Dominic checked his phone. No new messages. "She will. She's upset. She needs time to cool down, and then I'll explain that it was nerves, and we'll reschedule?—"
"Reschedule." Maxwell said the word like he was tasting something rotten. "You want to reschedule your wedding. Like it's a board meeting that ran long."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to stop treating this like a PR crisis and start treating it like what it is. You just broke that woman's heart in front of everyone. Herparentswere in that room, Dom. Her dad was sitting right there, watching his daughter get destroyed."
Dominic's hand tightened around his phone. The image hit him. Charlotte's father, half out of his seat, red-faced, reaching for a daughter he couldn't reach. But he pushed away the thought because he couldn't afford to sit with it. Not yet. Not until he had a plan.
"I'll talk to her tomorrow," he said. "She'll have had time to process. I'll go to her, I'll explain and we'll work through it."
Maxwell shook his head slowly. "You really believe that."
"I do."
"Then you're further gone than I thought." Maxwell picked up his jacket. "She's never going to want to see you again. And honestly? After what you just did? I'm not sure she should."
Maxwell walked out. The side door closed behind him with a sound like a verdict.
Dominic stood alone in the empty ballroom. The candles flickered. The peonies wilted. The chairs sat in their perfect rows, angled toward an altar where nothing had been completed.
He looked at his phone one more time. No calls. No texts. No Charlotte.
He'd fix it. He always fixed things. That was what he did. He assessed, strategized, executed. This was no different. Charlotte was upset, but she loved him. Love was leverage, and leverage was something he understood.
He'd call her tomorrow. He'd bring flowers. He'd explain.
It would be fine. He'd make it fine.
CHAPTER 6
DOMINIC
Dominic had never been to Kate’s building. He'd never had reason to, Charlotte's friendship with Kate existed in a separate compartment of her life, one he'd never tried to enter. He hadn't known the address until twenty minutes ago, when he'd called in a favor with a contact who had access to things like addresses.
He stood on the sidewalk in his wedding suit, tie loosened, looking up at the third-floor windows. One of them had a light on. He checked his phone. Still nothing from Charlotte. Fourteen calls, nine texts, all unanswered. It had been six hours since the ceremony.
He climbed the stairs. The stairwell was narrow enough that his shoulders nearly brushed both walls. The fluorescent bulb on the second-floor landing was out, and the carpet was worn through to the backing in places. Charlotte's world. The world she'd lived in before he'd appeared with his rooftop bars, town cars and his family's money. He'd never thought about this world. It had existed for him only as a backdrop: the "before" in the story of them, the humble origin that made Charlotte charming and relatable at dinners.
He knocked on the door of 3B.
Footsteps. A pause. Someone looking through the peephole. Then Kate's voice, flat and hard through the door.
"Go away, Dominic."
"I need to see her."
"She doesn't want to see you."
"Kate. Please. Five minutes."
A snort. “Like there's a version of this where five minutes fixes what you did."
He pressed his palm against the doorframe. "I understand she's upset?—"
"She's not upset. Upset is when you forget an anniversary. Upset is when you leave the toilet seat up. What Charlotte is right now doesn't have a word."
"Just let me talk to her. If she hears me out?—"
