Part 3
“Why would I?” she asked.
Theo rubbed both hands over his face. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It was exactly what you meant.”
“I’m panicking.”
“Yes,” Elena said. “I can see that.”
The woman in the bed began to cry silently.
Theo looked at her, then back at Elena, and something in his expression shifted. He seemed to recognize that there was no version of this where he could contain the damage with the right tone of voice.
“Elena,” he said, “I made a mistake.”
She stared at him.
He looked down. “I know that sounds pathetic.”
“It does.”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“That also sounds pathetic.”
He winced.
For a moment, Elena felt a strange flicker of guilt. It was an old reflex. She had spent years smoothing conversations when they grew too sharp, softening her responses so Theo would not feel punished. She knew how to do it without thinking. A hand on his arm. A pause. A softer word.
She did none of those things.
The silence was not cruel. It was simply no longer hers to repair.
The woman in the bed whispered, “He told me the wedding was off.”
Theo’s head turned toward her.
Elena looked at the woman again.
The woman had tears running down her cheeks now. “He said you had called it off. He said you were leaving.”
Theo’s expression tightened.
“That isn’t what I said,” he muttered.
The woman stared at him. “You said you were done.”
“I said we were having problems.”
“You said the wedding was happening because your mother wanted it to.”
Theo looked toward Elena, as if he wanted her to understand the difference.
Elena watched him carefully.
This was the man she had been preparing to marry. This was the man who had written beautiful vows and left them folded in the top drawer of his suitcase. This was the man who had held her hand in the florist’s studio and said, “Whatever you want, I want.” This was the man who had looked at her face through the mirror that morning and said, “You are going to ruin me.”
Perhaps he had meant it more honestly than she knew.
“I didn’t tell her the wedding was off,” Theo said.
The other woman’s shoulders folded inward. “You didn’t tell me it was on.”
Theo’s mouth opened, then closed.
Elena looked away from both of them.
She could hear the faint murmur of people in the hallway now. The suite door had been open when she entered, and it remained open. The sound was distant but growing closer—formal shoes on carpet, the soft shift of fabric, a low uncertain question that stopped before she could make out the words.
Theo heard it too.
His face drained.
“Elena,” he said. “Please. Just give me five minutes.”
She laughed once.
It was a small sound. It had no warmth in it.
“You had the whole morning.”
“I know.”
“You had last night.”
“I know.”
“You had every day before that.”
Theo looked at the floor.
The burgundy tie lay between the bed and the window. Elena remembered helping him choose it in the menswear store. He had stood in front of a mirror, pretending the sales associate’s opinions mattered more than hers. When she picked up the burgundy one, he smiled and said it matched the ribbons in her bouquet.
“You notice things,” he had told her.
She had been proud of that.
Now the tie looked like a wound on the floor.
“You’re right,” Theo said.
Elena almost smiled at the uselessness of it.
Of course she was right. That was not what she had needed from him. She had needed him to be faithful before the moment required an agreement on what truth looked like.
The other woman shifted under the duvet. “I should go.”
Theo looked at her sharply. “You can’t.”
She froze.
Elena understood immediately.
If the woman left, there would be someone walking down the hallway in borrowed clothes or no clothes at all, someone who might be seen before the family entered. Theo wanted to prevent that. He wanted to manage the optics.
Elena felt the last softness leave her.
“Stay,” she said.
The woman looked at her.
“I’m not telling you to stay for him,” Elena said. “I’m telling you to stay because you deserve to hear what he says when people are watching.”
Theo’s jaw tightened. “That isn’t fair.”
Elena looked at him.
The woman lowered her eyes.
Theo tried again. “I know I hurt you. I know this is awful. But you don’t know what’s been happening with us.”
Elena felt the words move through her without finding purchase.
“What has been happening with us?” she asked.
His eyes lifted to hers.
May you like
He did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
