When the photographer told me to hold still, I started smoothing the cuff of my sleeve.
Ethan noticed.
“You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you pretend you’re not nervous by attacking your clothing.”
“I’m not nervous.”
He glanced at my fingers.
“Then apparently your sleeve has done something unforgivable.”
I stopped.
He reached inside his jacket and produced a protein bar.
“No.”
“You haven’t eaten since six.”
“I’m wearing a fitted dress.”
“You’re also about to spend ninety minutes smiling at people you dislike. Pick your problem.”
I took the bar.
That was seven years with Ethan.
Not dramatic speeches.
Not declarations.
A thousand tiny corrections made before I asked.
By then, I barely noticed how often I reached for something and found he had already placed it in my hand.
I reached out and hooked one finger through his tie.
Then I pulled him half a step toward me.
His shoulders went rigid.
“You seem awfully eager to deliver me to another man.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re not what?”
His eyes dropped to my hand.
I released his tie.
“You know, Cole, for a man who negotiates for a living, you are terrible at saying what you want.”
His jaw tightened.
He didn’t answer.
At the time, I believed his silence was another thing I understood about him.
I didn’t yet know that even people who are extraordinarily good at staying eventually learn how to leave.
The ceremony itself felt less like a wedding than a shareholder reception with flowers.
There were relatives, friends, attorneys, lenders, private-equity partners, two independent directors from Bennett Holdings, and several people who had almost certainly been invited because someone needed their vote before the end of the year.
Julian waited at the altar looking handsome, expensive, and deeply unimpressed by the entire institution of marriage.
When I reached him, I smiled toward the cameras.
“Try to look happy,” I whispered.
“I am happy.”
“You look like you’re waiting for terrible test results.”
His mouth twitched.
“Better?”
“Marginally.”
When the officiant finally said Julian could kiss the bride, he hesitated.
Only half a second.
But I felt it.
So I raised my bouquet high enough to block most of the ballroom’s view and kissed the corner of his mouth.
The room applauded.
Over Julian’s shoulder, I saw Ethan standing behind the side curtain.
He looked away before I could read his expression.
Later, after the last formal photographs and the first wave of guests had begun leaving, Julian loosened his tie.
“I’m going to find Maya.”
“She shouldn’t have come,” he added.
“Of course she came.”
He frowned.
“Her boyfriend married somebody else today.”
“Don’t make fun of her.”
“I’m not.”
I removed one earring and placed it on the dressing table.
“And relax. I’m not trying to steal your girlfriend.”
Julian stared at me for a second.
“Our rules are simple,” I continued. “You handle your relationship. I handle my family. Neither one of us lets our private life destroy the deal.”
“And if one of us does?”
“Then the other one hires extremely expensive attorneys.”
That earned me a real laugh.
That was our wedding night.
No passion.
No betrayal.
No promises broken because neither of us had made those promises privately in the first place.
Just a contract, a deadline, and two adults trying to purchase their own freedom.
For the first month, Julian and I turned out to be surprisingly compatible roommates.
We kept separate bedrooms and separate lives.
The kitchen after midnight was the one place we regularly crossed paths.
One night I found him making pasta while Maya’s name glowed on his phone.
“My father wants us at the Whitmore Foundation dinner next Thursday,” he said.
“Mine wants us at the Bennett Museum benefit the same night.”
Julian looked over the pan.
“Can we fake a small marital crisis?”
“Too early.”
“People would enjoy it.”
I laughed.
Once we stopped pretending the marriage contained romance, living together was easy.
But whenever Maya called, Julian changed.
His face became more awake.
His voice became warmer.
He looked more like himself.
I had never done that to him.
He had never done it to me.
That should have told me something.
The next morning, my father called me to his Upper East Side townhouse.
Richard’s study looked almost exactly as it had when I was sixteen: dark wood, leather chairs nobody was comfortable sitting in, and framed magazine covers arranged so that his face appeared from almost every wall.
He slid a folder across the desk.
Inside was my new assignment at Bennett Holdings.
A regional division that had lost money for three consecutive years.
“You turn this around,” he said, “and we’ll revisit a broader role.”
I slowly flipped through the pages.
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