Chapter 3

Logan had been gone less than two minutes when his mother asked me to lie for him on camera.

She blocked the ballroom doors with her phone raised.

“We need a twenty-second statement,” Mrs. Reed said. “Tell everyone you knew about the arrangement and support Logan’s decision.”

Behind her, our engagement slideshow was still playing. Logan knelt on the pier with my mother’s ring between his fingers.

“We never discussed it.”

“Then say you understand it now.”

“And the kiss?”

“Call it an emotional misunderstanding. Sebastian took advantage of you.”

Sebastian went still beside me.

“I asked him to kiss me,” I said. “I won’t say otherwise.”

Madeline’s mother approached from the coat table.

“Your sister is frightened,” she told Sebastian. “You should be with her.”

“She left with Logan.”

“She needs her family.”

“Then call her. I’m not leaving Ava here to explain what they did.”

Mrs. Reed stepped closer, her phone still aimed at me.

“If you refuse, people will think Logan and Madeline betrayed you.”

“Then they should have made a different choice.”

She waited, as if I might soften it for the recording.

I moved past her.

My mother met me beside the uncut engagement cake, carrying my purse and coat.

“Come home with me, sweetheart.”

For a moment, I wanted my childhood bedroom. At twenty-six, I still wanted to be her daughter when everything else fell apart.

But my father would have questions, and relatives would keep calling. I couldn’t tell the story again tonight.

“I need somewhere quiet. Just for tonight.”

She put my coat around my shoulders.

“Call when you wake up. We’ll talk then.”

I held her hand until I was ready to let go.

“There are long-stay suites upstairs,” Sebastian said. “I can arrange one in your name.”

“I want to stay alone.”

“You will.”

Twenty minutes later, I signed the registration card at the front desk. Sebastian waited while I asked the clerk not to share my room number with anyone.

Upstairs, he handed me the key card and stayed outside the doorway.

“What do you expect from me tomorrow?” I asked.

“A decision about breakfast. Nothing else.”

He stepped back.

“Lock it.”

I did, then rested my hand against the bolt until his footsteps faded.

Inside, there was no one asking me to smile or explain. I put my purse on the table and sat on the edge of the bed.

My phone lit up.

Logan: Madeline is home.

Then:

Where are you?

Tell Sebastian to leave.

Stay there. I’m coming to get you.

He hadn’t asked whether I wanted to see him.

I opened our shared-location map. My blue dot sat over the hotel; if he checked, he could still see where I was.

I selected Stop Sharing Location.

He might already know the building. He wouldn’t know my room, or where I went next.

I opened our messages again.

I’m safe. I don’t want to see you tonight. Don’t come looking for me.

I sent it and silenced his notifications.

Tomorrow, I would go back for my things.