Bram pulls a small green leather box out of his jacket pocket and flips it open. Inside is a rose-cut diamond set on a narrow gold band.
My stomach hurts.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
“She’s going to love it,” I say honestly.
Bram pockets the ring box. “You’ve been in a foul mood. Is it Faith Fairchild again? She’s all yours if you want her. I don’t get the appeal. She’s so goddamn mean. The one time I tried to kiss her, she bit me, but I know we have different tastes.”
I look at him in the mirror and force a smile. It looks unnatural on my face with the dark circles under my eyes and the too-long hair.
“You’re still coming tonight, right?” he asks.
If I had any sense of self-preservation, I wouldn’t, but I can’t make myself stay away. My father used to tell me I was a master at hurting my own feelings.No one tortures you like you do to yourself, my dear boy,he’d mutter as he bandaged my skinned knees. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, but I do now. There’s never been a wound I won’t pick at just to make sure it still bleeds.
“Of course I am. I wouldn’t dream of missing my favorite brother’s engagement party.”
The Kendall estate is covered in candles and fresh roses. We’ve arrived late enough that it’s easy for me to slip through the crowd and find a corner to disappear into.
The band whines to a halt and the crowd parts as Bram strides to the center of the floor, Ivy’s hand in his.
She’s wearing a pale pink gown, pearls wound into her hair. The firelight catches her, and she looks like something from heaven. But there, right on the edge of her dress where her neck meets her shoulder, is the mottled yellow of a healing bruise. The one I left that night.
I’m never going to touch her again. The realization hits me like a blow.
Bram drops to his knee. He’s looking up at her with so much love it radiates through the room. Ivy blushes, smiles, clutches her hands to her chest. They’re happy. It should be enough, but I’ve never been a selfless person. It should be me. That’s all my one-track brain can fire off.That should be me. That should be me. That should be me.
I can’t take it. In the end, I’m not strong enough to look.
I push my way through the crowd as the clapping starts and white rose petals rain down from the rafters. Everyone is too distracted to watch me walk out through a side door into the night. I tilt my face up to the sky and try to catch my breath. It’s raining. It’s always raining in this goddamn country.
I vomit pure champagne into the Kendalls’ rosebushes. It burns like the devil coming up, makes my eyes water, or maybe I was already crying. I can’t really tell.
There are footsteps behind me, and I look up to see who is witness to my shame.
It’s Faith Fairchild, concern all over her face. I’ve seen Faith in a dozen different rooms, in the middle of the night and sleeping through midmorning. I’ve seen her so angry she’s thrown a glass at my head. I thought I’d seen her in every situation, but I’ve never seen her look quite like this.
“Emmett.” Her voice is thick with pity. “It was always going to end this way.”
But Ivy was already mine inside my head.
“You’re getting all wet,” I reply. The rain runs down across her face. Her hair is already ruined.
“I don’t care about that,” she says gently. “I care about you.”
She approaches me like I’m a feral animal who might bite her and then lays a gloved hand on my shoulder. “You love her, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” I say.
“Of course it matters.”
I collapse onto her shoulder, unable to stop the sobs that rack my body. I haven’t cried like this since my father gave me up. I hate it. I’d rather be vomiting.
She doesn’t rub my back in circles or whisperhushinto my ear. Instead, she grips me in a vice-tight embrace and holds me until I stop shaking.
We’re both soaked to the core now, not that it matters. I’m not going back to the party.
Faith ducks inside for a minute to get Marion, and together, the three of us hop into a carriage back to Kensington Palace.
