“I was devastated, you know,” she says, her voice dropping into a register that feels dangerously intimate. “When you broke it off. After I spent three years molding myself into the womanyour parents wanted. I learned the guest lists, the charity circles, the silent nods. I changed my hair, my career path, even my laugh. For you, I became the perfect Thompson bride. And then, the moment I finally fit the mold, you left.”
The guilt hits me like a physical weight. I remember the version of Amanda I met in college—messier, louder, a woman who wanted to practice human rights law before the Thompson gravity pulled her into corporate litigation. I watched her hollow herself out for my family, and I rewarded her by walking away because I couldn’t bear to see the ghost she’d become.
“I didn’t want you to change,” I say, and the lie feels thin even as I speak it. “I never asked you to be someone else.”
“You didn’t have to ask,” she says, her hand coming up to rest on my forearm. Her touch is warm, steady. “The house asks for you. The silence at dinner asks for you. Your father’s expectations ask for you. You don’t realize it’s happening until, one day, you look in the mirror and realize you’re just an extension of a legacy.”
She steps closer, her green eyes searching mine. “Is that what’s happening to Harley? Is that why you’re so desperate for these compromises? Because you’re trying to save her from becoming me?”
The accuracy of the question makes my breath hitch. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m trying to protect Harley’s wildness, her independence, while simultaneously asking her to live in the cage that killed Amanda’s soul.
“I won’t let that happen to her,” I say.
“You won’t have a choice,” Amanda whispers. “The house always wins, Skyler. Unless you leave it. And we both know you will not leave it. You have too much to protect. The firm, the Henderson project, the Thompson name. It’s who you are.”
She tilts her head, her lips just inches from mine. “But I’m already on the other side. I know how to play the game and keepmyself intact. I could help you. Not just with the wedding, but with everything. I’m the only one who truly understands what you’re up against.”
She’s flirting. It’s subtle, layered beneath the shared trauma of our past, but it’s there. A hand on my arm, the way she’s looking at my mouth, the intimacy of our shared scotch.
Amanda is easy. She doesn’t make me feel like a failure.
“Amanda—” I start, the warning in my voice weak.
She doesn’t move away. Instead, she reaches up and straightens my tie, her fingers lingering at the knot. “I’ve missed you, Sky. I miss being the one who knows how to make you breathe again.”
Over her shoulder, I see movement in the hallway. I freeze.
Mother is standing in the shadows, not saying anything.
She doesn’t care about the wedding flowers or the red carpet. Standing in the dark, watching her son with the woman she’s chosen for him, she knows she’s already won.
The sinking feeling in my stomach turns into a cold, hard stone. I realize, with clarity, that I have crossed a line I can’t uncross. I’ve let Amanda into the inner circle. Given her the power to “manage” my life, and in doing so, I’ve given my mother exactly what she wanted.
A crack in the foundation of my relationship with Harley.
“I should get some rest,” I say, my voice flat. “Tomorrow is a long day.”
“Yes,” Amanda says, her smile turning into something more practiced, more professional. “We have a seating chart to finish.”
When I walk past Mother, she doesn’t say a word.
Chapter 13
Harley
The weeks leading to our wedding should have blurred together in a haze of guest lists and cake tastings, but instead, they’ve been defined by a cold, growing distance. While I navigate the emotional wreckage of my cases at the county office, the Thompson machine has swallowed Skyler whole. He pulls late nights in the “war room” or attends mandatory family functions that never seem to include me.
I’m running out of time, and more importantly, I’m running out of reasons to stay. Right now, all that’s left is nostalgic love.
I spent my lunch hour rehearsing the conversation we need to have. The one where I tell him that I can’t breathe in the life his parents have built for us.
When I step out of the building, I find him leaning against his Audi. He looks like the man I fell in love with, the sharp edges of his corporate persona softened by the afternoon sun,but the sight doesn’t bring the relief it used to. It feels like a complication.
“I’m not a complete idiot, Harl,” he says, handing me a black coffee. “We needustime.”
“We need a lot more than that, Skyler,” I reply, my voice flat. Still, I go with him, and here we are.
He kills the engine and studies me. “Well?”
