22. Rae
RAE
Nash's hand found mine under the table.
I glanced over at him, and he squeezed my fingers once, his thumb brushing across the ring I'd put on myself nine months ago in the house in Cibolo Heights.
The ballroom was loud around us, all the same chandeliers and white tablecloths I remembered from a year ago, but this time I was sitting next to him instead of standing alone while he worked the room.
This time I knew where I belonged, and it wasn't off to the side waiting for him to remember I existed.
The emcee announced the next award from the podium, something about innovation in regional aviation, and my chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with the fact that Nash had given the airline away.
He'd handed it to Elias and walked away from the empire he'd spent seven years building, and he'd done it because I'd asked him to choose.
He'd chosen me.
Elias stood from his table near the front, adjusting his jacket as he moved toward the stage.
He looked like Nash from behind, same build, same dark hair, though Elias carried himself differently — looser, less like every step had been calculated three moves ahead.
I watched him navigate through the tables, shaking hands with people who called out congratulations, and my throat went tight with something that felt like pride mixed with relief.
This was right. Letting go had been right.
Nash leaned close, his breath warm against my ear. "He's going to be fine."
"I know." I did know. Elias was good at this, better than Nash gave him credit for. But watching him walk up there still felt strange, like we'd stepped sideways into a version of our lives where the thing Nash had built no longer belonged to him.
Except it was right.
The emcee handed Elias the award, all crystal and chrome catching the light the same way it had when Nash accepted it a year ago.
Elias shook his hand and turned to the microphone, his smile easy and genuine in a way Nash's public smiles had never quite been.
He looked comfortable up there, like he belonged, and maybe that was the whole point — Elias belonged in a way Nash never had, because Elias actually wanted this life.
"Thank you," Elias said, his voice carrying across the ballroom. "This honor belongs to everyone who's worked to build McCallister Aviation into what it is today. Our crew, our maintenance teams, our operations staff — you're the reason we're here."
The applause was polite, professional. I watched faces around the room, people nodding along, and tried not to remember what it had felt like to sit here a year ago and listen to Nash say similar words while nobody mentioned my name.
Elias paused, glancing down at the award in his hands, and then looked back up at the crowd.
His expression shifted, became more serious.
"But I want to take a minute to acknowledge where we started.
This airline began with one airplane. A 1972 Cessna 172 that had been sitting in a hangar in Cibolo Heights for God knows how long, rusted out and forgotten. "
My pulse kicked up. I knew that plane. I'd bled on that plane, sworn at it, fallen in love with it piece by stubborn piece.
Elias smiled, and it reached his eyes. "And it was rebuilt — every wire, every panel, every system — by the woman who made sure that plane could actually fly. Rae Gonzales."
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
Around us, people turned to look, and I felt Nash's hand tighten on mine, steadying.
Heat crawled up my neck, flushing all the way to my hairline, because I hadn't expected this, hadn't known Elias was going to say my name from a stage in front of hundreds of people who'd spent years thinking Nash had done it all himself.
I wanted to disappear. I wanted to stand up and take a bow. I wanted to cry like an idiot in the middle of a gala because someone had finally said it out loud where everyone could hear.
"Rae rebuilt that Cessna with her own hands," Elias continued, his voice clear and deliberate.
"While my brother chased down investors and handled FAA certifications, she was in that hangar stripping corrosion and rewiring electrical systems. She earned her A&P licence working on that plane.
She made it airworthy. And everything we've built since then started because she did. "
The applause that followed felt like something breaking open inside my chest, something I hadn't known I'd been holding onto until it cracked and let go.
People were clapping for me, for work I'd done seven years ago that nobody had acknowledged, and I didn't know whether to cry or laugh or just sit there and let it wash over me like I deserved it.
God, maybe I did deserve it.
Nash was watching me, his expression soft in a way that made my throat go tight. He wasn't looking at the stage or at Elias or at the award. He was looking at me like I was the only person in the room, and his eyes were bright with something I couldn't name but felt down to my bones.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. My eyes were burning and I absolutely was not going to cry at a gala in front of three hundred people, but it was a close thing.
Elias finished his speech with something about the future of regional aviation and partnerships and growth, words I only half-heard through the ringing in my ears.
Then he was walking back toward his table with the award in hand, and the emcee was introducing the next presenter, and the moment was over.
Except it wasn't over. Not really. Because now everyone in this room knew who I was and what I'd done, and that changed something fundamental about being here.
I wasn't Nash McCallister's wife anymore, wasn't even his fiancée in the eyes of people who didn't know the whole story.
I was Rae Gonzales, the woman who'd rebuilt the first plane, and that was enough all by itself.
I saw her before she saw me.
Adriana was standing near the bar in a dress the color of rubies, her dark hair swept up in a style that probably took an hour to achieve and looked effortless anyway.
She wasn't alone — there was a man beside her, older, maybe fifty, in a navy suit I didn't recognize.
He had his hand on her lower back in a way that said she was with him, attached, brought along.
She didn't have a table. She didn't have a seat with her name on it. She was here as someone's date, someone's companion, because she didn't have a place of her own anymore.
Nash had fired her. He'd ended her contract, stripped her stake, and made sure the industry knew exactly why.
She'd tried to dismantle me, and he'd dismantled her instead, and now she was standing at the edge of a ballroom she used to own, holding a glass of champagne and pretending she still belonged.
I should have felt vindicated. Maybe I did, a little. But mostly I just felt tired, like carrying around anger at Adriana Moreau had taken up too much space in my chest for too long and I was ready to be done with it.
