Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A nticipation was one of the most memorable things about a composition. The musician of any instrument could build the tension, creating an almost breathless connection between the notes and their listener. Like in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto, there was a weightless pause of anticipation before the notes swelled, and in that moment, the listener almost had no choice but to hold their breath.
But unlike the concerto, Caroline’s words were not the melodic, goosebump-inducing arpeggios that felt like a deep exhale. Instead, they were fingers that slammed onto the keys, tearing out a discordant sound that was more similar to a scream.
I mean, who would be disappointed with the Aaron Astor?
Aaron’s arms were a vise around me, chaining me still as the melody fell apart. It was like he hadn’t even heard Caroline out on the stage, as if he existed in a world that was solely him and me.
With Aaron, I’d always been a short fuse, quick to anger as it snapped like fire underneath my skin. This time, though, that fire was absent. I just felt cold.
I was right earlier. His words hadn’t been a white flag.
“When?” The word was low. Aaron’s silence stretched, and this time, I pressed my palms to his chest and shoved. Hard. He fell back from me easily, though, not putting up a fight. “ When ?”
Aaron seemed to understand. “I gave her the ring last night.”
The ugly rock that’d glittered on her finger. He’d given it to her twenty-four hours ago . “Before I found you?”
“After.”
My brain couldn’t catch up. “After,” I echoed, but the word sounded foreign, like I’d never heard it before in my life. The horror that had swamped his face last night—I felt it now in mine, spreading like ice cracking across a lake. I couldn’t tell who was speaking on the microphone now, if it was still Caroline or Mrs. Holland, but their words were nonsensical gibberish, a different language entirely.
Aaron ignored all of it, too, almost as if he stood in this dark corner of the stage alone.
“After,” I repeated, the back of my throat burning. “After I played for you. After we kissed ?”
His arms were tight to his sides, head down. When had Aaron and Caroline even gotten close enough to have that conversation in the first place? When had she even become an option to him? Had he sought her out, or the other way around?
“How could you do that after everything ?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You—you don’t like Caroline.” Her name felt wrong on my tongue, like it didn’t belong in this conversation. I blinked, trying to process whether this was real or some horrible dream I’d wake up from. Was this what shock felt like? The complete inability to make sense of your own reality?
“Not as much as I don’t like Fiona.” His hands curled into loose fists at his sides. “You were right. It would’ve been hell living my life having to pretend. But Caroline… knows everything.”
She knew everything—because I’d told her. “So do I.” My pulse picked up in my throat. “But apparently I’m not good enough?”
Aaron’s chest halted mid-inhale, the accusation hitting him like I’d shoved him. “Caroline… she can give me everything I need.” His voice was flat, like he’d already convinced himself this was the only way forward. Like he’d rehearsed this moment a hundred times. Gone was the awe from minutes ago when we’d played the piano together. It was as if we’d stepped into another timeline entirely. “I’ll get my inheritance, yes, but marrying into her family, inheriting their realty business—I have a chance at becoming something to mine, too.”
It was like the breath had been knocked out of me mid-sentence. I tried to inhale, but the air wouldn’t reach my lungs—it was stuck behind the lump forming in my throat. “I told you before. Your life is not nothing if you don’t have your family’s approval.” I could feel my features twist up, and now it wasn’t just my throat burning, but my eyes, too. “You can’t lose who you are just to appease someone else.”
His voice was a whisper. “You did.”
I couldn’t help it; I flinched.
Aaron finally lifted his eyes to mine, and they were almost empty, save for a hardness. “You threw your life away because you needed to ease the guilt of your mother’s sacrifices. You buried your dreams for something that was never really yours. It didn’t matter that you didn’t want the house. What you wanted didn’t matter. You—you don’t know how to not , do you?” His voice almost became feverish. “You don’t know how to be selfish. You give up pieces of yourself until there’s nothing left if it means other people will be happy.”
And there it was, the truth spilling from him as he unraveled. “That’s why,” I murmured dully, realizing. “That’s why you’re choosing Caroline. Because you think me marrying you means I’m giving up a piece of myself.”
Aaron’s jaw tensed, but he couldn’t deny it.
“You don’t get to make that decision for me.”
“Someone has to.” The words were torn from him. “You’ve spent the last five years tying yourself to a dream that wasn’t yours. I won’t let you do it again and tie yourself to mine. One of us should live a good life. A life they feel fulfilled in—a life they choose . A life that they love with someone they love, and if it’s not going to be me, then it needs to be you.”
The breath I released seemed to almost rattle in my ears. “And you’ve decided I’m not allowed to want that life with you?”
“You only think you like me, Lovisa.” Something in him cracked, shattering through him. The mask slipped, exposing the raw pain that sat behind it. The anger that’d been there, the fury—it’d all been directed at himself. I could see it now in the glassiness of his eyes, and could hear it in the tremble of his words. “Because I was the one who made you believe you were allowed to want your own dreams. Because I told you it was okay to jump. But it had nothing to do with me—I was nothing . You didn’t need my permission. I was just the person standing there when you remembered who you are.”
I almost could’ve laughed at the disparaging way he spoke about himself, as if his role in my life these past few weeks was minor, replaceable. As if he hadn’t singlehandedly changed the trajectory of my future by reminding me what happiness was like. Aaron had accused me time and time again of making myself smaller when here he was now, doing the same.
Aaron didn’t understand that he wasn’t the only one who’d learned to read me. He didn’t realize how transparent he was to me.
“You need someone who will build a future with you at the pace you want, not someone who will make you sacrifice parts of yourself to keep up with them. You don’t love me.” Aaron took a half step backward, away from me, as if he couldn’t stand to be close anymore. I could still see the grief in his eyes, though, raging like a storm. “You couldn’t love me. I’m not made for it.”
“No,” I said, shutting that stupid ideology down immediately. For the first time since the bomb had dropped, a burst of anger shot through me. “You just don’t want to choose it.”
“Do you know how we’re different?” Aaron’s voice splintered, just for a moment, and he looked away as if afraid I might see it in his expression. It was too late, though. “You’re brave, Lovisa. You burn, and it’s beautiful . You’ve jumped from your bridge. But I—I can’t. I may not want to get married, but I’m too much of a coward. Because… because I’m nothing if I’m not an Astor.”
His words sliced through me. The hard part was that I could see through him entirely. In his eyes, I could see how deep-rooted that false belief ran—it had burrowed into his soul and made a home there, feeding on every shred of hope until there was nothing left but duty and disappointment. If I hadn’t spent the last five years running down the wrong path, I might not have understood him as clearly as I did now.
I knew nothing about his family, but in that moment, I hated them all for making him feel that way. For raising him to believe love was transactional. Love was self-sacrificing, but not in the way he thought. He wasn’t giving up his dreams for the greater good—he was giving up himself, piece by piece, just to fit into a mold that someone else had shaped for him.
I could tell Aaron a million times over that it wasn’t true, that he was more than just his last name, but it would mean nothing. Just like how I’d held steadfast onto the idea of Mom’s dream house, there was no convincing Aaron that he was allowed to choose the path his heart longed for.
It made me incredibly, horribly sad.
“Aaron, dear?” Caroline called into the microphone in a sweet tone. Slicing into our moment as if she were cutting out someone’s heart. “Would you care to grace us with another performance?”
The audience called out to encourage him to come on, but Aaron didn’t move, didn’t even blink. He held perfectly motionless, save for the slight tremble of his shoulders as he breathed in through his nose. He fought to hide it, but the reaction slipped through.
“Thank you for everything, Lovisa,” he said softly, taking a step back. “I hope you forget about me. You deserve to remember what makes you feel alive—not someone who held you back.”
And with that, he turned away.
Aaron stepped out into the stage lights without a backward glance, leaving me in the shadows behind him as the applause swelled. I let out a sharp breath, one that ripped from my throat. My stomach turned as he picked up Caroline’s outstretched hand, and he drew her closer almost mechanically, as if acting on autopilot. The two of them stood amongst the flowers that’d been delivered last night, the ones meant for Aaron’s surprise.
Meant for this moment.
I stood there frozen, staring at them like if I looked long enough, this moment would undo itself. That he’d laugh, come back to me, and say it was all a joke. But he didn’t.
My world blurred as I forced myself to go down the stage’s ramp, the darkness from behind the stage ebbing at my vision. I’d walked away from Aaron before, but this time, it felt like I was leaving behind my cello bow and pretending I could still play Elgar’s Concerto without it. The heartbreak didn’t just settle in—it split me open, instant and raw.
I didn’t remember making it out to the hallway, away from the crowd, but my knees grew too weak to continue on. I slumped my shoulder against the wall, barely registering the ache upon impact.
Inside the music hall, the wave of music came to life.
It was Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto, the same one Aaron had played for Mrs. Holland’s party, and the same one he and I had played together. A simple piece to perform for the fundraiser’s crowd, but I knew why he’d chosen it. His words had been the opening notes.
This… this was the crescendo of his real message: goodbye.
The piece of his heart.
I closed my eyes, listening to the muted progression of the chords as they carried through the walls. Now, though, the once-romantic song carried a mournful quality that I hadn’t noticed before. It might’ve just been my imagination, but when Aaron got to the crescendo, it no longer felt like an anticipatory moment to hold my breath.
Instead, it felt like the moment just before pooling tears spilled over, tracing warm paths down my cheeks.
“I told you he wasn’t going to marry you.”
My eyes opened at the voice behind me, all the sadness that’d welled pressing pause .
“That people like him only show you what they want,” the voice continued, and a figure appeared in my peripheral, all glittering gold and light hair. “You should’ve listened to me.”
I turned to Caroline. I shouldn’t have been shocked by the smugness on her face. She didn’t even try to hide it. “When did you do it?” I asked, throat aching. “When did you poison him?”
“You make it sound so evil,” Caroline said with a roll of her eyes, bringing her champagne up, touching the rim to her cheek. “We ran into each other yesterday afternoon. I was stopping by Grant’s room, and knocked on the wrong door. Silly me.”
Yesterday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon . Before Aaron came out to sit in front of the gas fire, looking lost.
Rage built under my skin, trembling its way to the surface.
“I might’ve let it slip that I knew about his inheritance predicament.”
“So much for being a vault,” I all but spat.
“It was an accident.” She smiled, like even she knew she hadn’t bothered to lie well. “But I told him I’d be a much better bride than Fiona. He’d never have to worry about his secret coming out, since I already knew. But if he stayed with Fiona, then…” She trailed off with a shrug, tipping her flute up.
I watched her closely, mind whirring to find the hidden implication in her words. “Did you threaten to tell Fiona about his plan?”
“Again, why are you painting me to be the bad guy?” She wrinkled her nose. “You do that a lot, you know. I thought we were friends, Lovey.”
But in that moment, listening to her deflect yet again, I knew we’d never been friends. I’d known Caroline well. Knew how to read her moods, knew how to disarm her ticking timebombs. But this version of her? This wasn’t new. It had been there all along. I’d just kept looking past it. She’d always had a cruel streak in her, but it’d always seemed so harmless. Normal, given the atmosphere of Alderton-Du Ponte. But I never thought she’d end up like this.
If we were friends, the second I told her that I liked Aaron, she would’ve backed off. She would’ve told me up front that her brother had been cheating on me, rather than letting me drop hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket to find out for myself. All along, I’d been the one supporting her, encouraging her, when she only threw me scraps.
She hadn’t even called me on the anniversary of my mother’s death.
“I thought he didn’t give you the ring until last night ,” I said. “Not yesterday afternoon.”
“He said he needed time to decide. Imagine my surprise—I didn’t realize he’d make up his mind so fast!”
I could hear my heart beat steadily in my ears, which was strange, since I felt on the verge of snapping.
“Fiona didn’t deserve a guy like him, anyway,” Caroline went on, not realizing that my eyes had begun to fill with something dark. “No, he needed someone who understood him.”
“Someone other than me?”
“I know they call you the Princess of Alderton-Du Ponte, but you know you’re not actually royalty, right?” Caroline glanced around, as if searching for someone to laugh with. “You with someone like Aaron Astor? This isn’t a fairytale, Lovey. You don’t get to end up with the prince.”
“Right,” I muttered with a sarcastic nod. “Because a fraud like me never gets the prince.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Now you get it, huh?”
Even though my legs still didn’t feel sturdy, I straightened from the wall, hating that I had to tilt my head back so far to look her in the eye. “You only wanted Aaron because Fiona wanted him. When did I become the threat that you would throw away our friendship over?”
At first, I thought she’d blow off the question again, to deny that she would’ve seen someone like me as a threat. “I saw you at the piano.” Her expression drained of all smugness, gaze going flat. “The night after my mother’s party. I came by the ballroom to meet you after your shift, like we planned , and I saw you. Your hands on top of his. Your shoulders brushing. And then you lied about it. I realized then—you weren’t who I thought you were.”
Mom needed me for something, and I figured you’d want to go home and sleep after a long day.
Did you? Go straight home? It’d been a test.
“Aaron wouldn’t have been happy with you long term. And, c’mon, Lovey. You wouldn’t have been happy with him, either. You two bickered non-stop. So unhealthy.” Caroline reached out and laid her hand on my shoulder, fingers a delicate touch, as if the conversation wasn’t as heavy as it was. “Best to stop it now. But don’t worry. I’ll send you a wedding invite.”
Her fingers didn’t feel delicate anymore. They felt like victory. Like a checkmate.
I couldn’t shove her off. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t upend her champagne flute onto her perfect gown. At Alderton-Du Ponte, she was the real princess. And I was nothing but a fraud.
She brushed past me, back to the music hall door. She opened it just as Aaron played the final note in the piece—had he drawn out Rachmaninoff’s concerto that long, or had he played another composition?—and the applause spilled out into the hall. Caroline looked back at me once more, flashing a glittering smile. Checkmate .