Chapter Seven
Hayden
By the time Saturday arrived, I had learned something very important about working in the same building as Edwina Rhodes.
Avoiding me was impossible. She tried. I saw it in the way she changed directions in the corridor when she noticed me at the end of it, in the careful timing of her lectures that seemed suspiciously arranged to finish before I stepped out of meetings, and in the polite, controlled distance she maintained whenever our paths crossed in public spaces.
It might have worked on someone else. Not on me.
Because the entire week had turned into a game of hide and seek.
And while she clearly believed she was the one hiding, the truth was far more entertaining.
Each administrative email I sent, brief request for clarification that brought her into my office, and accidental encounter in the hallway had one very predictable result.
She walked into the room tense. Guarded.
Trying very hard to look unaffected. Watching her fight that reaction had been…
amusing. Her nervousness had its own appeal, yet what kept pulling me back was the brief flicker in her eyes every time she stood in front of me.
Recognition.
Memory.
By the end of the week, even I had to admit the game was starting to wear thin.
Watching Edwina pretend she felt nothing had been entertaining for a while, maybe more than it should have been, but curiosity had turned into something harder to ignore.
I wanted more than stolen reactions in hallways and office doors left half-open.
I wanted the truth from her face, her mouth, her body if she let it speak before her pride got in the way.
That was how I ended up standing in front of the mirror on Saturday evening, adjusting my tie and preparing to walk into a room where I knew she would be.
Originally, I had no intention of attending the wedding. Department events rarely interested me, and standing through an evening of polite academic conversation while pretending to care about seating arrangements and floral decorations sounded about as appealing as reviewing budget reports.
But circumstances had changed. Because every colleague in the department had spent the entire week talking about the event. Which meant one thing. Edwina would be there. That single fact had turned the decision from unnecessary to inevitable.
I reached for my glasses on the dresser and slid them on, watching my reflection sharpen as the lenses settled into place. The thin black frames sat comfortably against the bridge of my nose, the familiar weight grounding in a way I had grown used to over the years.
Black suit. White shirt. Necktie. Glasses. I straightened the collar of my shirt and slipped my jacket over my shoulders, the dark fabric falling neatly into place as I studied my reflection one last time.
Because the truth was painfully simple. If she was going to stand in the same room as me tonight, surrounded by colleagues who had absolutely no idea what history existed between us, then the little game she thought we had been playing all week was about to become something far more interesting.
I picked up my watch from the dresser and fastened it around my wrist.
The image of her in the hallway earlier that week came back to me.
Edwina smiling beside that professor. Daniel.
My jaw tightened at the memory, anger sliding under my skin before I could stop it.
I had carried that image longer than I wanted to admit, the two of them standing too close, looking too familiar, while she acted as if my place in her life could be filled by any polite bastard with an easy smile.
Tonight would finally give me an answer to the question that had been eating at me since then.
Was he only a colleague, or was he something else?
I grabbed my keys and headed for the door.
Because if Edwina Rhodes thought she could spend the evening pretending we were nothing more than two distant coworkers attending the same wedding, she was about to learn how fucking wrong she was.
Tonight, the office walls would not be there to protect her, professional excuses would lose their usefulness, and the careful distance she loved hiding behind would shrink until it became impossible to maintain.
Tonight, I would watch every lie she told herself fall apart, and by the end of it, she would remember exactly what happened when she tried to pretend I was nothing.
Technically, the invitation had specified that every guest should attend with a partner. And that requirement would have made me decline the invitation entirely.
But being the dean carried certain advantages.
Someone—most likely Giselle—had explained to the organizers that administrative staff could be given certain exceptions, and by the time I arrived at the venue that evening it was clear the entire department had already gathered.
The actual church ceremony had taken place earlier in the week, a smaller event reserved for close family and a handful of friends. Tonight’s gathering was the extended celebration, the part where colleagues, acquaintances, and the larger circle of their lives came together for the reception.
The venue was entirely indoors, which made sense for early December in London.
Warm amber lights reflected from tall crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling, casting soft gold across the polished marble floors.
Round tables were arranged across the hall with careful symmetry, white linens and dark green arrangements placed neatly at the center of each one.
Waiters moved quietly between groups of guests carrying trays of champagne while low music played somewhere near the far end of the room.
Conversations filled the space. Laughter.
Polite greetings. Academic gossip. I stepped inside slowly, adjusting the sleeve of my jacket as my eyes moved across the crowd almost automatically.
Looking for her. Not that I would admit it out loud.
But the truth was obvious the moment I entered the room.
My attention wasn’t on the decorations.
Or the music.
Or the dozens of familiar faces from the department scattered across the reception hall.
My gaze moved across the room with careful focus, scanning one group after another while an irritating realization settled in my chest.
She wasn’t there. At least not yet.
I accepted a glass of champagne from a passing server and took a slow sip while exchanging brief greetings with several colleagues who had already formed small social circles near the bar.
Conversation flowed easily. Research topics.
Department politics. A few jokes about how nervous Marcus had apparently looked during the church ceremony earlier in the week.
I responded where necessary, nodding politely, offering the occasional comment, but none of it held my attention for very long.
Because every few seconds my eyes drifted back toward the entrance.
Still no Edwina. Which only made the waiting more irritating than it should have been.
Another sip of champagne. Another conversation with a professor from the literature department who seemed very enthusiastic about explaining a new research grant proposal. I listened. Or at least I appeared to.
Because the moment the entrance doors opened again, my attention shifted instantly. And then I saw her.
For a second the entire room seemed to fall silent.
Edwina stepped inside wearing a red dress that made my brain forget every conversation I had been participating in moments earlier.
It was not soft red. It was deep, vivid, unapologetic, a shade that did not ask for attention because it fucking took it, dragging every gaze in the room toward her before she had even looked up.
And I wanted to gouge out the eyes of every man who looked too long.
She was fucking beautiful. There was no denying it, not even for a second.
But as my eyes followed the line of her shoulders and the elegant curve of her collarbone revealed by the dress, an unexpected thought slipped through the sharp edge of my anger.
I missed green on her. Before she left, green had always been hers.
Dark emerald sweaters during winter evenings when she used to sit across from me pretending to focus on her notes while I watched her instead, soft olive dresses that moved around her legs when she walked through campus courtyards, the confidence of that color against her skin that somehow made her eyes appear darker, deeper.
Since coming here, I had not seen her wear it once.
No green. Never.
Her short hair was styled in loose waves that framed her face with a careful elegance I hated noticing.
Everything about her seemed arranged to keep the world at a distance, from the way she held herself to the way she let her smile appear only when it served a purpose.
For reasons I did not want to examine, I missed the way it used to be.
I missed the longer hair, the easier laughter, the girl who walked into rooms without carrying defense in every movement, the girl who once looked at me with a trust so complete it made the rest of the world feel irrelevant.
Standing across the room in that red dress, she looked breathtaking, and the sight of her hit me with a force I had no way to soften. Yet under the heat, past the jealousy and the ugly need to drag every man’s gaze away from her, a softer ache opened in my chest and hurt worse than all of it.
It was not the green dresses I missed. It was not the long hair, or the careless smiles she used to give me when she thought no one else was watching. Those were only pieces of a life I had lost.
I missed her.
I missed the girl who had once laughed against my mouth, trusted me with the parts of herself she hid from everyone else, and belonged to the same fragile world I believed we were building before I let it fall apart in my hands.