The Toast

I’m halfway across the ballroom when the lights dim for the first speech of the night. Some senator drones on about innovation and job creation while I weave through the crowd, smile glued on, heart hammering so loud I’m scared people can hear it.

I just need to find Theo. Touch him. Feel his hand on my back the way he used to do when these events made me want to hide under a table. One squeeze and everything will settle.

But he’s still at the bar with Red Dress. She’s leaning in now, saying something against his ear. He throws his head back and laughs, the same laugh he used to give me when I did something ridiculous like try to cook him dinner and set off the smoke alarm.

I stop walking. People bump into me, murmur apologies, keep moving. I’m frozen, staring like some pathetic stalker.

Get it together, Livia.

I force my feet forward. The senator finishes. Applause. Then an editor who once called me “Theo Whitford’s brilliant accessory” in print takes the stage.

“And now, the woman who turned Whitford Tech from a sinking ship into the fastest-growing enterprise software company in North America… please welcome the brilliant, the beautiful, Mrs. Livia Whitford!”

Polite laughter at the hyphen he tacked on. I hate that hyphen. But the room is clapping, turning, smiling at me like I’m their favorite success story.

I climb the three steps to the stage on legs that feel borrowed. The lights are blinding. Two hundred faces swim below me, investors who owe their beach houses to my sleepless nights, reporters who’ve called me everything from “silicon valley’s secret weapon” to “the trophy with a Harvard MBA.”

Stanford. Whatever.

I grip the podium. My palms are slick.

Deep breath.

I wrote this speech at 2 a.m. three nights ago while Theo snored in the guest room. I practiced it in the mirror until the words felt like breathing.

“Good evening,” I start, and my voice doesn’t shake. Thank God. “Two years ago tonight, Whitford Tech was forty-three days from running out of cash.”

Murmurs. Some laughs. They all know the story.

“Theo stood on a stage not unlike this one and promised the world we’d revolutionize how enterprises handle data. Most people thought he was crazy.” I pause, smile. “I married him anyway.”

Laughter, warm and genuine this time.

I keep going, hitting every beat I planned. How we burned through our savings. How I cold-pitched every VC in the Valley while pregnant, no, wait, I’m not saying that part yet. I’m saving it.

I talk about the all-nighters, the near-misses, the moment the Series A wire hit and Theo picked me up and spun me until we both fell over laughing in the empty office.

I’m killing it. I can feel the room leaning in.

I’m almost done.

One more paragraph and then the big reveal.

I look straight at Theo. He’s finally moved closer to the stage, Red Dress glued to his side. Her hand is on his back now. Possessive.

I swallow.

“None of this would’ve been possible without the man who believed in me when I was just a girl from nowhere Oregon with a scholarship and a dream.” My voice cracks, just a little. “Theo, two years ago you gave me your name. Tonight I want to give you something back…”

I reach for the little ultrasound photo in my pocket.

The crowd hushes. They can smell the moment coming.

Theo’s staring up at me. His face is… blank. Not excited. Not proud. Just…empty.

My fingers close around the photo.

And that’s when he steps forward, climbs the three steps like he owns gravity itself, and gently but firmly takes the microphone from my hand.

What the hell?

The room goes dead quiet.

He doesn’t look at me.

He turns to the crowd, smile sharp as glass.

“Actually,” he says, voice amplified, filling every corner of the ballroom, “there’s someone I need all of you to meet.”

My stomach drops through the floor.

He extends his hand offstage.

Red Dress glides up the steps like she rehearsed it. The spotlight catches the diamond bracelet on her wrist, my eyes snag on it because I recognize it. Theo gave it to me last Christmas. I lost it somewhere between New York and London. Or so he told me.

She takes his hand.

He pulls her in, arm around her waist, fingers splayed low on her hip.

“This,” he says, grinning like the Theo who proposed with a ring pop, “is Amara Quinn. Some of you might remember her from Stanford.”

Amara waves, perfect white smile, eyes flicking to me for half a second with pure victory and venom.

Theo’s still talking. I hear the words through water.

“…the woman I’ve always loved.”

The room gasps. Phones shoot up like periscopes.

I can’t move.

He turns to her, cups her face with both hands, and kisses her.

Not a peck. Not a stage kiss.

A real, open-mouthed, hungry kiss, the kind he hasn’t given me in months. The kind that says mine in front of two hundred witnesses and every major tech outlet live-streaming the gala.

I taste blood. I’ve bitten my tongue so hard it’s bleeding.

The ultrasound photo is crumpled in my fist.

Someone screams…me, I think, but it sounds far away.

Theo finally pulls back, forehead resting against Amara’s, both of them smiling like they just won the lottery.

He still hasn’t looked at me.

The room explodes, shouts, camera flashes, people standing.

I stumble backward, heel catching on the hem of my fourteen-thousand-dollar dress. I almost fall.

And then I do the only thing I can think of.

I run.