Chapter 2

Romilly's POV

After Cordelia left, I was so exhausted I passed out.

When I woke up, it was already dark, and I could hear a familiar voice on the other side of my bedroom door.

Lucan.

I was surprised.

Eight years ago, he'd hated me with everything he had.

That March, he planted himself on my front steps for three days and nights through the relentless Chicago snow. Didn't eat. Didn't sleep. He was just waiting for me to step outside—waiting to slam me against the porch column, wrap a hand around my throat, and demand to know why.

His hand shook the whole time. He never once squeezed.

I cried and told him it was because I didn't love him anymore.

He put his fist through the glass of our storm door. Blood ran between his knuckles and dripped onto the snow.

He never laid a finger on me that day. But from then on, I disgusted him.

If he saw me on the street, he turned around and walked the other way. When he passed my house, his brows drew together so hard they creased. He never set foot in the corner deli we'd gone to since we were kids—not once. And if anyone mentioned my name in front of him, he cut them off cold.

"Don't say that name around me. Maybe she doesn't make you sick. She makes me sick."

The day he left, it was pouring.

I took a cab through the rain to the private airfield outside the city and found him at the edge of the tarmac. When he saw me, he didn't say a word. He just reached into his coat and pulled out the matching silver rings we'd bought at Navy Pier when we were seventeen. Then his phone—the one with every picture of us on it.

He threw them down on the wet concrete at my feet, hard enough to shatter.

Then he got on the plane and never looked at me again.

And now, eight years later, he'd shown up at my house on his own.

It didn't take long, listening through the crack in the door, to figure out why.

Lucan was standing in our living room, holding Nerissa's hand.

"Mrs. Quinlan, does this go back to what happened eight years ago? Is that why you refuse to let Romilly be my fiancée's bridesmaid?"

"I'm over it. I'm over her. We grew up together—if marriage is off the table, we can at least be friends."

The moment he finished, Nerissa chimed in.

"It's true, Mrs. Quinlan. Lucan told me everything. I mean, yes, Romilly cheated, but they were so young back then. It always takes two, right? I'm sure my Lucan wasn't perfect either."

"Honestly, I should be thanking her. If she hadn't let him go, I never would've found a man this good."

"So there's really no reason to hold on to the past. That's exactly why I insisted Romilly be my bridesmaid. I'd just love for her to help me pick out the dress and our rings." She gave a sweet, airy laugh. "I mean, who knows his taste better than his childhood friend, right?"

Eight years ago, when I first got my diagnosis, all I wanted was for Lucan to forget me. To let me go.

But hearing him discuss me so clinically—realizing he’d laid our entire history bare for another woman—still brought a relentless, needle-sharp ache.

Beside me, my mother’s eyes rimmed red as she endured Nerissa’s weaponized sweetness, every sugary syllable hiding a blade.

Her lips trembled a few times before she could get the words out.

"You're just like your mother. Shameless, the both of you!"

My heart lurched. I pushed myself up in bed and called through the door.

"Mom! Can you come in here? Help me into my chair. I'll talk to him myself."

She came in, still looking furious.

Before she could say a word, I wrapped my arms around her.

"Mom, please. Think of it as helping me cross the last thing off my list. Okay?"

Her eyes filled instantly. But she had never once in my life been able to tell me no. She went to my dresser, came back with lipstick and blush, and covered up the grayish-yellow tinge that kidney failure leaves on your skin. Then she pulled a beanie over my head and helped me into my puffer coat.

The second she wheeled me out of my room, Lucan frowned.

"What is wrong with you? You were a drama queen as a kid, and you're still pulling the same stunts. It's just a broken leg, Romilly. Are you seriously going to milk this so your nearly sixty-year-old mother has to wait on you hand and foot?"

I looked at the disgust on his face and just smiled.

"The doctor said it's a bad break. I'm supposed to stay off it for a while."

Nerissa was quick to smooth things over.

"Don't take it personally, Romilly. Sicily froze whatever heart he had left. He’s that ruthless with everyone."

She hugged his arm tighter and winked at me.

"Except me."

Something bitter caught in my chest. It was true—he was ruthless with everyone. But once, with me, he...

I cut the thought off and looked at her evenly.

"Do you really need me to come?"

"If you do, I'll come."

Nerissa nodded right away. "Of course! Of course we do."

We made small talk for another minute, and then Mom showed them out.

That night, Lucan called.

"Tomorrow. Ten a.m. We're picking out the dress."

I held the phone so tightly my fingers ached.

Partly because I wanted to keep hearing his voice.

Partly because I was nervous.

Eight years. It had been eight years since I'd heard his voice alone on the other end of a phone line.

Before I turned nineteen, I fell asleep every night under my covers with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to him talk in that low voice of his until I drifted off.

I was still lost in the memory when a woman's voice came through the line.

"Lucan, come dry my hair—"

I snapped back to myself and managed a quick "Okay."

He hung up almost before I'd finished saying it.

I listened to the dial tone, and the tears came out of nowhere.

I'd known. I'd prepared myself. But hearing it with my own ears—knowing he belonged to someone else now—still hurt so much it left my chest raw.