Chapter 34 Genevieve
Genevieve
Three long tables stretch beneath crystal chandeliers, draped in white linen and flickering candlelight.
Art pulls out my chair, his hand lingering on the back of my neck as I sit.
He settles beside me, close enough that his thigh presses against mine under the table. His hand drops to my knee immediately, fingers curling over the fabric of my dress, and squeezes.
“You okay?” he asks. “After earlier?”
“Fine,” I say and plaster on my smile.
His thumb traces circles on my knee, and I focus on the silverware arrangement to keep from screaming.
Guests filter in around us. Juliette and Roman take seats nearby, and Juliette catches my eye with a look I can’t fully decipher before sliding her gaze to the place card directly across from me.
My stomach drops.
Lance appears moments later, weaving between chairs, and takes that seat. He doesn’t look at me. He just adjusts the napkin in his lap and picks up a water glass with a steady hand.
Mine haven’t stopped trembling since I got here.
Merrick drops into the seat beside Lance, and Felicity takes his other side. Alex is farther down, leaning back with the bored ease of someone who’s attended a hundred of these. Paxton and Tiffany are at the head, side by side.
“You look lovely tonight, Genevieve,” Roman says, clearly trying to cut through the tension.
“Thank you, Roman.”
“Doesn’t she?” Art’s hand slides higher on my thigh. “I’m the luckiest guy here.”
Across the table, Lance’s jaw flexes. He reaches for his water and takes a slow drink, his eyes fixed somewhere past my shoulder.
The first course arrives. Soup. I pick up the correct spoon and try to eat, but I’m too nauseous to stomach anything.
Under the table, something brushes my ankle.
I go still.
It’s barely there. The edge of a shoe against the side of my foot. It could be accidental.
Lance reaches for the breadbasket his face perfectly composed, and tears off a piece without looking at me. His foot stays where it is—a warm, steady pressure against my ankle that sends electricity up my spine.
Art’s hand tightens on my thigh at the exact moment Lance’s foot slides up my calf.
My heart lodges in my throat, and I let out a shaky breath.
“So, Lance,” Franklin says from farther down the table. “Art tells me you’ve been keeping busy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Idle hands.” Franklin lifts his glass. “Your father always said you needed structure.”
“He did say that,” Lance replies.
“Smart man, Craig.” Franklin sips. “Shame about everything else.”
The table goes quiet. Juliette’s fork pauses in midair. Roman’s jaw tightens. Even Merrick takes a slow drink.
Lance says nothing.
Under the table, I hook my ankle around his.
His eyes lift to mine for the first time since he sat down. A single second of contact that hits me like lightning. Then he’s looking at his plate again, but his calf presses warm against mine, and it sends a shock sparking from my toes to my teeth.
Art’s thumb slides higher on my thigh, almost to the hem of my dress.
“You’re tense,” he murmurs against my ear.
“I’m fine.”
“Relax.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “I’ve got you.”
No, you don’t.
The second course arrives. Seared fish with microgreens. The food presentation is phenomenal, but I eat without tasting, hyperaware of the two points of contact splitting me down the middle.
I’m two women at once. The one Art sees and the one Lance knows. The fraud and the real thing. Both of them eating a perfectly seared fish, trying not to fall apart.
Juliette leans across Roman. “Gin, you should try this wine. It’s from a vineyard near Florence that Roman promised to take me to.”
“She’s got champagne,” Art answers for me.
Juliette’s smile doesn’t waver, but something sharpens behind her eyes. “And she’s got a mouth and a brain, too.”
Art’s hand stills on my thigh.
“I’d love to try it,” I say, holding out my glass, and Juliette pours.
Conversation flows around us. Felicity is telling a story about a designer meltdown at Fashion Week that has Merrick cackling and even Lance’s mouth twitching at the corner.
Alex wanders over to steal the breadbasket and makes a comment about “Tiffany forcing them apart with seating arrangements because she doesn’t want to watch true love when she’s such a frigid bitch,” and Felicity toasts him for it.
For a few minutes, it almost feels normal. Almost feels like a group of friends at a dinner party instead of a minefield where every glance and touch could detonate.
Then Art’s hand slides fully under the hem of my dress.
His fingers press against the bare skin of my inner thigh, and I suck in a breath that I have to disguise as a cough.
His palm is warm and firm and proprietary, inching higher in slow, measured increments he knows I can’t react to.
Not here. Not with a hundred people around us and his father watching from the end of the table.
He leans in, his mouth against my ear.
“I missed you,” he whispers. “I know I haven’t been around enough. That changes after tonight. I promise.”
His fingers squeeze my thigh, and his thumb strokes the sensitive skin just below the crease of my hip.
I hate it. And I hate myself for why I do.
Lance’s calf is still pressed against mine. A counterpoint to everything Art is doing. Where Art’s touch is loud and possessive, Lance’s is quiet and constant, asking for nothing except to be close to me.
I stare at the centerpiece and recite a recipe in my head.
A clinking of glass cuts through the noise. Paxton rises from the head of the table, champagne in hand, and the room settles into an expectant hush.
“Thank you all for being here tonight,” he says. “Tiffany and I are grateful for your friendship, your support, and your presence as we celebrate another year together.”
He turns to Tiffany. She smiles up at him, and it’s a beautiful smile. It’s warm and genuine and full of something that looks like hope. Like maybe this year, he’ll say the thing she’s been waiting to hear.
“To my wife,” Paxton says. He lifts his glass. “Thank you for your partnership, your patience, and your unwavering commitment to this family.”
The room raises their glasses. “To Tiffany.”
