Chapter 4

Everyone we knew began liking the picture.

Some asked when Damian and Sofia planned to go public. Others congratulated her for finally getting what she wanted. Damian didn’t correct a single one of them.

I looked once, put my phone away, and went back to organizing the Paris handover files.

At one in the morning, the bedroom door opened. Damian stood in the doorway with his tie hanging loose and irritation darkening his eyes.

“You saw my post?”

“I did.”

“And you’ve got nothing to ask me?”

“Nothing.”

He crossed the room and stared down at me. Before, I would’ve demanded to know when the photo was taken, why Sofia was pressed so close to him, and why he was letting the whole city assume they were together.

Now I just wanted him to turn off the light.

“If it bothers you that much, tell me to transfer her.”

It sounded like a concession, but his tone made it an interrogation. If I asked, he would have proof that I was still jealous and still desperate to keep him. Then he could move Sofia to another department and hand me the decision like a prize for admitting I’d been wrong.

I pulled the blanket higher. “Whether she stays is your decision. It has nothing to do with me anymore.”

His eyes went cold. “Do you have to make everything sound so ugly?”

“I’m stating a fact.”

Damian spun on his heel, and the door slammed hard enough to rattle the frame.

The next day, Sofia was removed from the chairman’s office. A male executive assistant in his forties replaced her, and Damian began volunteering his schedule and location.

[10:00 a.m. Board meeting.]

[3:00 p.m. South Side warehouse. It’s an audit for the legitimate freight division.]

[Home before nine.]

I didn’t answer any of them.

Damian clearly believed he’d offered more than enough of an olive branch. On the morning of our anniversary, his new assistant came to collect a tuxedo and smiled as he reminded me, “Miss Grant, Mr. Moretti has reserved the ballroom at the Bellavita Hotel. He’s put a great deal of work into tonight and hopes you’ll be there at seven.”

I didn’t want to go.

My flight to Paris left at 10:40 p.m., and my luggage was already stored at the airport. But after six years together, I decided we deserved one honest goodbye delivered face-to-face.

I’m not going there to wait for a proposal. I’m going there to end this properly.

At seven, the ballroom doors opened.

White roses and crimson camellias lined the aisle. A giant screen played pictures from the six years Damian and I had spent together. At the center of the stage sat an open ring box containing the emerald ring I’d once lingered over in a jeweler’s catalog.

Sofia stood beneath the lights in a wedding dress while Damian adjusted her veil.

When he saw me, he let go, but there was no surprise on his face. If anything, he looked satisfied. He’d wanted me to walk in on this.

“Sofia offered to help with the rehearsal,” he said. “I said yes.”

“Even though you knew I was coming?”

“It’s a borrowed dress, Elena. If you trusted me, it wouldn’t matter.” He watched me closely, waiting for the reaction he’d been trying to drag out of me all week. “Don’t turn it into something it isn’t.”

Sofia ran her hands over the skirt, barely hiding her smile. “He just wanted tonight to be perfect.”

I didn’t argue. I walked to the long table and placed my penthouse key on its polished surface.

“I came tonight to tell you in person that we’re over.”

The smile faded from Damian’s face. “I transferred her and replaced my assistant. What else do you want?”

“I don’t want you to do anything.”

“Then stop using a breakup to threaten me.”

“It isn’t a threat.” I pushed the key toward him. “It’s goodbye.”

His eyes stopped on the key before lifting to mine. “You think ruining the proposal will force me to apologize?”

“That isn’t why I’m here.”

“Last chance, Elena.” He picked up the ring, his voice settling into its usual calm. “Admit you misjudged me. Apologize to Sofia and promise you’ll never threaten to leave me again.”

He held the emerald in front of me. “Everything here was supposed to be yours.”

I looked at the ring I’d waited six years to receive. I used to believe that if I loved him enough, trusted him enough, and made myself easy enough to keep, he would eventually put it on my finger.

Now I understood it wasn’t a promise. It was a medal awarded for obedience.

“I wanted a marriage,” I said, “not a gold star for being a good girl.”

The words cracked his composure.

Damian’s fingers closed around the ring as humiliation flashed through his eyes. He stared at me for several seconds before turning to Sofia.

“Haven’t you always said you wished someone knew how to appreciate all this?”

Sofia looked from his face to the ring, surprise giving way to naked hope.

Damian dropped to one knee in front of her, holding the ring I’d waited six years for.

“Will you marry me?”

The question was for her.

But his eyes never left me.

He was waiting for me to rush onto the stage. He expected tears, a scene, and a plea to keep the ring for me.

The moment I begged, he would stand up and tell everyone it had only been a lesson. Then, as he had so many times before, he would pull me into his arms and forgive me for being “difficult.”

At last, I saw the proposal for what it was: the final obedience test Damian had designed for me.

For six years, every time he hurt me, I’d tried harder to prove I loved him. That was why he believed he could drive the knife in as deep as he liked and I would still come back.

Tears filled Sofia’s eyes as she opened her mouth to answer.

I didn’t wait to hear it.

I left the penthouse key on the table and walked out of the hotel. A cab was waiting outside with my luggage already in the trunk.

My flight to Paris took off in two hours.

Behind me, inside the ballroom, Damian shouted my name for the first time that night.

I didn’t turn around.

This time, he was wrong.