She tips her chin against my hair. “Maybe it’s not about where but about who.”
Her words pierce deeper than I want them to. I squeeze my eyes shut, more tears slipping free.
“And you’re allowed to want more than being invisible,” she whispers. “Don’t you dare forget that.”
We sit there a long time, my breaths shuddering, her dress damp beneath my cheek. The lake laps faintly at the shore, and it’s barely audible from this high up. I can hear the bass of the music playing inside the ballroom a few hundred yards away, and it gives me pause.
Camila shifts, voice low. “You know he was looking for you, right? Right after you left the room.”
Something flickers in my chest, dangerous and bright, but I smother it before it can take root. Hope has only ever made me look foolish. I stiffen, pulling back enough to see her face. “What?”
She nods. “He came back into the ballroom like a man on fire. He was scanning the room, desperate.” Camila’s eyes search mine. “Manu, maybe you need to talk to him instead of assuming the worst.”
The words land heavy, tangled up with the ache still burning in my chest. I want to believe them. I want to believe he chose me, even if his world chose her.
My throat tightens as I whisper, “The thing is… with him, it’s the first time in a long time I’ve felt like I belonged. Like I wasn’t just… watching life from the outside. And it happened immediately the night I met him, years ago.” My voice breaks, and I press a trembling hand to my lips. “And now I don’t know if I imagined it all.”
Camila squeezes my shoulder, steady and sure. “You didn’t imagine that. I saw it. Everyone saw it. I actually think Nicole tattled and told Athena to come to the wedding because she was definitely going to lose him. Whatever this is—it’s real. And you owe it to yourself to find out where it goes. Not run before you even ask.”
The silence that follows isn’t empty. It hums with all the things I’m not ready to face, all the things I want too much.
Eventually, she shifts beside me, her hand squeezing once more at my shoulder. “We should head back,” she says gently. “Elle will notice if you’re gone too long.”
I swipe at my face, throat raw. “Go ahead. I’ll be there in a bit.”
Her brows pinch, uncertain. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” I manage a faint smile that feels brittle but true. “I just need a few more minutes. To… pull myself together. Elle deserves that much.”
Camila studies me for a beat, then nods, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “Don’t stay out here too long, okay?”
“I won’t.”
She squeezes my hand before rising and making her way back down the path, her figure swallowed by the soft glow spilling from the ballroom.
I stay put, the bench cool beneath me, the mountains towering like sentinels around the lake. The silence steadies me just enough.
For the first time since I left Argentina, I let myself whisper it out loud.
“I want to go home.”
The words scrape raw against the dark, and no one answers.
41
CONNOR
The ballroom is toobright as I walk back in, even in the dimness of the candles placed on every table, and the music punches through my chest like it’s mocking me. I don’t see her.
I shove through a knot of cousins, scanning every corner. Empty chair inside, just like Camila said.
My eyes sweep the tables again. The panic claws higher. She wasn’t outside on the terrace, either.
The hollow punch in my chest nearly knocks the air out of me. I move, fast, weaving through the crowd. Someone claps my shoulder, another cousin says my name, but it all slides past like static. I’m too aware of every second she’s gone.
“Connie!”
Nicole’s voice hooks me midstride. She’s leaning back in her chair, one heel kicked off, champagne glass raised like she’s already the star of some afterparty. Her smile is bright, careless, and her eyes glint sharply.
