Elowen's POV
"You look like someone who desperately needs a drink and an old friend who won't judge her for ordering a second one."
Priya slides into the booth across from me, her dark hair spilling over the shoulders of a cashmere coat that screams London investment banking.
The bar in Burlington hums with the easy rhythm of a weeknight crowd, and for the first time in weeks, I feel something loosen beneath my ribs.
"You came all the way from London for a conference in New York, and you're spending your free evening in Vermont with me?"
I reach across the table to squeeze her hand.
"I'm either flattered or concerned about your priorities."
"My priorities have always been questionable, which is why we got along so well freshman year."
She signals the waiter with practiced ease.
"Two glasses of whatever red you'd recommend, and keep them coming until one of us starts crying. It's that kind of reunion."
The wine arrives, and we settle into the familiar rhythm of catching up—her promotion to senior analyst, my years at Meridian Holdings, the particular exhaustion of women who've spent too long proving themselves in rooms that weren't built for us.
"So," Priya says, swirling her glass with deliberate casualness. "You're getting married in two weeks to Leander Armitage, according to the announcement your father sent to every family connection in both hemispheres. Want to tell me why you sound about as enthusiastic as someone scheduling a root canal?"
"It's complicated."
"Everything with your family is complicated, Elowen. That's not an answer, and I've known you long enough to recognize the difference."
I take a long sip of wine, letting the warmth spread through my chest.
"The marriage is arranged. My grandfather's will requires it before I can access my portion of the trust, and my father chose the groom without consulting me about minor details like whether I actually wanted to spend my life with someone I barely know."
"That's medieval, even for the Kincaids."
Priya's expression shifts into something sharper, more protective.
"Can't you challenge it? Find a legal loophole? You were always the smartest person in every room at Harvard, and I refuse to believe you've exhausted every option."
"I've explored several avenues, but the terms are ironclad. Kincaid family attorneys have been protecting dynasty interests for three generations, and they anticipated challenges before I was born."
"Then don't marry him."
She leans forward, her voice dropping.
"Walk away from all of it. You did it once before, remember? You became Elle Wyeth and built something that belonged entirely to you."
"And look where that got me." I laugh, and the sound comes out bitter. "Right back where I started, wearing a different name but trapped in the same cage."
Priya is quiet for a moment, studying my face with the particular intensity of someone who has seen me at my worst and loved me anyway.
"This isn't just about the arrangement, is it? There's something else going on, something you're not telling me."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because I've seen you handle impossible situations with more composure than this. You survived your father's threats, your grandfather's manipulation, losing Margot right before graduation. But right now you look like someone who's drowning, and I don't think it's the wedding that's pulling you under."
The mention of Margot's name lands in my chest like a stone dropped into still water.
I haven't spoken that name aloud in years, haven't let myself examine the wound she left behind.
"Speaking of Margot," Priya continues, her voice gentler now. "Did you ever find out why she really left? I always thought there was more to that story than what she told you in that voicemail."
"She told me she hoped I'd understand someday. That was the entirety of her explanation for destroying everything we'd built together."
"And do you? Understand, I mean?"
"I understand that my family made threats she couldn't ignore, and I understand that she chose practical survival." I drain my wine glass and signal for another. "I also understand that loving someone in my world comes with a price most people aren't willing to pay."
"That's a terribly cynical thing to say for someone who's about to walk down an aisle."
"The aisle has nothing to do with love, Priya. It's a business transaction dressed up in white silk and champagne toasts. Leander is kind, but kindness isn't the same as passion, and I've spent enough years pretending otherwise."
Priya reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers.
"You're in love with someone else, aren't you? Someone who isn't your arranged groom, someone who's making this whole situation infinitely more complicated than it already was."
I don't answer. I don't have to.
"Elowen Kincaid, you absolute disaster of a human being."
Her smile carries no judgment, only the affectionate exasperation of someone who has watched me make questionable choices for a decade.
"Who is she? And don't bother pretending it's a man, because I saw the way you looked at women in college, and that particular brand of longing doesn't change with time."
"Her name is Vesper."
The confession escapes before I can stop it, and speaking her name aloud feels like pressing on a bruise.
"She's brilliant and terrifying and completely wrong for me in every way that should matter, and I've been in love with her for four years without ever admitting it to myself."
"Four years?" Priya's eyebrows climb toward her hairline. "That's a long time to carry something like that without telling anyone."
"I told myself it was professional admiration. But then circumstances changed, and I couldn't pretend anymore, and now I'm engaged to her brother while she watches from the sidelines."
"Her brother." Priya whistles low. "That's Shakespearean levels of complicated, even for you."
"I'm aware."
"Does she know how you feel?"
"She knows."
I stare into my wine glass like it holds answers I haven't thought to ask for.
"She feels the same way, and we've been trying to find a way out of this arrangement that doesn't destroy both our families in the process."
"And have you found one?"
Before I can answer, the bar door swings open.
Vesper stands in the entrance, still wearing her board meeting armor, her hair escaping its arrangement in ways that suggest she's been running her fingers through it for hours.
Her eyes scan the room with the focused intensity of a woman searching for something she's terrified she's already lost.
When her gaze finds mine, the relief that floods her features is so raw it makes my chest ache.
"That's her, isn't it?"
Priya murmurs, watching me watch Vesper cross the room.
"Yes." The word comes out barely above a whisper. "That's her."
Vesper stops at our table, her breathing unsteady, her hands trembling at her sides.
She looks at me like I'm the only solid thing in a world that's been spinning out of control.
"We need to talk," she says, and her voice breaks on the last word. "Now. Please."