Instead, he became the mistake.
“My mother doesn’t want you there,” he repeated, adjusting the cuff links I had given him for our twentieth anniversary.
“Why?”
His jaw tightened.
“She thinks you’ll make people uncomfortable.”
“I’ve barely spoken to anyone in months.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
He sighed as though I were the difficult one.
“Victoria, you’re an embarrassment.”
The words landed harder than any raised voice could have. Not because they were loud, but because they were calm.
Calculated.
Final.
I stared at the man I had loved since I was twenty-three years old. The man whose first business proposal I had rewritten overnight because he was too nervous to present it. The man whose father I had quietly helped refinance after the Bennett family nearly lost everything during the recession.
The man whose entire family believed he was their hero.
