"I don't know," I say. My voice cracks on the last word.
Rafferty sets down his fork and looks at me. His eyes narrow this time as he assesses me with the kind of look that doesn't slide across the surface but pushes through it. I feel myself unraveling under the weight of it.
"Nadia." His voice is quiet. "Are you okay?"
I open my mouth to say yes. To smile. To lie. To be the version of me that everyone expects. Only I can't. The word won't come. My eyes burn and I blink hard, fast, but it's too late. A tear slides down my cheek and lands on the white tablecloth, a tiny dark circle on all that clean linen.
"I'm fine," I whisper in broken sounds. I'm not fine. I haven't been fine in three years.
He doesn't push. He doesn't reach across the table. He just sits there, steady, watching me fall apart in a hotel restaurant over a dinner I can't eat with a man I'm supposed to marry in two weeks.
"You don't have to do this tonight," he says. "The dinner. The bullshit. Whatever you think I'm expecting, I'm not."
I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. My make-up smears. I probably look insane. A trembling, crying, starving woman in a black dress pretending she's capable of being someone's wife.
"You should find someone else," I manage to say.
He goes still. "What?"
"For the marriage. You should tell the Council you want someone else." I force myself to look at him. His expression hasn't changed. Still calm. Still watching. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm not what my father told you I am. And if you marry me, you'll find that out, and it will be worse for both of us." Another tear slips out and lands on the tablecloth before I can swipe it away.
The silence stretches between us. The restaurant hums quietly around us. Silverware on porcelain. Murmured conversations. A world going on as normal while mine cracks down the middle.
"What do you think your father told me you are?" Rafferty asks.
A wet bubble of laughter pops from my mouth. "Someone worth marrying."
His jaw tightens. Something moves behind his eyes.
It looks like anger. But it isn't pointed at me.
"Finish your water," he says. "Then I'm driving you home."
"I have my car."
"Then I'm following you home. You're not driving like this alone."
"Rafferty, I'm trying to tell you—"
"I heard you." He holds my gaze. "And you're wrong. About all of it. But we're not having that conversation tonight, because you haven't eaten and you can barely hold your glass. So we're going to get you home, and you're going to eat something and sleep, and we'll talk tomorrow."
I stare at him. This isn't how I expected this to go. I expected him to agree. To see the mess in front of him and walk away. That's what any other man would do.
He stands up and leaves cash on the table without looking at the check. Then he comes to my side and offers his hand. Open palm, steady fingers, waiting for me to make a choice that feels like it will change my life one way or another.
I take it.
His hand is warm and solid, and he doesn't let go as we walk out of the restaurant. He doesn't let go in the lobby. He holds on all the way to the parking lot, and when we reach my car, he finally releases my fingers and steps back.
"Can you drive?"
"Yes." I offer a nod as I dig my keys from my purse.
"I'll be behind you the whole way."
I get in my car and watch him walk to his while my heart does something it hasn't done in a very long time.
It hopes.
