The diamond weighs approximately three carats and feels like a shackle forged from every compromise I've ever made. Preston slides it onto my finger while three hundred guests applaud, and I smile because that's what women do when they've been cornered by grand gestures in ballrooms full of witnesses.
I cannot say no. Not here, not now, not with Caroline Cobbett already calculating how this engagement affects my standing on the Foundation board and Preston's business partners raising champagne flutes in premature celebration.
But it's not the crowd that troubles me. It's not even the ring.
It's the expression on Jaxson's face.
He stands motionless near the bar, his champagne abandoned, his jaw locked with tension that transforms his features into carved granite. The runway model beside him has evaporated into the background, irrelevant, forgotten.
Preston pulls me into his arms for a kiss, and over his shoulder I see Jaxson turn away, his shoulders rigid beneath that perfectly tailored tuxedo.
The next hour passes in a blur of congratulations and questions about wedding dates and venue preferences. I answer on autopilot, my responses generic enough to satisfy curious guests while my awareness tracks Jaxson's movements through the ballroom. He's speaking to donors, smiling at patrons, playing the part of charming stepbrother with a skill that makes my stomach churn.
The moment the crowd begins to thin, I make my excuses.
"I need some air," I tell Preston, extracting myself from his proprietary embrace. "The champagne has gone to my head."
"I'll come with you, darling, we should discuss the Paris trip and when we might—"
"Stay and network with the Hartleys." I press a kiss to his cheek. "I'll be fine."
The parking lot spreads before me in pools of shadow and fluorescent light, the spring evening carrying the particular weight of approaching rain. My heels click against the asphalt as I navigate toward the valet stand.
I don't make it to the valet stand.
"Take it off."
Jaxson's voice emerges from the shadows between parked cars, low and dangerous and vibrating with controlled fury. He materializes from the darkness, his bow tie loosened, his hair disheveled from running frustrated fingers through it.
"Excuse me?" I stop walking, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"The ring." He closes the distance between us with three long strides, his eyes fixed on my left hand with murderous intensity. "Take it off right now, or I will rip it off myself, and I don't particularly care if your finger comes with it."
"You're being ridiculous, Jaxson, this is none of your concern and you have absolutely no right to—"
"I have every right." His hand shoots out, fingers closing around my wrist with bruising pressure. "You're not marrying him, Harper, not while that body still belongs to me."
"Let go of me." I try to wrench free, but his grip only tightens, his thumb pressing into the delicate bones beneath my skin. "You're hurting me, Jaxson, I mean it, let go."
He doesn't release me. His eyes burn into mine with the accumulated weight of every forbidden thought, every sleepless night, every photograph he kept hidden in folders I was never meant to find, and I feel the first drops of rain begin to fall.
I waited for him.
The admission claws its way up from the grave where I buried it, demanding acknowledgment. I waited for a phone call, a letter, a sign that he hadn't forgotten I existed. I checked the mailbox every day for months after he left, telling myself I was looking for college brochures while my heart searched for his handwriting. I stalked his social media until the jealousy became unbearable, then deleted every app just to download them again at two in the morning when the loneliness grew teeth.
And now he stands here, grip bruising my wrist, demanding I remove a ring from a man who actually stayed.
I yank my arm free with enough force to send myself stumbling backward, and the momentum carries my hand across his face in a slap.
"How dare you." My voice shakes with fury and fear and arousal I refuse to acknowledge. "How dare you stand here making demands after seven years of letting me believe you wanted nothing to do with this family or this house or me?"
He touches his cheek where my palm connected, and the smile that spreads across his face holds nothing resembling warmth. The darkness in his expression makes my breath catch, makes the space between my thighs clench with involuntary heat.
"You don't love him." He states it as fact rather than accusation, his voice rough with certainty. "You don't love him, Harper, and we both know it."
"You don't know what I feel." The lie sounds unconvincing even to my own ears. "You don't know anything about me or my relationship or what Preston and I have built together."
"I know everything about you." He advances, and I retreat until my back connects with the cold metal of my car door. His arms cage me against the vehicle, palms flat on either side of my head, his body close enough that I feel the heat radiating through his tuxedo jacket. "I know the way your left eye twitches when you're lying, I know how you bite the inside of your cheek when you're trying not to cry, and I know you touch your collarbone when you're hiding something you're ashamed of." His gaze drops to where my fingers have unconsciously drifted to the hollow of my throat.
"Stop." The word comes out broken, barely a whisper. "Stop knowing me."
"I also know what you look like when you stop performing and let yourself be real. I saw it in that study, Harper, when you kissed me first and meant it." His voice softens, the anger bleeding into something rawer. "Let me take you home."
I shove against his chest with both palms, putting enough distance between us to breathe, to think, to remember why I cannot let him unravel me in this parking lot.
My hand connects with his face again, the crack of the second slap cutting through the rain that's falling harder now, plastering his hair to his forehead and soaking through the burgundy silk that clings to my skin.
He touches his cheek again, and the smile that spreads across his face holds something approaching admiration. The rain runs down his jaw, pooling in the hollow of his throat, and I want to lick it off with a desperation that terrifies me.
"Slap me again, Harper." His voice drops to a growl that vibrates through my bones. "And I'll pin you against this car and show you exactly what your body has been begging for." He leans closer, his breath warm against my rain-damp skin. "And I won't stop until you're screaming my name loud enough for every valet in this lot to hear."
The silence stretches between us, broken only by the rain hammering against metal and asphalt. My hand twitches at my side, the urge to slap him warring with the knowledge of what he's promised if I do.
He watches that twitch, reads the calculation in my eyes, and something shifts in his expression. Then he steps back, arms falling to his sides, giving me just enough space to escape.
"Go on, then." His voice carries the bitter edge of a man calling a bluff. "Run back to your safe little life."
My fingers fumble for the car keys, hands trembling despite my best efforts to control them. I yank the door open and slide inside, slamming it shut before he can change his mind, the engine roaring to life as I throw the car into reverse.
Through the rearview mirror, I watch him standing in the rain.
He doesn't move. Doesn't chase me. Just stands there in the downpour, water streaming down his face, his tuxedo ruined, his eyes following my taillights until the darkness swallows him whole.