Jay’s POV
The Callahan estate had been designed to intimidate.
Vaulted ceilings that swallowed conversation. Crystal chandeliers that cost more than most people's houses. A dining table long enough to seat twenty, tonight occupied by eight people pretending to enjoy each other's company while servants moved silently between courses.
I sat beside Mariana with my spine straight and my smile carefully calibrated, playing the role of devoted fiancé the way I'd been playing it for years. The performance had become so automatic I barely had to think about it anymore—the right words, the right expressions, the careful choreography of a life I'd never chosen.
My father held court at the head of the table, his silver hair and commanding presence demanding attention even when he wasn't speaking.
Beside him, my mother arranged her features into pleasant neutrality, the diplomatic mask she'd perfected over decades of social navigation.
Across from me, Mariana's parents radiated the particular satisfaction of people who'd gotten exactly what they wanted. Their daughter, my family's name, an alliance that would merge two fortunes and solidify two legacies.
The engagement had never been my choice.
It was arranged when we were children—announced at a garden party I barely remembered, sealed with handshakes between fathers while Mariana and I played somewhere in the background, oblivious to the futures being traded above our heads.
By the time I was old enough to understand what had been decided, the engagement was already a fact of life. As immutable as my last name, as unavoidable as my reflection in the mirror.
I'd been delaying the wedding for years. Training schedules, contract negotiations, playoff runs—any excuse that sounded reasonable enough to buy me time. Each postponement earned disappointed sighs from my mother and cold disapproval from my father, but they'd allowed them.
The wedding would happen eventually. What difference did a few more months make?
Except eventually kept stretching further, and the excuses were wearing thin, and sooner or later I'd run out of road.
"The Westbrook venue has an eighteen-month waiting list,"
Mrs. Voss was saying, her voice carrying across the table with practiced projection.
"But I spoke with the events coordinator personally, and she assured me they could accommodate us next September. The gardens will be in full bloom—absolutely perfect for photographs."
My mother nodded with practiced enthusiasm. "September would be lovely. The weather is so unpredictable in spring, and we certainly don't want to risk rain on such an important day."
Next September, thirteen months away. The walls of my carefully constructed delays began to crumble.
Mariana's hand found my arm, her fingers curling possessively around my bicep. "Isn't that exciting, darling? We should start looking at invitations soon. I'm thinking of something classic—cream paper, gold embossing. Nothing too modern."
I looked at her, trying to find something beyond the polished surface that might make this bearable. Green eyes that calculated every interaction. A smile that never quite reached past her lips. Beautiful in the way sculptures were beautiful: cold, perfect, untouchable.
I didn't love her. I wasn't sure I even liked her.
She was calculating where I was impulsive. Cruel where I tried to be kind. Being around her felt like wearing a costume that never quite fit—too tight in some places, too loose in others, constantly reminding me that I was pretending to be someone I wasn't.
"Whatever you want," I heard myself say. "I trust your taste."
The words tasted like ash, but Mariana smiled like I'd given her exactly what she needed.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I slipped it out under the table, angling the screen away from Mariana's line of sight. Instagram notification—someone had tagged a photo. My thumb moved automatically, and then Summer's face filled my screen.
She was laughing at something off-camera, her head thrown back, blonde curls catching the light. Unguarded in a way I'd never seen her at the training facility. Radiant in a way that made my chest ache.
Madison had tagged her with some inside joke I didn't understand, but it didn't matter. What mattered was the way Summer looked when she wasn't building walls against me.
I caught myself smiling and locked the screen before anyone noticed.
"Jay." My father's voice cut through my distraction like a blade. "Mrs. Voss was asking about your plans for the off-season. I told her you'd be focusing on family obligations."
The emphasis on family obligations carried weight I couldn't ignore. A reminder of what was expected, of what I owed.
"Of course," I said smoothly, pocketing my phone. "The season's been demanding, but family always comes first."
My father's eyes held mine for a moment longer than necessary, communicating volumes in that silent language we'd developed over years of similar dinners.
Don't embarrass us. Don't forget what's at stake. Don't think for a moment that you have choices here.
I didn't look at Theo, sitting quietly at the far end of the table with his water glass and his careful sobriety and his fragile second chance. I didn't have to. The reminder of what I was protecting lived in my peripheral vision always.
My younger brother had been the family disappointment before I took over the role.
Rehab twice before twenty-one. A DUI that nearly killed a pedestrian and would have destroyed the Callahan name if our father's lawyers hadn't made it disappear. A spiral so severe that for six months, we didn't know if Theo would survive it.
I'd watched my brother nearly destroy himself, and when the dust settled, my father had made the terms clear. Jay's compliance would buy Theo's protection. The engagement would proceed. The family image would be maintained.
And in exchange, Theo would get a clean slate—continued access to the best treatment, protection from our father's wrath, a chance to rebuild without the weight of disgrace crushing him.
If I broke the engagement, if I embarrassed the family, Theo lost everything. It wasn't a choice—it was a cage with gilded bars and a view of everything I couldn't have.
Dinner ended eventually. Dessert, coffee, the ritual of farewells that took longer than the meal itself. I smiled and shook hands and promised to call about invitation samples, and by the time I finally escaped to my car, my jaw ached from the effort of performing normalcy.
My apartment felt empty when I got home—too large, too quiet, too full of the life I was supposed to want and couldn't make myself feel.
I poured a drink I didn't really want and settled onto the couch with my phone. Summer's Instagram page loaded, and I found myself scrolling through her photos with the intensity of someone searching for clues.
Most were recent—the last few years of a life I knew nothing about. Medical school graduation. Hospital events. Pictures with Nathan's girlfriend Madison and another friend of Summer who, if I remember correctly, works with her at the hospital.
But it was her eyes that kept pulling me back—dark and deep and somehow familiar in a way I couldn't access. Like a word stuck on the tip of my tongue. Like a melody I'd heard before but couldn't place.
She'd accused me of not seeing her. Of only noticing her now that she was beautiful. The words had stung more than I wanted to admit, because there was truth buried in them—truth I couldn't quite excavate.
Had I known her before? Had we crossed paths somewhere in the blur of high school, when I was too absorbed in hockey and parties and the performance of being Jay Callahan to notice anyone outside my immediate orbit?
The thought that I might have overlooked her—that she'd been there all along, invisible to me—made something twist painfully in my chest.
I zoomed in on her face in one of the photos, studied the curve of her jaw, the particular way her eyes crinkled when she smiled—familiar, haunting, just out of reach.
My phone buzzed with a text from Mariana: Loved tonight. Can't wait for September. Sweet dreams, future husband.
I stared at the message until the screen dimmed, then tossed the phone onto the cushion beside me.
The engagement would proceed. The wedding would happen. I'd stand at an altar beside a woman I didn't love while somewhere in the city, Summer Ellis existed without me. Built a life without me. Found someone who deserved her in ways I never would.
Unless I found a way out.
The thought was dangerous, seductive, impossible. But it lodged itself in my mind like a splinter, refusing to be ignored.
I didn't want to be their puppet anymore, didn't want to sacrifice my chance at something real on the altar of family obligation.
I just needed to find a path that didn't destroy my brother in the process.
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