She turned, scanning the room, and her eyes landed on me.
For a second neither of us moved. She held my gaze across thirty feet of polished floor and expensive suits, and I watched her face do something complicated — surprise, maybe, or recognition, or just the simple acknowledgment that we were both here and couldn't pretend we weren't.
Then she said something to the man beside her and started walking toward our table, her heels clicking against the floor, her expression smooth and unreadable.
Ugh. Of course she was coming over. Of course she couldn't just stay on her side of the room and let the past stay dead.
Nash noticed where I was looking and tensed beside me, his jaw going tight. "You want me to?—"
"No." I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew I didn't want him to fight this for me. Not this time.
His hand squeezed mine once more, and then he let go, giving me space to handle this however I needed to.
Adriana stopped in front of our table, her smile perfectly pleasant. "Rae," she said warmly, like we hadn't seen each other since she'd tried to destroy my marriage. "It's been a while."
"It has." I kept my voice even, polite. Bored, maybe.
Her eyes flicked down to the ring on my left hand, and something shifted in her expression — quick, almost imperceptible, but I caught it. She hadn't expected that.
She didn't know we'd rebuilt ourselves the same way I'd rebuilt that Cessna, piece by stubborn piece.
"You look lovely tonight, Rae, though I'm surprised you chose something so sweet when all the other wives went bold," she said, her voice smooth as silk.
The line landed flat.
A year ago those exact words had gutted me, made me feel small and plain and out of place. Now they just hung there between us, weightless, because everyone in this ballroom had just heard Elias say my name from the stage. Everyone knew who I was and what I'd built.
Adriana calling my dress sweet didn't have any power left in it. It was like watching someone throw a punch in slow motion, all windup and no impact.
I didn't flush. I didn't look away. I didn't reach for the bare spot on my left hand where the ring used to be missing, because the ring wasn't missing anymore. I just met her eyes and said, "Thank you."
She blinked, thrown, and her smile tightened at the edges.
She recovered quickly, tilting her head in that way she had, like she was about to say something generous and kind.
"I heard Elias mention the plane you worked on.
That's wonderful, truly. It must be so satisfying to see how far things have come.
" She glanced at Nash, including him in the conversation, her tone bright.
"To start with one plane and build it into an airline, and bring your wife along for the ride — that's the American dream right there. "
I almost laughed.
She'd just used the exact same erasure that had been thrown at me a year ago, the one that had made me feel invisible while Nash stood beside me and let it stand.
Except this time she was saying it minutes after the stage had named me as the woman who rebuilt that plane, after Elias had told the whole room that I'd stripped corrosion and rewired systems and made the thing airworthy.
It was absurd. Transparently, pathetically absurd.
Nash moved before I did.
He stood, his chair scraping back, and stepped toward Adriana with his shoulders set and his voice low and controlled. "Adriana, I think you should?—"
"Nash." I touched his arm, stopping him mid-sentence.
He looked down at me, his eyes sharp and ready to finish this, to defend me the way he hadn't a year ago when it mattered.
And God, I loved him for it. I loved that he'd learned, that he saw what was happening and wasn't going to let it slide, wasn't going to stand there with his phone in his hand while someone erased me from the story.
But I didn't need him to.
I stood, keeping my hand on his arm for just a second before I let go and turned to face Adriana myself.
She was watching me with that same smooth smile, waiting, probably expecting me to shrink back or let Nash handle it or just stand there and take it the way I had the last time.
The woman she remembered wouldn't have fought back.
That woman had stayed quiet at a gala and held it together in a bathroom and asked to go home without ever saying why.
I wasn't that woman anymore.
"Adriana," I said quietly, and my voice didn't shake.
"You just heard Elias tell this entire room that I rebuilt that plane.
Every wire, every panel, every system. You heard him say I made it airworthy while Nash handled the business side.
So I'm not sure why you're standing here trying to rewrite history, unless you genuinely didn't notice what just happened on that stage. "
Her smile faltered.
I kept going, not cruel, just clear. "I didn't come along for the ride. I built the ride. And I think you know that, because you spent two years watching me do the work. You were there."
Adriana's mouth opened, then closed. The smooth mask she wore cracked just enough for me to see the anger underneath, the humiliation of being called out in front of Nash, in front of anyone who might be listening.
"I wasn't trying to—" she started, but her voice had gone thin, uncertain, and she couldn't seem to find the end of the sentence.
"I know what you were trying to do," I said. "It didn't work."
For a long moment she just stood there, her face tight and pale under her perfect makeup, her champagne glass trembling slightly in her hand. Then she turned on her heel and walked away without another word, her shoulders stiff, her date forgotten somewhere near the bar.
I watched her go and felt something settle in my chest, something that had been knotted up for years finally coming loose. She wasn't coming back. This was done.
Nash was staring at me, his expression caught somewhere between pride and something that looked like awe. "Rae?—"
"I'm okay," I said, and meant it. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking a little, but I was okay. Better than okay.
He pulled me close, his arms wrapping around me right there in the middle of the ballroom, and pressed his mouth to my temple. "Yeah," he murmured against my skin. "You really are."
I leaned into him and let myself feel it — the weight of his arms, the warmth of him, the fact that I'd just stood up for myself and hadn't needed him to finish it for me. That he'd been ready to, but I hadn't let him, because I didn't need protecting anymore.
I just needed him beside me.
The gala went on around us, music and laughter and the clink of glasses, and somewhere across the room Adriana Moreau was walking out the door alone.