Marcus stared at her.
Then he walked away.
Rachel didn’t move.
Neither did I.
Only after Marcus disappeared through the ballroom doors did she release a shaky breath.
“You okay?”
→
“I am now,” Rachel whispered, letting out a breath she seemed to have been holding for years.
She slowly unclasped her fingers from mine, but she didn’t step away. The color was returning to her cheeks, the stark terror in her eyes softening into something quiet, luminous, and undeniably real.
“I’m sorry for dragging you into that, Nathan,” she added, her voice carrying a soft, self-deprecating chuckle. “‘We left the rings upstairs’? Really?”
I couldn’t help but smile, rubbing my sore knuckles where she had squeezed them. “Hey, it worked. Though we might have a minor problem now.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
I gestured subtly around us. The onlookers hadn’t returned to their conversations. In fact, half the ballroom was watching us with wide, fascinated eyes. Two of our former dormmates were already whispering excitedly near the bar, pointing at our bare hands.
“Word travels fast at a reunion,” I said gently. “By tomorrow morning, everyone from the class of ’18 is going to think we’ve been secretly married for six months.”
Rachel looked at the crowd, then back up at me. For the first time in years, there was no shadow of Marcus hanging over her posture. Her shoulders dropped, and a genuine, breathtaking laugh escaped her lips.
“Let them think whatever they want,” she said, leaning in just a fraction closer. “It’s the first time in my life a lie actually made me feel safe.”
She reached out and took my hand again—not out of panic, and not to fool anyone in the room. Just because she wanted to.
“Besides,” Rachel murmured, her eyes holding mine with an intensity that made the rest of the noisy ballroom completely fade away, “who says we have to keep lying forever?”
I felt a surge of warmth hit my chest, the cold memory of Marcus Hale completely evaporating into the air. I closed my fingers around hers, offering a slow, deliberate smile.
“In that case, Mrs. Brooks,” I said smoothly, “allow me to buy my wife a drink.”
Rachel laughed, slipping her arm through mine as we walked together into the center of the room, leaving her past right where it belonged—in the dark, standing alone by the wall.
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