Chapter 3

It was the wee hours when the hotel door opened and Dean walked in.

Of course. Anywhere inside his territory in Westport, finding me was nothing.

He pulled me in despite me, Lena's sharp perfume still clinging to him.

"I've already moved Lena out. I'll have the place put back the way it was." He had lowered himself completely.

"Don't be angry, all right, Ava?" Like a magic trick he produced a small bullet casing and waved it in front of me. "I chased you for seven whole years. When you agreed to be mine you gave me seven casings. You said if I ever made you angry, I'd get seven chances to make it right."

He buried his face in my neck. "You know I was out of my mind happy that day. Take the casing. Don't be angry anymore."

My fingers closed slowly around it. The good memories dragged at my nerves now like something blunt and tearing.

But he seemed to have forgotten: this was the sixth one already.

When I said nothing, the tension went out of him. He turned and went to the bathroom.

My phone lit up. A message from Lena.

"Dean, don't forget what you promised me tomorrow. You have to come to the graduation showcase. But I still don't have a gown."

I let out a cold snort. The money he'd handed her this past year could buy a shopping mall. As if she couldn’t afford a gown.

Yet Dean believed every lie and excuse out of her mouth.

He came out, picked up his phone, and a faint smile touched his face, a tenderness and an indulgence I rarely got.

He stepped back into the bathroom, lowering his voice on purpose. "Sure. Come by my office tomorrow, I'll take you to pick a gown."

I rolled over, and the tears came anyway, and I hated them for it.

The next day around noon, a photo came through, from my best friend, Suzy.

Before I could really look, my phone rang.

"Vee, look at it. Is that bitch wearing your wedding gown?" Suzy's voice was tight with panic.

My stomach dropped. I pulled the photo up fast.

It was Lena's graduation showcase. She stood in the middle of the crowd in a short white bridal dress, the center of everything.

The gown was unmistakable. That moonset texture, the faded-photograph print along one side, the diagonal scatter of tiny diamonds, all of it familiar, all of it one of a kind.

I'd spent two years on it. Drawn it line by line, sewn it stitch by stitch, by my own hand. It had been sitting in Dean's private lounge.

I'd imagined it a thousand times: wearing that one-of-a-kind gown to marry the man I loved most.

And now the skirt had been cut away, turned into a flirty little dress on another woman's body, passed off as her work.

My blood went cold, and my mind went blank.

I didn't know how I got into that hall, how I shoved through the crowd fawning over her. When I saw the gown up close, cut short, butchered past recognition, I wanted to kill her on the spot.

People screamed. I kicked Lena to the floor and the gown tore to pieces.

Camera flashes went off all around, and I was past reason, eyes red, slapping her perfect face again and again.

"How dare you touch her? Are you out of your mind?" The first thing Dean did when he reached us was knock me down and yank off his jacket to cover her.

Lena shook in his arms, and the second she saw him she grabbed on and wailed.

"Ava, I said no one touches her. That includes you." Dean's eyes were red as he closed in on me. "You know what happens now."

Breathing hard, I lifted my face and pointed at Lena, my finger trembling. "My wedding gown. Why is it on her?"

Dean scoffed. "Over this?"

That careless contempt cut straight through me. The gown I'd treasured, poured everything into, was worth nothing to him.

"It's one gown. Lena didn't have anything to wear, so she borrowed it. I'll just buy you another. What the hell are you even throwing a fit about here!" He caught my jaw and dropped his voice. "When you're done losing it, get out. You're embarrassing me."

"One gown?" I wrenched out of his grip, shaking so hard with rage I couldn't stop it. "I sewed it stitch by stitch. I drew it line by line. I designed it with everything I had, to wear when I married you."

"My design, my gown, you handed it to someone else and let her put her name on it and wear it to a showcase." My voice tore. "She saved you, not me! You play favorites in broad daylight, you announce it to the world, you let her walk in and out of my home and trample everything I've built. But I owe her nothing. I'll see you in court."

I'd never been this far gone. Dean's throat worked, as if he was trying to gauge whether I meant it.

"My god. So she stole the dress."

"That's shameless."

"No wonder. Average work all this time, and suddenly something this stunning. Disgraceful."

The whispers spread through the crowd. Red with shame and anger, Lena grabbed at Dean's sleeve and looked up at him, desperate.

"Ava, it was all my idea." Dean ground his teeth, patted her hand to settle her, then came toward me. "I'll get you an identical one, I promise. Lena needs this grade. I'll trade you for it."

In his hand was a bullet casing.

"Now tell them the dress is Lena's design. You know how much it matters to her." His voice was soft and yet full of pressure, an edge of warning under it.

It was the seventh. The last casing.

The last chance, and he was spending it to grind down what was left of my dignity.

"This is the last time, all right? I swear, once Lena's standing on her own, I'll never take her side again. We'll get married right away, okay?" Dean murmured it against my ear, gripping my shoulders, his eyes all anxious pleading.

I gave a bitter laugh and stepped back.

"We've known each other ten years. Together for three. You never once spent these casings."

"After Lena saved you, she said one word, scared, and you rushed to her. Two in the morning, you left me alone on a road outside the city. I crouched on the shoulder for three hours, and it never crossed your mind that I might be scared. The next day you handed me the first casing."

"Lena thought the ring on my finger was pretty, so you had me take it off and put it on hers, never remembering I'd designed it myself, carved it over two months, that it was a pair with the one you wore. That was the second casing."

"My cat, the one I loved, Lena 'accidentally' lost out past the city, and I searched for a solid two weeks. You said it was just a cat. Where was the problem? The third casing."

"On my birthday you gave Lena the necklace I'd had made, and handed me a bouquet, said you'd make it up to me. The fourth."

"She smashed our photo on purpose, stepped on it a few times for good measure, and you said she was simple-hearted, she didn't mean it. The fifth."

"Our marital home. You let her play the lady of the house. The sixth."

I held up the casing in my hand. My eyes stung, but something in me had gone calm.

Maybe it was the strangeness of that cold that unsettled him. Dean panicked in a way I almost never saw. "Ava, you said you'd forgive me."

I dodged his reaching hand and said it coldly. "I did. I said that."

"But Dean, not once, in any of those six times, did I really forgive you."

"That was because I still loved you. Still cared. Still expected something from you."

"This time, though." I looked at him and said it slowly. "This time I really do forgive you."

"Because—" I threw my arm out. The casing struck the crystal screen and the sound of it breaking was sharp enough to hurt. "We're done."

Dean stood frozen. At the corner of Lena's mouth, a flicker of triumph.

I turned and walked, step by step.

"Ava." His voice was barely holding the fury down. "You know who I am. You know what I can do. You're not going anywhere."

Was that so. I laughed, somewhere inside.

Out the doors, I called Sam.

"Miss Ava." Sam sounded puzzled.

"Tell Sam I'll come back to the family." Steady, certain, every word spaced out and slow.