Chapter 15
PORTIA
A week passed.
Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes.
Not that I was counting.
Not that I noticed.
Not that I cared.
Because I didn’t.
I didn’t.
While Silas disappeared into whatever shadows he came from, I buried myself in the one thing I could still control: the weddings.
In the last seven days, I’d fit Hallie Mae into her custom gown—lace over crepe, a low back to show off her strength, delicate embroidery that made even her mother cry.
I’d selected floral palettes for Anna and Isabel—Anna wanted winter whites with dusky blue thistle, Isabel leaned toward wild jasmine and honey-colored roses.
Vivienne’s cake tasting was a disaster turned triumph after we convinced the French pastry chef to add a bourbon glaze.
Claire’s candlelit ceremony plans now included a string quartet flown in from New York.
And Sloane? Sloane just wanted it all—gold accents, rose petals down the aisle, and her grandmother’s ring sewn into the hem of her dress.
I delivered.
Every client got what they wanted. Every timeline tightened. Every vision polished until it gleamed.
Monte was with me for most of it. Tall and calm, always a step behind, always a step ahead.
He walked the perimeter during dress fittings, taste-tested ganache like it was a classified mission, and held the umbrellas when we got caught in Charleston’s moody rains.
He was there when Bea couldn’t be, and even when she was.
Bea teased me about it, of course.
“You two,” she said on Tuesday night, after a 14-hour day and half a bottle of pinot, “are like a very chic, emotionally repressed married couple. You do realize that, right?”
I ignored her. Mostly because I couldn’t argue.
Monte stayed late. Monte made things easier. Monte didn’t ask questions I didn’t want to answer. But he looked, sometimes, like he wanted to.
Still, I didn’t let myself drift.
I stayed focused. Professional.
And if my phone was a little too close on my nightstand each morning—if I kept checking it without meaning to—if I jumped every time an unknown number appeared on screen—well. That wasn’t anyone’s business.
Silas Dane hadn’t called.
Hadn’t texted.
Hadn’t sent so much as a smirking emoji.
Maybe he’d gone back to whatever op he’d been pulled from. Or maybe he was just done. Finished with the game we’d started and too smart to keep playing.
I told myself that was fine. That I liked it better this way. No strings. No mess. No time bombs waiting to detonate beneath my skin.
And then, Friday night happened.
I was alone at The Palmetto Rose.
The rest of the building was quiet—Bea had gone out to explore the city, Monte had insisted on getting a few reps in at the weight room.
Even the cleaning crew had already slipped out.
I sat in a private lounge, bare feet tucked beneath me on a velvet settee, surrounded by swatches and ceremony scripts, timelines for the next three weeks laid out like a general’s war map.
I had half a dozen playlists open on my laptop, trying to find the perfect piece of music for one of the processions.
It had to be emotional but not maudlin. Cinematic, but warm.
A song that said I see you .
A song that said even in this broken world, I choose you .
And then one of them started to play.
Just a soft piano at first—slow, aching notes that spilled into silence. Then strings, delicate and slow. Then a voice.
Male. Low. Rich with grief and promise.
The lyrics weren’t complex. But they didn’t need to be.
If you fall, I fall, too
If you burn, I’ll burn with you
Say the word, and I will come
There’s no heaven I won’t run from
My throat tightened.
Because suddenly, it wasn’t a wedding song.
It was him.
It was the press of Silas’s body against mine, the rough heat of his hands on my waist. It was the way he looked at me in that guest suite like he didn’t care about rules or logic or timing. Like he saw every part of me—every sharp angle and every bruised shadow—and wanted it, anyway.
And now he was gone.
No explanation. No apology.
Just silence.
I blinked hard, trying to focus on the screen, but the words blurred. The music kept playing.
Don’t ask me to stay away
Don’t tell me it’s not the day
I’ve waited lifetimes to find this fight
And I’m not walking away tonight
Something in me cracked.
Not a sob. Not a wail.
Just this quiet, shattering sound in the middle of my chest. A breath caught in my throat and refused to leave.
My hands clenched around the edge of the tablet, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, I wanted to cry.
Because I’d made a career out of other people’s love stories.
Out of vows and veils and fairytale endings.
But in that moment, I felt like the girl who never got picked.
Who planned the parties but never got invited to the dance.
Who could orchestrate a hundred declarations of love, but couldn’t ask one man to stay.
And worse—didn’t even know if he wanted to.
I stood too fast, the tablet sliding from my lap, music still playing as it hit the floor.
I walked to the window, pressed my palm to the glass. Outside, the street was nearly empty. The city breathing slow and quiet beneath a blanket of dusk. The kind of hour meant for reflection, or regret.
And maybe that’s what this was.
Maybe I was finally starting to feel the cost of a life lived on my own terms.
I had power. Control. A business people envied.
But I didn’t have him. And I didn’t know if I ever would.
“Portia?”
The voice was low. Careful.
I didn’t turn around.
The glass was cool beneath my palm, but not cool enough to stop the burn in my chest. Not enough to erase the ache building behind my eyes. The song had ended, silence swallowing its final note like it had never existed, but the echo of it still pulsed through me like phantom pain.
Footsteps. Soft across the hardwood floor.
I didn’t need to look to know it was him.
Monte.
Of course, it was Monte.
