Chapter 2

"You're breaking up with me over a wedding ring?" Chloe stared as if I'd lost my mind.

It wasn't the ring. It was every prize Ryan had stolen from me since childhood, every time Chloe looked at him instead of me, every occasion they told me to stop being sensitive because it was "just a joke."

"I'll buy you another ring," she said. "But the wedding is in three days. Don't do anything you'll regret."

She walked out, expecting me to apologize before morning.

Instead, I packed. I threw away the hair ties I used to keep for her and tore up the only framed photograph of the two of us.

My phone rang. It was the tailor.

"Mr. Mercer, a Mr. Ryan Brooks just asked us to alter your wedding suit to his measurements. We need confirmation."

For a moment I pictured myself standing beside Chloe years from now, both of us gray-haired and still holding hands. I'd wanted that since the day we met.

"Go ahead," I told the tailor. "Make it fit Ryan."

That suit would never belong to me.