Chapter 1 #3
Felicity followed her gaze and nodded with grave appreciation. “Extraordinary centerpiece.”
I folded my arms and looked between them. “Spill it.”
Felicity sighed, her expression softening as she looked at me.
“I just hope you’re right. You and Cassian make each other happy.
It was obvious from day one.” She hesitated, her eyes lingering on my face.
“But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you actually smile, Sia.
And all I keep thinking is that he should have noticed too.
He should know when you’re unhappy, no matter how busy work gets. ”
I opened my mouth, searching for a defense I could give her.
Nothing came.
She wasn’t wrong.
I looked away, letting my gaze wander across the room while her words sank deeper than I wanted them to.
I knew Cassian’s work had consumed him. I knew how demanding his days could become, how easily one problem turned into three and how quickly the hours disappeared when he was caught in the middle of it.
I had spent countless nights making excuses for the late hours because I understood the pressure he was under.
That was never the part I questioned.
What stayed with me was everything around it.
The missed calls.
The empty chair beside me.
The nights I’d gone to bed alone while telling myself he would make it up to me tomorrow.
Felicity hadn’t asked whether he meant to hurt me.
She had asked whether he had noticed.
And I didn’t have an answer.
I turned back to her and forced a small smile. “Like I said, everything’s going to change tomorrow.”
Felicity watched me for another beat, clearly unconvinced, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me.
“If it doesn’t, let me know.” She gave me a squeeze before adding, “I know a guy who can beat some sense into him.”
A laugh slipped out of me, the first genuine one I’d managed all evening. “No, you don’t.”
“Fine.” She pulled away, smoothing down her dress with a deeply offended expression. “Naija knows a guy.”
“I’ll look into it,” Naija replied, still scrolling through her phone.
I laughed again.
Felicity looked pleased with herself, clearly satisfied that she’d managed to pull me out of my head, even briefly. “Now that we’ve established our backup strategy, I’m going to go try every expensive dish you’ve spent a fortune putting out.”
I smiled. “Go nuts.”
“With pleasure.”
She was gone in seconds.
Naija glanced up from her phone, already slipping back into work mode.
I straightened up. “I’ll take the right side of the room. You take the left.”
“Got it.” She was already moving.
I turned to leave, then stopped. “Naija, what’s that guy’s name?” I pointed at ChBrad.
She followed my gaze toward him, checked him over with a quick glance, then looked back at me. “Thad.”
I stared at her. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
I looked at the man again, then back at her, genuinely offended on his behalf. “What kind of parents name their kid Thad?”
Naija had already started walking away, completely unfazed by my crisis. “The kind named Chad and Brad.”
For the next few hours, I played the perfect host.
I smiled until the muscles along my cheeks burned. Topped off glasses before anyone had to ask. Moved from one conversation to the next with Cassian’s name tucked neatly between compliments and business prospects, slipping Velaré Hotels into the right ears whenever an opening appeared.
All the while, a small, persistent worry kept twisting beneath my ribs.
I hope he’s okay.
It was strange how quickly my mind went to him now. Not long ago, Cassian had been a stranger whose name meant nothing to me. Now, I could be surrounded by a hundred people and still find myself wondering whether he’d eaten, whether he was still working, whether he’d remembered to take a break.
And to think, if one stupid mistake hadn’t put Cassian in my path, I might never have met him at all.
Liam was supposed to be my date that day, courtesy of the arranged marriage setup my mother had organized. Except Liam, being Liam, had misplaced the date and was out of the city when it arrived.
So he sent Cassian.
Cassian came looking for me because Liam had left him with one simple task: find me, explain his absence, apologize for the inconvenience, and leave.
That was the plan, anyway.
Instead, he stayed.
And we talked.
One question turned into another, and somehow, the conversation kept finding somewhere new to go. When a server came by to clear our plates and asked whether we wanted anything else, I glanced at the clock and froze.
Three hours.
I stared at the time, genuinely startled. I had spent an entire afternoon with a man I had met by accident, and somewhere between one story and the next, the afternoon had disappeared.
The details were already beginning to blur. I couldn’t have listed half the things we had talked about if someone had asked me. The conversation itself was fading, leaving behind fragments of what it had felt like to sit across from him.
The laughter stayed with me.
So did the strange lightness in my chest, the ease of smiling without thinking about it, and the anticipation that stirred every time Cassian opened his mouth. I had spent three hours talking to him and somehow wanted another three.
One wrong date had given me the right person.
Back then, Cassian and Liam had barely begun building Velaré Hotels. They had a single struggling property, a mountain of ambition, and two relentless men determined to make it work.
That little hotel became the foundation of an empire.
The company grew faster than anyone expected because Cassian and Liam refused to let setbacks stop them. They worked harder, took bigger risks, and kept pushing until Velaré Hotels became the name it was today.
We got married a few months after we started dating.
Two years passed in the warm, ordinary happiness I’d once thought belonged to other people. There was comfort in knowing whose footsteps I’d hear in the hallway each morning, whose coffee would be waiting beside mine, whose hand would reach for mine whenever we passed each other in the kitchen.
Our marriage had its complications, of course. His mother sat firmly at the top of that list.
She had made her feelings about me clear from the beginning. Every smile came with a little too much sweetness. Every compliment carried a second meaning. She had a talent for turning perfectly harmless moments into small humiliations.
I never cared for her either, so there was very little heartbreak involved in knowing she disliked me.
Her opinion had never been enough to make me doubt what Cassian and I had. Whatever she thought of me, I knew what existed between her son and me. I had seen it in the way he loved me, even if he had never been able to put that love into words.
Cassian had never said “I love you.” Some people simply struggled with words like that. Cassian had always been better at showing me what he felt than putting it into words.
His actions had always spoken for him. The way he showed up for me, the choices he made for us, the effort he put into our life together. I had never needed a grand declaration to understand what he felt.
Maybe that was why his silence these past few months scared me more than the missing words ever had.
Because I knew what his love looked like.
And lately, I hadn’t been seeing it.
Still, I knew my husband.
Velaré was swallowing him whole. Once the crisis passed, once the company found its footing again, he would come back to me.
He had to.
By the time the last guest finally left, my feet felt bruised from the inside out.
My cheeks ached from holding the same polished smile for hours, and a pulse had started beating behind my eyes.
The champagne had nothing to do with the headache.
It was every variation of the same question, asked with increasingly curious smiles and increasingly sympathetic eyes.
“Where is the man of the hour?”
I had heard it all evening, usually followed by a glance toward the entrance, their eyes searching the doorway with the expectation that Cassian might finally appear.
Each time, I had lifted my glass, smiled brightly, and given them the same answer.
“Oh, he’s swamped with a work emergency.”
A few sympathetic smiles followed. Some people nodded, accepting the explanation without pressing further. Others looked at me with the careful pity reserved for a wife whose husband had chosen a work crisis over her.
I praised his work ethic, mentioned the company by name, told them, now, with a lowered glance that feigned confidentiality, how much was riding on him tonight, how the whole project leaned on his steady hand, how Velaré Hotels had staked its next quarter on his judgment alone.
Cassian had become the relentless, tireless businessman who had sacrificed his own birthday for his empire.
That was the version everyone went home with.
I waited until the final car disappeared beyond the gates before letting my smile fall.