She shut her eyes.
“I...” Her voice faltered, and she paused. “I confessed my feelings for Mr. Quinn to my mother.” Cassian’s eyebrows shot up as Ethel inhaled a trembling breath. “And I told her that our engagement was over, too. She was not... exactly supportive. Obviously.”
Slowly, Ethel fluttered open her eyes and turned to face him. Cassian pressed his lips together to refrain from saying the chastising comment that he so badly wanted to say.
“I’m so sorry, Cassian,” she said. “I couldn’t keep this from her anymore. After we finished eating, I walked with her to the reception area outside the saloon, and she started asking about some of the choices for our wedding, and before I knew it, the news spilled out of me. Really, I-I never meant to tell her about it here on the ship, but in that moment, I couldn’t seem to hold back.”
Cassian muttered a few choice obscenities in the confines of his head. Afterward, he took a long, somewhat cleansing breath and then released it slowly.
“So, now what?” he said.
He couldn’t manage more right now. He’d already been struggling with his own Goddamned everything before this. At least he’d sounded worn out, rather than annoyed, though.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
Her hands found her necklace, and she began fiddling with the pendant.
“Did you and Mr. Quinn talk yet?”
“Not yet,” she admitted. “Actually, that’s one of the concerns that my mother raised. What if John isn’t interested in marrying me? I knowyouthink that John returns my feelings, but—”
“He does,” Cassian said. “I know he does. Once one of us speaks with him, he’ll propose right then. Or, perhaps notright thenif it’smewho meets with him first,” he teased, which elicited a small smile from Ethel. Cassian smiled back a bit. “Really, I can’t think of a single reason why Mr. Quinn wouldn’t want to marry you.”
Ethel’s eyes fell, and she fidgeted with her necklace some more, moving it back and forth on the chain.
“Are you certain he’ll want me?” she asked.
“I’m certain,” Cassian confirmed with a nod. “Completely certain.”
Looking up through her lashes, Ethel smiled shyly. “I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” he said, rolling his eyes. “When am I not right?”
Ethel’s small smile broadened, and she laughed lightly. Cassian chuckled, too, the last remnants of the irritation he’d been feeling chased away by their brief moment of playfulness.
Laughter having faded, Ethel said, “I suppose Idounderstand my mother, though. Marrying someone like John isn’t what she had planned for me. If my father were alive, he’d be heartbroken. He would have wanted me to marry someone in our circle—either in our immediate one, or even in our broader one since he had acquaintances everywhere from Boston to Cleveland to London. And he’d have wanted me to marryyou,Cassian. Oh, I can onlyimaginehow excited he would have been for me to be marrying the son of one of his closest friends. All throughout my life, my father spoke highly of you—initially, as the boy who exceeded every expectation everyone had of him, even when they’d expected quite a lot in the first place, and then, later, as a man who was thepictureof success, inheriting his family’s businesses and expanding them with ease. I... well, I really was intimidated by you before you proposed. You were almost a mythical figure to me in some respects. I think, initially, that was one of the reasons I struggled to talk to you. I never felt as though I was worthy of being your wife. But then... then, instead of becoming more comfortable talking with you, I became moreuncomfortable once I started having romantic feelings for John.”
She looked at her hands, which were still holding tight to the pendant on her necklace, though they’d stopped moving mid-speech. Cassian’s brows pinched as he waited for her to finish.
Softly, she added, “I had no intention of ever falling for someone else, Cassian. There was even a time when I thought that maybe, eventually, the two ofusmight fall in love—romantic love—though, of course, I would have been satisfied with the sort of love that comes from having your lives intertwined over time as well.” Slowly, she lifted her chin to meet his eyes. “No wonder my mother is so disappointed with me, though. I’ve failed her.”
Cassian’s heart sank, and he pondered her words for a little while, considering how to respond to what she had confessed to him.
He hadn’t had even the slightest inkling that Ethel had once found him too intimidating to converse with. And the notion seemed so strange to him. Out of all of the women who had been available for him to propose to, he had chosen her. And so, it was shocking to learn that that mere fact alone hadn’t been enough to make her feel more confident. Indeed, in Cassian’s eyes, she was his equal. Perhaps he could have salvaged their relationship back then if he’d known. He could have cultivated a better bond with her early on. Although... he found himself feeling immensely relieved that he hadn’t. Because now he had James.
And Cassian wouldn’t trade James for anything in the world.
Slowly, this realization settled in Cassian’s mind. And he knew for certain, then, not only what choice he would make with regard to his future, but he also knew that he truly wanted to make it. Perhaps, contrary to what he had been thinking, James had not, in fact, been forcing his hand for selfish reasons. Rather, James had only been encouraging Cassian to let himselfnotexceed other people’s expectations for once and to instead let himself see what it was that he wanted, regardless of whether or not it fit people’s image of him.
Deep in his heart, Cassian knew that he didn’t want to marry someone else. Or bed someone else, either. He didn’t want tomislead some woman into thinking that he wantedto marry her and that he was happy with her and that he even liked being intimate with her.
All Cassian wanted was James. Only and always.
Oh, what a fool he had been.
Ethel placed a hand on his knee. He covered it with his own.
“I’m sorry, Cassian.”
