Chapter 2

After the call ended, the only sound left in the room was the ticking of the clock.

I went back to the study and saved the group chat logs, the screenshots of the vote, and the engagement video.

Then I called my department head, Lawrence Johnson.

The second he picked up, I finally heard the tremble in my own breathing.

I said, "Lawrence, can I still take back my resignation? And that Northbridge project you brought up before, I'll take it."

I didn't sleep a wink.

By morning, the living room floor was buried under trash bags, and every one of them was crammed with photos, gifts, ticket stubs, and postcards.

Twelve years could be packed away one piece at a time.

When I reached the closet, my hand stopped on a navy blue scarf.

The year I turned sixteen, my parents died in a car crash.

Outside the funeral, my relatives argued over who would take me in, and the truth was that none of them wanted me.

I crouched in the stairwell and cried until I had no voice left.

Then James came running in from outside and wrapped this scarf around my neck.

He was only a boy himself back then, but there was a seriousness in him that I would remember for the rest of my life.

He said, "Emily, you're coming home with me. I'm not going to leave you on your own."

After that, he spent every birthday at my side.

At eighteen, he saved up his money to buy me a small cake.

At twenty-three, I worked straight through to dawn, and he waited outside my office with a bowl of hot soup.

At twenty-seven, his company went under, and he clung to me and shook in our cramped rented apartment.

He told me, "Once I've made something of myself, I'll give you the best thirtieth birthday there is."

And on my thirtieth, he threw an engagement party for another woman on some island.

The doorbell rang, and I opened the door.

James stood on the other side with a cake in one hand and roses in the other.

Olivia leaned out from behind him, her voice warm and easy. "There's the birthday girl. We're here to give you a proper do-over."

Samantha had come too, a gift box swinging from her fingers. "Yesterday got away from me, so I brought you a little something to make up for it."

A few of our mutual friends pushed in after them with balloons and streamers.

"Emily, stop sulking. James is swamped, but he still made a special trip back to smooth things over with you."

They set up the living room with the ease of people who had done it a hundred times, as if nothing had happened the night before.

My eyes moved from one face to the next.

Every single one of them was in that group chat.

They knew I had sat in that restaurant, waiting from the first light of morning until the last of it faded.

They knew, too, that James had slipped a ring onto Sophie's finger on some far-off island.

And yet here they stood in my living room, cake in hand, telling me not to make a scene.

James opened the jewelry box. A diamond ring sat inside, but it wasn't the one from the video. This one was smaller, and the setting looked older.

He stepped closer and took my hand. "Emily, something really did come up yesterday. Don't be upset. Once you leave your job, come work at Carter Group. We'll ride in together every morning and home every night."

The ring met my knuckle, and the cold of it went straight to the bone.

I pulled my hand free, and the diamond dropped back into the box with a bright little clink.

Olivia's face darkened. "Emily, that's enough. Everyone rushed over first thing this morning to make up for your birthday, and now you're determined to humiliate all of us?"

Samantha frowned. "You're thirty years old. It's time you learned to rein in that temper."

I stared at the ring, my throat dry. "Is the show over?"

The living room went silent.

I lifted my eyes to James. "Did you have a good time at the engagement party on the island?"

Olivia's face shifted first, and then her voice dropped low. "If you already knew, why didn't you just ask me last night? Did you have to sit there sulking and drag everyone through this?"

The others jumped in one after another. "Sophie waited eight years for James. It hasn't been easy on her either."

"Being with him for a long time doesn't mean he owes you the rest of his life."

"It's only an engagement, not a marriage license."

James delivered the last line himself.

He rubbed the space between his brows, and exhaustion sat in his eyes, along with something certain.

He said, "Emily, Sophie and I only held an engagement party. Nothing was ever registered. She wanted a title so she'd have something to tell her family. What you want is a home, and we can go sign the papers tomorrow."

I stood in the middle of the streamers and balloons, and the whole thing suddenly struck me as absurd.

James softened his voice. "You don't have any parents, so there's no way I'd ever leave you. You already quit your job, so stop trying to act tough. I'll take care of you from here on out."

Every word sounded caring, but it reminded me that no one stood behind me and that I couldn't walk away.

I slowly lifted the necklace off my neck and laid it in the jewelry box. "James, you're right."

Something in his eyes eased, and he thought I'd given in.

I looked at the face that had stayed beside me for twelve years, and I let the words fall one by one. "I really do need to find myself a home."