Chapter3

The next night, in Grey’s penthouse in Tribeca, he came out of the shower and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind.

“I’m sorry, Nellie. I found out what happened. That’s just how my mom is. She cares about appearances, and she has a sharp tongue. She shouldn’t have treated you and your family that way.”

He paused. “I already talked to her. The party’s still on, and after the wedding we’ll get our own place. At the end of the day, marriage is about the two of us…”

He looked down at my hand, and the words caught in his throat. “Where’s your ring?”

I turned around and put the ring box in his hand.

“Thank you for believing in me. But I’m not going to bet my future on ‘we’ll get our own place.’”

His face changed. I looked at him and still pushed the ring toward him.

“I need time to think. Let’s call off the party for now.”

Grey looked stunned. Looking at him, I remembered the afternoon we met.

The summer after my freshman year, I was working at a luxury pop-up in SoHo, selling ties and cufflinks. A girl in a perfect outfit walked in on Grey’s arm, excited to pick out a present for him.

That girl was Blair Prescott.

Grey gave her a cold look. “You don’t have to do this. Your family called off the engagement first. Now that mine’s back on its feet, you come crawling back. It’s pathetic. Besides, I have a girlfriend. It’s never going to happen.”

Blair lost it on the spot, demanding to know who. Grey stepped forward and put his arm around me.

“Her.”

Blair nearly shoved me over and called me every ugly name she could think of. Just some shopgirl. When she swung at me, Grey stepped in front of me and took the slap.

That was how it started. Afterward, maybe out of guilt, he kept coming by the store. He seemed to like me, but I never took it seriously. An heir and a shopgirl? That wasn’t a love story. Maybe he liked me because I was honest about being broke, and because I could talk with him about art and books.

I turned him down for two whole years. Senior year, my Etsy shop finally paid my bills, with a little extra to pass on to the farmers back home. Only then was I willing to give him a chance. I didn’t want to fall in love until I’d outrun most people my age.

My pride wouldn’t let me be with someone so far above me. A gap like that breeds contempt, and I refused to be the kind of woman who had to lean on a man just to stay standing.

The second year after graduation, I paid off every cent of my student loans and put a new roof on Grandma’s house. Only then did I go home with him to meet his family.

Six months before the engagement, Grey passed along a message from his mother: a future Whitmore wife shouldn’t be selling apples on camera. I stopped posting. I told myself it was just a break.

Grey lowered his eyes to mine.

“Nellie, I promise you. After the wedding, we move out, and she never gets you alone again. And I’ll help you take care of your grandma.”

He took my hand, his voice low. “Give me one chance, okay? The party isn’t about proving anything to my mother. I just want to make our future official. That night, I’ll personally make sure your grandma and Dale are seated where they belong. And I’ll tell everyone, to their faces, that they’re my family.”

I didn’t say yes. “I’ll think about it. But this time, I want to see what you do, not hear what you promise.”

The next day, Grey gave me back the ring. He said he’d personally arranged for Grandma and Dale to sit beside the head table, and that he’d told his mother plainly: if she insulted my family again, he would take me and leave.

In the end, I agreed to go ahead with the party. Not because everything was fixed, but because I wanted to give him one last chance to keep his word.

I put the ring back on. I didn’t put my guard down.