Chương 7
"Do you?"
His jaw tightened.
"I don't know what you think you found."
That was the first honest sentence he had said to me in months.
I stepped closer.
"Then maybe you should tell me."
His expression hardened.
"You always did this."
"Did what?"
"Look for something wrong."
I stared at him.
Even now.
Even here.
He was trying to move the conversation back to the old version of us.
The version where I was emotional.
Where he was reasonable.
Where my questions were the problem.
"I spent five years believing I was failing you," I said quietly.
His face changed.
Only briefly.
"I never said that."
"You didn't have to."
The music continued behind us.
People laughed nearby.
A child ran across the lawn chasing bubbles.
Nobody noticed the conversation happening between us.
Maybe that was the strangest part.
The most important moments in life rarely looked important from the outside.
Julian lowered his voice.
"You should be careful."
The warning was quiet.
Almost gentle.
That made it worse.
"Is that a threat?"
"No."
"Then what is it?"
He looked toward the ocean.
"It's advice."
I almost smiled.
"From you?"
His eyes returned to mine.
"You think you understand what happened."
"I know you lied to me."
"You don't know everything."
"Then explain."
He looked away.
That was new.
Julian never looked away.
Not when he was angry.
Not when he was blaming me.
Not when he was telling me I was too sensitive.
But now he did.
A voice interrupted us.
"Julian."
Victoria stood behind him.
Her face was pale.
She was holding his phone.
Not hers.
His.
"I need to talk to you."
Julian immediately stepped toward her.
"What happened?"
She looked at me.
Then back at him.
"I saw the message."
The air changed.
"What message?" Julian asked.
Victoria's eyes filled with something between fear and betrayal.
"The one from your attorney."
Julian froze.
"What?"
She swallowed.
"The one that said the transfer cannot happen until Genevieve appears at the wedding."
For the first time since I had known him, Julian had no immediate response.
And in that silence, I understood something.
I had not been invited to his wedding because he wanted to show me what I lost.
I had been invited because he needed me there.
And whatever he was trying to complete required me to be present.
Julian's face lost all color.
Not completely.
Not enough for anyone else to notice.
But I noticed.
I had spent five years learning every version of his expression.
The impatient one.
The disappointed one.
The charming one he used with investors.
The gentle one he used when he wanted something.
And now I saw something I had never seen before.
Fear.
Victoria still held his phone in her hand.
"Julian," she said quietly, "what does she have to do with a transfer?"
Nobody around us seemed to notice.
A waiter walked by carrying empty glasses.
A group of guests laughed near the dance floor.
The band continued playing a song that felt completely wrong for the moment.
Julian reached for his phone.
Victoria pulled it back.
"No."
The word surprised him.
It surprised me too.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I mean I want an answer."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Victoria."
"Don't do that."
Her voice cracked.
"Don't say my name like I'm being unreasonable."
For a second, Julian looked like he wanted to argue.
Then he looked around.
He was calculating.
Always calculating.
"Not here."
Victoria laughed once.
It wasn't a happy sound.
"That is exactly what you always say."
I watched her carefully.
This was not the confident woman from the photographs.
Not the woman who had replaced me.
Not the person I had imagined as my enemy for months.
She looked like someone discovering she had been standing beside a stranger.
Julian lowered his voice.
"You don't understand the situation."
"Then explain it."
"I can't."
The answer came too quickly.
Victoria stared at him.
"Why?"
He didn't respond.
That was when Claire appeared beside me.
She had been watching from a distance.
She didn't ask what happened.
She only looked at Julian, then at Victoria, then at the phone.
"Something changed."
I nodded.
"Yes."
Claire leaned closer.
"How much does Victoria know?"
I looked at her.
"I don't think she knows anything."
That was the strange part.
For months, I had imagined Victoria as the person who took my place.
But standing there, watching Julian avoid her questions, I realized something uncomfortable.
Maybe she had never known what she was stepping into.
Maybe she had only been given a different version of the same story.
A few minutes later, Julian pulled Victoria away from the crowd.
Claire followed them with her eyes.
"Do you think she will leave?"
"I don't know."
"Do you want her to?"
The question caught me off guard.
I looked at Victoria.
The woman who had been part of the collapse of my marriage.
The woman carrying Julian's child.
The woman who had hurt me without knowing the full damage she caused.
"I don't know."
Claire nodded.
"Good."
I looked at her.
"Good?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because the moment you stop seeing people as complicated is the moment you start making the same mistakes Julian made."
I didn't like hearing that.
Mostly because it was true.
An hour passed before Julian returned.
Victoria did not come back with him.
That alone told me something.
He approached me near the edge of the property where the ocean wind was louder than the music.
"You wanted answers."
I looked at him.
"Yes."
He glanced toward Claire.
"Alone."
"No."
His expression tightened.
"Genevieve."
"No."
The simplicity of the answer seemed to bother him.
"Claire stays."
He looked annoyed.
Then tired.
A version of Julian I rarely saw.
"Fine."
He placed his hands in his pockets.
"The company connection is not what you think."
"That sentence usually means it is exactly what someone thinks."
He almost smiled.
Almost.
May you like
"You're still sarcastic."
"I'm still me."
