[Maverick’s POV]
Three weeks of silence.
Twenty-one days of watching my phone like it might spontaneously combust with a message that never comes.
I've left voicemails that border on pathetic—explanations that sound hollow even to my own ears, apologies that feel inadequate for the magnitude of what I've broken, pleas for her to just talk to me that would make my grandfather disown me on principle alone if he ever heard them.
Nothing. Not a single response. Not even a middle finger emoji, which I'd honestly welcome at this point.
I've tried her building seventeen times. The buzzer goes unanswered, her windows stay dark, and I've memorized every crack in the sidewalk outside her door like some lovesick stalker in an expensive suit.
The doorman has started giving me looks that suggest he's considering a restraining order on her behalf, and honestly, I can't even blame him—I'd file one against myself if I could. The man who built a billion-dollar empire reduced to lurking outside a walk-up apartment like a teenager who's been ghosted after prom.
The texts pile up in our conversation like a graveyard of one-sided desperation. Each blue bubble mocking me with its unread status, a digital monument to my failures.
I've typed and deleted a thousand messages, sent maybe a hundred, and received exactly zero in return. The silence is so complete it has its own sound—a ringing emptiness that follows me everywhere, that fills every room I enter with the absence of her voice.
Tonight's rehearsal dinner arrives like a death sentence wrapped in a linen napkin.
Tomorrow I get married. The thought sits in my chest like a stone, cold and impossible to dislodge. In less than twenty-four hours, I'll stand at an altar and promise forever to a woman I don't love while the woman I do won't even answer my calls.
Harrison's private dining room at the club gleams with understated wealth that whispers rather than shouts. Crystal chandeliers cast soft light over mahogany panels, and the table settings probably cost more than most people's monthly rent.
Priscilla sits beside me, radiant in emerald silk, playing the perfect bride-to-be with the skill of someone who's been rehearsing for this role her entire life.
"To tomorrow," Harrison announces, raising his glass. "To the continuation of two great families, and to the future of Finley Industries."
Priscilla beams, touching my arm, laughing at my grandfather's toast like it contains actual humor rather than corporate merger language disguised as sentiment.
When Harrison insists on photographs—"for the announcement after tomorrow's ceremony"—she tilts her chin at the perfect angle, her hand positioned possessively on my chest. I feel like I'm watching myself from a great distance, disgusted with the stranger wearing my face, performing a life I never wanted.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Instinctively, I check it under the table, hoping for a message that won't come.
"You're still checking your phone under the table." Priscilla's voice drops low enough that only I can hear, her smile never faltering for Harrison's benefit. "The night before our wedding. It's pathetic, Maverick. Truly, genuinely pathetic."
I go still, fingers frozen on the screen.
She sips her wine with the casual elegance of someone discussing weather patterns rather than detonating bombs.
"I know you've been fucking her. The whole time we've been engaged—the flight attendant with the ridiculous name and the even more ridiculous optimism. Did you really think I wouldn't find out? I have eyes, darling. The entire crew has eyes."
"Priscilla—"
"Don't." She examines her manicure, flawless French tips catching the candlelight. "I also know Harrison told you to end it. Clearly you didn't listen—you never do, when it comes to things you actually want. But it doesn't matter now, does it?"
Her eyes meet mine, sharp with triumph she doesn't bother concealing. "She's not answering. Problem solved."
The words land like calculated blows. Problem solved. Like Floris was an inconvenient variable in an equation, eliminated through the simple mathematics of her own heartbreak.
"She was a distraction," Priscilla continues, patting my hand with performative affection as Harrison looks up from his wine.
"A pleasant one, I'm sure—she seems the type who'd be enthusiastic about pleasing. But distractions end, Maverick. Tomorrow I become your wife. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be for everyone involved."
I don't respond. Can't. My throat has closed around words that wouldn't matter anyway, around denials that would only give her more ammunition.
"Maverick?" Harrison's voice cuts through. "Priscilla asked about the honeymoon flight arrangements. The jet leaves at six tomorrow evening."
"Fine," I manage, and the word tastes like surrender.
The dinner drags on for another excruciating hour. Final details and seating arrangements and discussions of which photographs will appear in which publications.
Priscilla performs beautifully, and I perform adequately, and Harrison looks satisfied with his careful orchestration of our mutual imprisonment. Tomorrow. It all happens tomorrow.
After the rehearsal, I drive to her building one more time.
Her windows are dark. The apartment sits silent above the street, giving away nothing, offering no sign that she's even there. Maybe she isn't.
Maybe she's staying with her mother, or Gemma, or anyone who isn't the man who broke her heart with selective honesty and cowardly omissions. I sit in my car for an hour, engine off, watching the windows like they might suddenly illuminate with her silhouette.
Give me something, I think. Anger. Tears. A middle finger from her window. Anything but this devastating silence that says I've hurt her so badly she can't even summon the energy to hate me properly.
The city moves around me—people walking dogs, couples holding hands, the ordinary machinery of lives that function without the weight of impossible choices.
She doesn't appear. The windows stay dark. The silence wins again, just like it has for three weeks.
I drive home.
The penthouse feels cavernous without her. Every surface holds a memory I can't escape—the counter where I kissed her, the couch where she fell asleep right on me, the bed that still smells faintly of her shampoo because I'm too pathetic to wash the sheets.
I pour whiskey I don't drink, watching the amber liquid catch light, and stare at my phone like it holds answers to questions I don't know how to ask.
Tomorrow I get married. Tomorrow I lose any chance of fixing this, of choosing her, of becoming the man she deserves. And I don't know how to stop it when she won't even let me try.
I call her one last time.
The phone rings once, twice, and then her voicemail—that ridiculous recording where she stumbles over her own name and apologizes for missing the call like she's personally inconveniencing everyone who dials her number. Even now, it makes something twist painfully in my chest.
I almost hang up. My thumb hovers over the end button, ready to add this to the pile of unanswered attempts.
But something breaks open in me instead—some dam I've been holding back for three weeks, some truth I've been too afraid to say because saying it makes it real and real things can be lost and I've already lost so much.
I start talking.
I tell her everything.