“She could get married in a parking lot and still be the most stunning bride anyone’s ever seen,” I say.
Anne reaches across the table and takes my hand again. This time I don’t pull away.
“I didn’t tell you to hurt you,” she says. “I told you because I don’t want you to think… I don’t want you to carry some hope that if you just pay back enough money, if you just fix enough ofwhat your father broke, she’ll come back. She’s moved on, Taio. And you need to, too.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“Can I tell you something? Off the record—not as Alaina’s mother, but as your friend?”
“Sure.”
Anne squeezes my hand. “Real love stands through the fire. It doesn’t run when things get hard. It doesn’t leave when the money disappears and the name gets tarnished.” Her eyes are shining now, bright with unshed tears. “You deserve someone who will stand next to you through anything. Not someone who flees when things get uncomfortable.”
“Like my mom did.”
The words hang in the air between us. Anne doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to.
I pull my hand back slowly, reaching for my champagne, buying time to collect myself. The liquid is warm now, the bubbles long since dissipated, but I drink it anyway because I need to soothe my dry throat.
“Three years ago,” I hear myself say, “I had a ring for her.”
Anne’s eyes widen, then narrow, her face caught between shock and something harder to read—pity, perhaps, or regret. Her fingers tighten around her glass. “You’re kidding.”
“No. I made a reservation at this restaurant. This exact one. I was going to bring you and Mr. Carrington here, ask for your permission, do the whole thing properly. The way she deserved.” I gesture vaguely at the room around us. “I was going to sit right here and promise you I’d take care of her forever.”
“Taio…”
“Dad got arrested four days after I made the reservation. I canceled it from the police station while I was waiting for him to be processed.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Kind of forgot about it until just now, honestly. Being back here.”
Anne doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me with those sad, knowing eyes, and I wonder if she’s seeing me as I am now or as I was then—the kid who showed up at her door with flowers, treated their daughter like a princess, always so desperate to prove he was worthy.
That kid feels like a stranger now.
The server approaches, larger dinner menus in hand, and Anne waves him off with a small shake of her head. But she flags him back a moment later.
“Two more champagnes, please. With the orange twist.” She looks at me. “We’re going to have a proper toast.”
“I should probably go?—”
“Taio Wilkes, you are not leaving this restaurant until you have another round with me. You evade everyone we know, including your mother. You won’t tell us where you live, where you work. You won’t let anyone help you. You’re a ghost. So if all you’re offering is a drink every couple of years, the least you can do is make it two.”
I don’t have the energy to argue. And part of me—the part that remembers what it felt like to belong somewhere, to be part of a family, to sit at tables like this with people who loved me—doesn’t want to leave.
The champagne arrives, fresh and cold, the bubbles rising in delicate streams. Anne lifts her glass and waits for me to do the same.
“What should we toast to?” I ask.
She tilts her head, considering. I already know what I want to say. The words are sitting on my tongue like a bruise.
“To what could’ve been,” I offer, raising my glass to the woman who should be my mother-in-law.
Anne holds my gaze for a long moment. Then she lifts her own glass a fraction higher. “To whatshould’vebeen.”
We drink, then say our goodbyes. I hug Mrs. Carrington tightly and make promises I don’t know if I can keep:Yes, I’ll call my mom. Yes, I’ll call if I need anything. Yes, I’ll call before another two years go by.
I have to all but run from the table to prevent myself from suffocating inside all the memories of the life I used to know. The one sometimes I still want.
The cold hits me like a wall the moment I step outside.
