The woman smiled up at him like she felt it too. Then she kissed his cheek like it was nothing—like she’d earned it. Vince held the door for her with practiced control, and she brushed past him with a flirtatious comment that made Rome smirk again.
Vince didn’t stop watching her as she walked away.
A stare. The kind of stare that saidminewithout the word ever leaving his mouth.
She disappeared down the hallway, and Vince’s gaze followed her until the last second, as if he physically couldn’t let go of the line between them.
My stomach turned.
I hated that I was standing there watching it. I hated that I couldn’t mask my face. I hated that the shock and heartbreak were just… on me, visible, humiliating.
The door shut.
Vince and Rome were gone.
And I was still frozen like a girl who hadn’t learned how to recover her dignity quickly enough.
When my feet finally moved again, I walked back to the table on autopilot.
“She has no appointments set for summer viewing,” she was telling Aunt Diana, like she was discussing table settings. “Notone heir has requested her. Not even a handler reaching out on behalf of a dynasty.”
Aunt Diana’s sympathetic hum landed like a gavel. “That’s… concerning.”
“It’s humiliating,” my mother corrected.
The room didn’t tilt. It stayed perfectly level. That was the problem. Everything stayed functioning while something in me cracked anyway. My hand found the back of the chair.
He walked past me like I was nothing.
The wordblockedflared in my mind, hot and humiliating.
I hadn’t just been left.
I’d been erased.
Why did no one want me?
What was wrong with me?
Why wasn’t I enough to make anyone stay. I had given Vince everything and it still wasn’t enough.
47
Madeline
Three months later
I pressed my palm to the cold glass of one window and let my shoulders drop an inch. The air outside the ballroom was cooler.
And I really needed air.
The summit had been a disaster from the minute I sat down. Numbers blurred. Clauses I could normally recite in my sleep needed rereading. I’d stumbled over a rollover provision I’d drafted myself.
Three different negotiators had asked if I was “alright” with that particular tone—trying to be kind without saying, you’re off your game.
My father had given me one of his quiet, worried looks from across the table.
And under all of that, like I kept thinking was he’s here.