He was always the one who came when I unraveled. Always the one who found the thread and followed it, even when I swore there wasn’t one to find.
“Hey,” he said gently. “What happened?”
I laughed, brittle and sharp. “I cried.”
A pause.
“Okay,” he said. Like it didn’t scare him. Like it wasn’t a bomb going off in the middle of my professional cathedral.
I finally turned to look at him.
His eyes were steady, dark with worry but not pity. That was the difference with Monte—he never made me feel weak for breaking. He just stood there, a steady pillar in the middle of the collapse.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said.
He tilted his head. “You mean you didn’t want to. There’s a difference.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it again.
There were tears on my cheek. I hadn’t even realized they’d spilled.
Monte stepped forward. No sudden movements. No swooping gestures. Just quiet gravity, pulling me into his orbit. He reached up, brushed his thumb across my cheekbone, slow and soft. Like I was something worth saving.
“I’m fine,” I whispered.
“Sure, you are.”
Another tear fell. And then another.
It wasn’t a storm. It wasn’t a flood. It was quieter than that—grief on tiptoe. The kind of ache that didn’t scream. The kind that whispered, You were supposed to be enough .
“I don’t do this,” I said, my voice breaking. “I don’t cry over men. I don’t wait for them. I don’t?—”
“You don’t let yourself want them,” Monte finished, his voice barely audible. “Not really.”
I looked away.
He sighed, stepping closer until there was barely a breath between us. “You gave him something. That’s not weakness. That’s brave.”
I shook my head. “It was a mistake.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But it was yours to make. And if it left a mark …” He reached out, tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “That just means it mattered.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.
“Portia,” he said, softer now. “You’re allowed to want more than perfect weddings and smooth timelines. You’re allowed to want something messy. Something real.”
My lip trembled.
And that was when I broke.
Just for a second.
One breath. One sob. One collapse into his arms.
Monte held me like I was fragile and fierce all at once. Like he knew I could burn a city down but still needed shelter when the smoke cleared. His hands stayed steady—one at my back, one at the nape of my neck—and he didn’t say a word.
Because Monte understood silence, too.
We stood like that for what felt like hours, the weight of the week—of all the weeks—pressed between us. Not romantic. Not for me. Not yet. Just ... real.
Eventually, I pulled back.
I wiped my eyes, smoothed my dress, gathered the shards of myself like broken china.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be.”
“I just—I thought maybe he was different.”
“I know.”
“But he disappeared.”
Monte looked down at me, jaw tight. “Then he didn’t deserve you.”
I wanted to believe that. But part of me still ached. Still hoped. Still wondered what would’ve happened if Silas had just ... stayed.
I stared at Monte, and for a moment—a terrible, weak moment—I thought, Maybe this is it .
Maybe this is what I was supposed to want.
The man who stayed.
The man who never disappeared into shadows.
The man who didn’t make me ache or second-guess or unravel.
He was here. Always had been. Calm and capable, devoted in a way that felt like permanence. The kind of man you built a life with. The kind of man who didn’t ignite fires but laid foundations.
And wasn’t that the dream?
Wasn’t that what smart women chose?
Someone safe.
My hand trembled at my side. I stared at it, then looked up at him. He was so close. His eyes warm. Steady.
I could see it, just for a second—the version of my life where I chose him. Where I let the quiet goodness win. Where I stopped chasing lightning and let the storm pass me by.
I leaned forward.
His breath caught.
And I kissed him.
It was soft at first. Gentle. Like I was asking a question I didn’t know how to phrase. His big, strong hands moved to my waist, his mouth moving with mine, slow and sure and careful.
But that was just it.
It was careful.
It didn’t scorch. It didn’t sink teeth into my spine or curl my toes or make me want to ruin everything I’d built just to taste more.
It was warm. Comforting.
And completely, utterly wrong.
There was no wildfire. No chaos. No wreckage.
Just a friend. Kissing me like he’d been waiting for years. Like this moment had been scripted in the quiet corners of his mind.
But it wasn’t in mine.
I pulled back.
And I saw it—just a flicker—in his eyes.
The hope. And then the shatter.
I stepped away too quickly. My hands fluttered uselessly near my hips, like I didn’t know where to put them. Like I didn’t know where I belonged anymore.
“Monte,” I whispered.
He didn’t say anything. Not at first.
He just looked at me. And this time, there was no warmth. Just understanding. And pain.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, this time meaning something so much worse.
He nodded once. A slow, deliberate motion.
“I know,” he said quietly. “It’s not me.”
That cracked something in me all over again. Because he deserved to be someone’s fire. Someone’s storm. Not this—this shadow of a maybe.
I shook my head. “It’s not that you’re not enough. You’re—God, Monte, you’re everything.”
“But not for you,” he said, finishing the sentence for me.
And I couldn’t argue.
Because I’d kissed him hoping to feel something. And all I felt was guilt.
He straightened his shoulders like a soldier accepting orders. His face shuttered. Not angry. Not cruel. Just—closed.
“I should go,” he said.
“Monte—”
He turned away.
And just like that, I watched the safest man I’d ever known walk out of the room I’d broken in.
I stood there alone, breath shallow, chest tight.
Because kissing Monte should have worked. Choosing him should have fixed everything.
But all it did was remind me who I wanted to kiss instead.
Who set me on fire.
And who hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye.