FORTY-FIVE
CALLUM
The lipstick smudge on the glass is still fresh. Barely-there pink. The ghost of her presence in waxy pigment. Of her gone. Of her walking out like a breaking down in slow-motion.
Grace’s smile is gracious but practiced; her voice light enough to float. “We’re really looking forward to settling in.”
Her gaze drops to the glass in my hand and lingers for exactly one heartbeat too long. It’s a small thing, a flicker of recognition. Because she knows. You don’t marry someone without learning the names that matter.
Leith’s voice is smooth. Polite. “Thank you for coming. Best of luck in your new roles.”
Leith walks away from Grace and Alec and lifts the flute still in his hand, downing it. His fingers flex at his sides like he’s rehearsing not throwing punches. I follow.
“Go after her, Han,” he says.
“She won’t want company.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Leith doesn’t look at me. He’s watching the ballroom as if it’s something he built and now has to burn down. “Just don’t let her go home thinking she has to survive this by herself.”
He pulls out his phone, thumbs something out fast. “You know where she’d go?”
“Her place. Or the beach. She’d have taken a cab.” His phone buzzes. He checks it, then pockets it. “Take my car. Driver’s out front.”
I hesitate. “You going to be alright?”
Leith lets out a short, bitter breath that might be a laugh in another universe. “Please. I’m not about to rearrange Alec’s face at my dead girlfriend’s charity gala.”
A beat.
Then he adds, dry and dark: “But it’s taking everything I’ve got not to see if his nose still breaks the same way.”
She’s not at home.
So, I try the beach.
Sure enough, there she is—sitting in the sand, heels abandoned in the dunes, gown pooling around her like spilled midnight ink. The waves crash softly, the moonlight casting her in silver.
I shrug off my jacket and settle it over her shoulders.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t thank me. Just keeps her gaze fixed on the dark seam where sea meets sky.
I lower myself onto the sand beside her. Our knees brush.
She doesn’t move away. Doesn’t say anything.
And I don’t insult her by pretending this is the kind of pain you can talk your way out of.
So, I wait.
Minutes pass. The ocean fills the space between us.
Finally, her voice: soft, almost lost in the wind. “Leith sent you.”
“He’s worried,” I answer. “I’m worried.”
She blows a tired breath. “You drew the short straw, then?”
“For what?”
“For picking up the pieces.”
“You’re not pieces, Jordie. You’re still whole.”
The words fill the space with the pull of an incoming tide. Her shoulders lift, then sag—finally too tired to keep pretending.
“It’s strange. Seeing someone after years, and they’re exactly the same. Except everything else is different.” She hesitates, fingers absently rolling a bead between her thumb and forefinger. Then, quieter: “The green lingerie’s still in my closet.”
The words don’t make sense, but I don’t ask her to explain. I just watch her chest rise and fall in an uneven rhythm.
“I bought it the day Alec left. I felt good. Hopeful. Pain-free. Blood-free. For the first time in so long, I thought maybe I could be me again. I wanted to surprise him. And instead . . .”
She shakes her head, her laugh brittle, unable to finish the sentence.
“I let Alec go. Because some part of me thought maybe he was right. That maybe I was too much.”
“You weren’t too much,” I say quietly. “He wasn’t enough.”
“It’s such an irony. I wasn’t enough and too much all at the same time. Too much baggage. Too much pain. Too many doctor's appointments. And yet not enough—” She swallows hard. “Not enough future. Not enough freedom. Not enough certainty of every having kids.”
She draws her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them.
“Alec and I failed two rounds of IVF.” Her voice wavers.
“After he left, I did another round. Myself. Drained my bank account. Cried in clinic bathrooms. Injected myself with hormones. Only to confirm what I already knew.” Her gaze drops, voice thinner now.
“That even the hard way wouldn’t be easy. ”
My stomach knots—grief, rage, something hideously helpless. Not just for what she lost. But for how she kept going, long after he didn’t.
And now here, I’m watching her curl into herself on the sand like she’s trying to take up less space in a world that’s already taken too much from her.
I want to say something. Anything. My mouth moves and—
“Don’t,” she says. Not harsh. Just tired. “Don’t try to fix it, Callum. You can’t.”
Even now—cracked open—she doesn’t ask for help. And somehow, that makes me want to be the one person she doesn’t have to be strong around.
“Okay.” A pause. “Tell me what you need. What do you want?”
She actually smiles. Faint. Worn thin. But real. “I want out of this gown. Off with this makeup. And I . . . just want to forget tonight.”
I rise, brushing sand from my slacks, and offer her my hand. “Then let’s do that.”
She hesitates. Then slips her fingers into mine. Firm, despite everything.
I help her to her feet.
And together, we leave the beach behind.
Her room is softly lit, the amber glow of the bedside lamp casting warmth across every surface. Jordie stands with her back to me, my fingers finding the zipper at her back.
“If I wasn’t here,” I murmur, voice teasing, “who would’ve had the honor of doing this?”
“My hanger.” She glances over her shoulder, lips quirking. “And if that failed—trauma scissors.”
A laugh escapes me, surprising even myself. The thought of Jordie, all determination and zero patience, hacking through a gown is so perfectly her.
I ease the zipper down. The sound is sharp in the quiet, the dress slackening as it slides along her ribs. She clutches it to her chest as she retreats toward the en suite.
I shift, hands slipping into my pockets. “Jords, if you want space, I can leave and—”
“No.”
She turns to face me, eyes locking onto mine with the kind of raw honesty that hurts.
“Don’t leave,” she says softly, “I don’t want to be alone.”
A pause. A breath.
“Stay. Please.”
I shower in her downstairs bathroom—same scentless soap, same uneven towel hook that’s been loose since I first came here, same pair of sweatpants I left here once, folded neatly on the vanity like she always expected I might need them again.
By the time I return, she’s emerging from the en suite in one of those oversized shirts she sleeps in. She doesn’t say anything. Just climbs into bed, grabs the remote, and clicks to a movie we’ve watched before.
We lay side by side. Barely touching. But close enough that her knee brushes mine under the covers. Her head tips toward my shoulder until she falls asleep mid-movie. Curled against me. One hand resting lightly on my ribs, like her body forgot she was supposed to keep her distance.
I don’t move. Don’t breathe too loudly. Just keep my eyes on the TV screensaver—sunrises in Iceland, sailboats on glassy water, a looping slideshow of someone else’s idea of peace.
But all I can think about is her.
How much she’s carried. How hard she works to seem okay. How easily she breaks my heart just by trusting me with this—this version of her that doesn’t have to be strong or funny or in control.
And the thing is, I don’t know what comes next.
But I stay. Because for tonight, this is enough.
And if it’s not?
I’ll still choose her tomorrow.