“And to Roman Montgomery and the Montgomery Organization.” He tilts the glass toward our end of the table. “For bridging old divides and merging with Calloway Enterprises to form a new hope for Rosebrook Falls with WayMont Corp. The future is bright.”
Tiffany keeps smiling, but something behind her eyes dims. I know that look. It’s the look of a woman who keeps waiting for the man she loves to choose her and keeps hearing everything except the words she needs.
I wonder if that’s what I look like.
Paxton sits down. Tiffany touches his arm, and he pats her hand and leans in to press a kiss to her temple. She melts into him, like she’s desperate for it.
Across the table, Merrick catches my eye and lifts his eyebrows slightly. I look away.
Then Art pushes back his chair and his hand leaves my thigh.
I jolt, shock spreading over me like frost.
He stands, and the room’s attention shifts to him with ease. He picks up his champagne, and there’s something in his expression that makes my stomach freefall.
What the hell is he doing?
“I hope you’ll all indulge me for a moment,” Art says, his voice carrying effortlessly.
“Watching Paxton and Tiffany tonight, celebrating their love and commitment, it got me thinking. About what it means to find someone who makes you want to be better. Someone who challenges you, who inspires you, who makes the chaos of this world feel manageable.”
Oh, no.
“Most of you know I’ve been keeping someone special away from the spotlight for a while.” He looks down at me, and the tenderness in his eyes is so convincing that for one horrible second, I almost believe it’s real. “That wasn’t fair to her. And tonight, I want to fix that.”
The room has gone completely silent. I can hear my own heartbeat. I can feel Lance across the table, rigid as stone, his calf still pressed against mine.
Art pulls me to a stand and reaches into his jacket pocket.
My vision tunnels, and my hearing dims.
“Ginny.” He turns to me fully, and his hand comes out holding a small velvet box. “From the moment I met you, I knew my life was never going to be the same. You’re the bravest, most beautiful, most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.”
Light chuckles spread over my shoulders from the crowd. But I’m frozen, and I can’t feel my hands.
“I know I haven’t always been perfect.” His voice drops, intimate, like we’re the only two people in the room. “I know I’ve made mistakes. But you stayed. You stayed when things got hard, and you stayed when I didn’t deserve it. And I don’t ever want to give you a reason to leave.”
He opens the box. The ring catches the candlelight—a diamond flanked by emeralds, because Art Penngrove does nothing small—and the room gasps collectively.
My ears are ringing, and my cheeks are burning.
Art lowers to one knee.
“Genevieve DeGrance. Will you marry me?”
A hundred people hold their breath.
And over the top of Art’s head, my gaze is stuck on Lance.
He’s looking at me. Not at Art, not at the ring, not at the spectacle.
At me. And his face is…God, his face. It’s the training mat when he taught me to break a grip.
It’s the waterfall when he let my hand go at seven.
It’s the armchair last night when he sank inside me and moaned my name, and fell to pieces in my arms while I got glued together in his.
And I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t pretend anymore.
But then my father’s face flashes in my mind. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know if he’s safe. I don’t know how to get to him.
My chest caves in, and my mouth dries, and the word I know I’ll have to say sits on the back of my tongue like a sharp knife.
I look down at Art, and then back up to Lance.
The muscle in his jaw tics. His Adam’s apple bobs. And then he dips his chin.
One small nod. Almost imperceptible. The kind of movement only someone watching for it would catch.
The knight, sacrificing himself so the queen can stay on the board.
My eyes burn and I swallow against the pain of my heart feeling like it’s shattering into a thousand pieces.
I turn back to Art.
“Yes,” I say. My voice comes out steady, and I don’t know how, because inside I’m turning to dust. “Yes, of course.”
The room erupts. Applause, cheers, the clinking of glasses. Art slides the ring onto my finger, and it’s heavy and cold and one size too big. And then he’s kissing me, one hand cupping my face, the other on my waist, and the room cheers louder and someone pops a champagne cork.
His lips are on mine, and all I can think is that his mouth doesn’t taste right. It doesn’t feel right.
When Art pulls back, he’s beaming. He’s the happiest I’ve seen him in months. Maybe ever. And the realization guts me, because whatever else is going on, whatever games he’s playing with his father and Myrddin and the cages, this moment is real. He wanted this.
Somewhere, deep inside him, I believe maybe he wanted me. Even if it was manufactured.
And I just said yes to a man I don’t love anymore while the man I think I do watches from across the table.
Franklin is standing, clapping slowly, a satisfied smile on his face. He catches Art’s eye and raises his glass in a private toast. Mission accomplished. Optics controlled.
I’m numb.
Juliette is hugging me. “Oh my God, Ginny. Oh my God.” And I can’t tell if she’s happy or horrified, but she holds me tight, and I cling to her because she’s the only solid thing in the room.
Roman shakes Art’s hand, but his eyes find mine over Art’s shoulder, and there’s something careful in them. And I have this unnerving sense that he knows more than he’s letting on. That he sees right through me.
Merrick appears at my side.
“Congratulations,” he says, and his voice is warm, but his eyes flick to Lance’s chair.
It’s empty.
My heart drops through the floor.
I scan the room, frantic behind my smile, and catch the back of a black suit disappearing through the far doors. He looks measured, and controlled, hands in his pockets, like he’s taking an evening stroll.
Even now, even leaving, he won’t let anyone see the cracks.
Knights protect the queen.
Even when it kills them.
“Baby.” Art turns me toward him, his hands on my face, his thumb stroking my cheek. “You’ve made me the happiest man alive.”
I smile. I sparkle. I play the part.
“You’ve made me so happy,” I echo, and the ring catches the light between us, heavy as a shackle.