Chapter 10:

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The security guards moved before I did. Four of them, fanning out in a practiced arc, putting themselves between us and the two people who had just walked into the tail end of my engagement party uninvited. Cedric in a suit, breathing hard. Isolde still in her stage dress, the hem dusted with whatever the theater floor was made of. She had come directly from the performance, apparently, which said something about the quality of her decision-making under pressure.

Most of the guests had already left. The ones who remained watched with the politely horrified attention of people who have found themselves at a scene they did not choose.

“Cedric.” I kept my voice level. “You left a dance performance — one you were presumably invited to — to come make noise at my engagement party. I want you to think about what that looks like from the outside.”

“You cannot marry him,” Cedric said. Just that, with the simple conviction of a man who has not yet accepted that other people’s lives proceed without his input. “You said you wanted to marry me.”

“Past tense.”

ѕ𝘁o𝗿i𝗲𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝘶 𝗐о𝗇’𝗍 pu𝗍 𝖽𝗼𝗐𝘯 𝘰ո 𝘨𝗮𝘭𝗻o𝘷𝗲𝘭𝘀.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Isolde was not looking at me. She was looking at Thane, and the expression on her face was one I recognized — the same concentrated focus she had used in every conversation where she wanted something she had decided she deserved. “Thane. You don’t really know this woman. When Cedric had a difficult moment and couldn’t follow through on his proposal, she turned around and got engaged to you within weeks. Is that the kind of person you want?” She let a small pause land. “Some people are saying she may already be pregnant. That would explain the rush.”

The remaining guests inhaled.

Thane looked at Isolde with an expression I had not seen on him before — not warm, not patient, nothing like the man who had talked to me quietly on a plane. This was something flatter and considerably more dangerous. “I have no interest in the internal politics of Highcrest,” he said, loud enough to carry. “But if you repeat a claim like that about my fiancée again, the Revere family’s plans to expand into Bellhaven are finished. I will make sure of it personally. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Isolde understood. The certainty went out of her posture.

I turned to her directly. “You came here straight from the theater — I can see the dust on your hem. You did that to come here and try to take my fiancé, the same way you went after my last relationship.” I let that sit for a moment. “The leg injury, by the way — how is it? You seem to be walking fine.”

She did not have an answer for that.

“Roslyn.” Cedric stepped forward, and the nearest security guard moved with him. “I love you. I am telling you that in front of everyone here. Come back. We can go to Highcrest tonight, we can register tomorrow, whatever you want. I am asking you.”

“I know you are,” I said. “The answer is no. Marry Isolde. You have more history with her than you ever had with me — it’s been there the whole time. I am done being the understudy.”

“I do not want Isolde. I want you. Only you.”

What happened next was not my doing. Isolde had been standing very still since Thane’s threat, but Cedric’s last sentence broke something in her. She grabbed the front of his jacket with both hands — stage makeup, performance dress, whatever was left of her composure all going at once — and said, very loudly: “You don’t want me? After last night? Say that again. Say it.”

“This is not the time—”

“No. You will explain yourself right now.”

They had forgotten the room. They had forgotten me. Cedric was trying to disengage, Isolde was not letting go, and I watched the two of them argue in the middle of someone else’s engagement party and felt, more than anything, tired.

I nodded to the security team. They moved in, efficient and practiced, and Cedric and Isolde were escorted out through the side door, still talking at each other, their voices fading as the door closed behind them.

Thane appeared at my shoulder. “Let’s go home,” he said.

We went home.

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