Chapter 7

Before I left, I asked the three of them to meet me at the private club.

My mother and the three men had already chartered a plane for two days later to take Vivian to Canada. Once Vivian was out of the country, Black Harbor couldn't enforce the engagement. Everyone was busy planning her escape, and no one knew I had already signed.

I brought three boxes with me.

The first held the silver pen Alexander gave me. At sixteen, when I was accused of cheating at school, he wrote the appeal with that pen himself and told me that no matter how the whole world judged me, he would always be on my side.

The second held the old stethoscope Nathan used as a student. The first time I had a panic attack and was taken to the hospital, he pressed it into my hand and made me listen to his steady heartbeat, and told me that as long as it was beating he would never walk away from me.

The third held a music box Julian made by hand. It played my favorite song from childhood, and inside the lid he had engraved a line. The fourth chair will always be waiting for you.

The three of them arrived one after another. Alexander glanced at the boxes on the table. "Are you still upset about the budget?"

"No." I pushed all three boxes across to them. "I'm not going to choose any one of you. Those unspoken engagements between us end here."

Nathan's face darkened first. Julian forced a smile, dismissing my words as a fit of temper. "Evelyn, there are two days left before the wedding. Once Vivian is safely out, we'll put everything back the way it was."

Alexander picked up the thread. "Your black card will be unfrozen tomorrow."

"We'll restore your priority on the red-button system too," Nathan added.

Julian took a brand new nameplate out of his pocket, my name engraved on it as before. "The chair has always been yours. When the wedding is over I'll fit the plate back on it myself."

I looked at that new nameplate and the whole thing struck me as absurd. "Everything you've planned assumes Vivian is the one who leaves," I said. "What if the one who leaves is me?"

All three of them fell silent. After a moment Alexander frowned. "Don't use that to threaten us. Black Harbor is not somewhere you run off to when you're in a mood."

"And don't let Vivian hear you," Nathan said. "She'll think you're blaming her."

I was about to tell them that I was the one who had signed the contract when something crashed to the floor outside the club door.

Vivian was on her knees in the corridor with her luggage scattered around her, digging through it in a panic and crying. "My passport is gone! Without a passport I can't go to Canada, and they'll send me to Black Harbor."

My mother came hurrying after her, her face drawn and pale. "Evelyn, put your own business aside and help us find the passport."

"I was just about to explain—"

"Your sister is frightened out of her mind. Why do you have to pick this moment?"

The same line as always. As long as Vivian was frightened, whatever I needed was pushed aside until some later time.

I crouched down and helped her gather her things, finally finding the passport between the sofa cushions. Vivian gripped my hand tight. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

I didn't pull my hand back. I put the passport in her palm. "You aren't going to marry into Black Harbor."

She stared for a second, then threw her arms around me, sobbing.

Everyone there thought I had finally given in and agreed to help her get out of the engagement. Nobody asked how I could be so sure.

I left the three boxes holding our history on the table at the club. Back at the estate, I put the sapphire ring my mother had given me at eighteen back in its case. That ring was the token of all three unspoken engagements.

Julian happened to walk in as I was taking it off. He caught my hand and ran his thumb over the bare spot at the base of my ring finger. "In a few days, you'll put it back on."

"Julian, has it occurred to you that I won't ever put it on again?"

He sighed. "Every time you're angry, you talk as if it's final, but you can never bring yourself to follow through."

I didn't correct him again. Back in the Winter House, I changed my train ticket from the day of the wedding to that same night.

They thought they still had two whole days for me to cool off and make peace. But in two hours, I would be gone from Boston.