me a favor this week and go a little easy on things. Skip the heavy dinners, ease off the bread, nothing drastic, just until after the fitting. It would save us all a headache with the seams."

"I'm not going to stop eating for a dress, Mom."

"Nobody said stop. I said go easy. There's a difference, and you know it." A brisk little laugh, like she'd said something reasonable rather than something that landed the way it always did. "It's just a practical suggestion. You'd thank me at the fitting."

I didn't answer that one at all, and after a beat, she filled the silence herself, sighing long and put-upon on the other end of the line.

"I just need you to understand something, and I don't say this to hurt you. This isn't the wedding I planned for a year. I have a binder, Odessa, an entire binder of colors and flowers and seating charts I built for your sister, and none of it fits this version of things. I'll be walking you down the aisle thinking about the wedding we lost, at least a little, whether I want to or not. I think that's just honest."

"That's what you wanted to tell me."

"I wanted you to understand where I'm coming from, yes. I don't think that's unreasonable." A rustle of paper again, brisk, already moving on. "Anyway, we can discuss flowers Thursday too, I have samples coming."

I sat very still at my desk, phone pressed to my ear, and felt something in my chest go quiet in the specific way it did right before it went numb entirely.

"I have to go, Mom. I have another call."

"Odessa-"

"I'll see you Thursday." I hung up before she could say anything else, set the phone face down on my desk, and sat there for a long moment doing absolutely nothing at all, staring at renderings I could no longer make myself care about.

Theo knocked on my open door a few minutes later, saw whatever was left on my face, and didn't ask a single question this time, just pulled the chair back out and sat down across from me in silence, close enough that I didn't have to be entirely alone with it, far enough that I didn't have to explain anything I wasn't ready to. He didn't reach for his phone or fill the quiet with small talk, just sat there like patience was something he had an endless supply of, which, as far as I'd ever seen, it was.

My phone lit up on the desk between us before either of us said anything, and I watched Theo's eyes flick to it automatically, the way anyone's would.

Callum. A name I still hadn't gotten used to seeing on my own screen.

Dinner with my parents Thursday, 7pm. Attendance isn't optional.

No greeting. No question mark, even. I stared at the message for longer than it needed, aware of Theo watching me read whatever had put that particular look on my face, and had absolutely no idea what expression I was supposed to arrange mine into before I looked back up at him.