Chapter 9

Before he could decide whom to believe, Sonia was already changed, directing staff to load her bags into the car.

He ran over. "Where are you going? To New York? Right now? Can't you wait?"

She blinked. She assumed he was having trouble with how sudden it was — they'd grown up together, after all.

She smiled. "Any later and I'll miss my flight. It's okay. We'll see each other at the wedding. You'd better show up."

He was in near panic. "You're actually marrying someone else? Does Zachary know? You're not going to say goodbye?"

Her smile dimmed at Zachary's name.

She shook her head. "No."

He tried to stop her but she glanced at her watch. "I really have to go."

She got in the car.

The car pulled out of the estate driveway.

At the same moment, Zachary's car was coming in the other direction.

In the split second their cars passed, he looked down at the ring in his palm, eyes shining.

Sonia had told him, long ago, that when he proposed every person who mattered had to be there. Tonight, his parents were there, the ones who'd raised her as their own. The elders who'd watched her grow up. Her lifelong friends. And him — the man she loved most.

He couldn't wait to see her face.

His debt to Ember was paid. Tonight, he was going to propose to the woman he loved.

He and Sonia were never going to be apart again.

Zachary changed quickly and hurried out to the rooftop garden.

Once everything was in place, he texted his friend to bring Sonia up.

No reply.

He frowned. He looked up — a plane was crossing the sky above him. The unease deepened.

He texted Sonia directly. "I set up a surprise on the roof. Come up?"

The message didn't go through. Blocked.

Then his friend's reply finally came, vague and uncomfortable: "Zach, so sorry man, something came up at home, I had to jet. Rain check on the proposal?"

Meanwhile, at thirty thousand feet, Sonia watched the clouds roll under her and exhaled.

Goodbye to the place she'd grown up. Every good memory, every bad one, every feeling she had for Zachary, buried here with the city.

She was going to have a new life. A new love.

She and Zachary would never meet again.

Zachary waited on the roof for an hour before he gave up and went downstairs.

So what if she'd spotted the surprise? He'd pick another night. She wasn't going to say no, after all.

The thought steadied him. He tightened his grip on the ring box.

Downstairs the guests were gone. Evelyn was sitting alone in the living room, holding an old photograph — her and Sonia's mother — whispering apologies.

She was saying she hadn't raised her son right. That's why Sonia was gone. That's why the contract their two families had made all those years ago hadn't been honored.

His unease became dread. "Mom — what are you doing with that photo? Where's Sonia? Didn't we have the farewell dinner tonight?"

Evelyn wiped her eyes. Her voice was flat. "Sonia's gone. To New York."

He relaxed, dropped onto the couch beside her, slung an arm around her. "Oh — that's all? You're that emotional about it? You'd think she wasn't coming back. Is her aunt okay? Must be serious if she left before the dinner even ended. She promised she'd wait for me. Ma, you should've told me. I wouldn't have gone to pick up the ring. I'd have flown with her."

Evelyn looked at her clueless son with bone-deep tiredness. "Sonia isn't coming back. She went to New York to get married."

He shot upright. He kept mumbling no, it's not possible.

But his head was already replaying everything. The hospital — Sonia telling him she was going, telling him she didn't want him to come, saying "goodbye" as he walked out the door.

And that snowy night. The box. The one that had looked strangely familiar.

He turned to Evelyn, voice cracking. "Mom — the thing you sent me to drop off that night. What was it?"

He'd almost opened it. He remembered something falling out. But Ember had kept calling, he'd been distracted, he'd barely glanced at it.

Please, please let it be nothing. A little gift. Anything.

"It was the heirloom your Aunt Lorraine and I exchanged when you two were engaged as children," Evelyn said. "The betrothal papers were inside."

The room emptied of sound.