Chapter 2

Elena's POV

Nathan found his voice before I found the door.

“Elena, this is insane. Sit down.”

I looked at him, and for the first time all night I didn’t feel angry. I felt calm, past all of it. “You made the rules three minutes ago.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, because there wasn’t a way to finish that sentence in front of forty people without proving my point.

Adrian didn’t wait for him to find one. He picked his jacket off the back of a chair and held the door open for me.

Nathan followed us into the hallway.

“Elena.”

I didn’t stop.

“This isn’t what I meant.”

I kept walking.

“You know I didn’t mean Adrian.”

I didn’t turn around.

Neither of us spoke in the elevator down. He’d parked across the street, and we didn’t reach for small talk on the walk over either, which was its own kind of relief. I’d spent five months filling silences with Nathan so he wouldn’t notice how quiet I’d gotten. I didn’t feel any pressure to fill this one.

He didn’t start the car right away once we were inside it. He sat with his hands on the wheel, looking straight ahead instead of at me.

“If you’re trying to hurt him,” he said, “don’t choose me.”

“I’m not trying to hurt him.” The words came out steadier than I expected, the way something sounds when you’ve already said it to yourself a hundred times in private. “I’m done pretending he hasn’t already hurt me.”

Adrian turned to look at me. Whatever he was checking for, he found it. His shoulders dropped half an inch, some tension leaving him that I hadn’t noticed was there.

“How long have you known,” he said.

“Known, or let myself know?”

“Either.”

I looked at the concrete wall of the garage instead of at him. It was easier to say out loud when I wasn’t looking at anyone. “Months. I told myself it was work. I told myself it was wedding stress. I’ve been telling myself a lot of things since March.”

“And tonight?”

“Tonight he confirmed it in front of a room full of people and asked me to call it a game.” I looked back at him. “I’m not doing this to hurt him. I’m doing it because for the first time in five months, I get to make a decision that’s actually mine.”

Adrian was quiet for a moment. Then he started the car.

“I want to be clear about something,” he said, pulling out of the garage. “I’m not doing this because I feel sorry for you. If that’s what I thought this was, I would have said no back there in front of everyone.”

“Then why?”

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his eyes stayed on the road.

“I’ve watched him take you for granted for months. I kept telling myself it wasn’t my business.” A pause. “Tonight you made it yours.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I didn’t try. We drove the rest of the way without either of us reaching to fill the quiet, the city sliding past the windows in streetlight and neon, both of us watching it instead of each other, which felt like its own kind of honesty.

At a red light he glanced over. Something in his expression had eased since the garage, like the hardest question was already behind him. “You’re allowed to change your mind, you know. At any point tonight. I won’t take it personally.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do,” I said. “That’s the difference between you and him.”

He didn’t answer that, but the corner of his mouth moved, just slightly, the first thing all night that looked close to a smile.

He pulled up outside a building I didn’t recognize, red brick with ivy climbing one corner of it, a doorman’s post gone dark for the night. He cut the engine and looked at me one more time before either of us moved. Not asking permission exactly. Giving me one last chance to change my mind.

We went inside and Adrian unlocked the door and stepped aside.

He never touched me.

Not until I reached for him first.