"Oh, she’s a no-one," Jeffrey said, stepping closer as he loosened the tie Heather had fixed and let it fall between his fingers like it ant nothing.
But Joanne saw what he didn’t say.
She watched the way his fingers lingered too long at the knot. The way he retied it—not like a man unaffected, but like soone trying to erase fingerprints.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. No-one, he said. But his silence scread otherwise.
Because if she truly was no one...
Why did he look like he was unraveling?
Why was he so careful not to speak her na?
And most of all, why had he never told Joanne anything at all?
She stood still, her arms folded, watching him. Watching the man she had trusted with the tenderest pieces of herself—her past, her pain, her truth. She had told him who she loved, who she lost. He knew the nas of the boys who broke her heart and the ones who never got close.
But him?
He was still a shadow.
She didn’t even officially know his na.
Not the na the world knew. Not the family he ca from. Not the reason he kept all of it locked behind a vault she still didn’t have the key to.
Yes, she fell for his character.
But his hesitation cut deeper than a lie.
It told her he still didn’t trust her with the whole of him.
And when he changed the subject with a half-smile and half-hearted joke, brushing her shoulders like nothing just happened, calling her beautiful like it was enough to distract her—
She flinched.
Not outwardly. She smiled, because she always did.
But inside?
She fractured.
She wasn’t so decoration to admire while pretending the world wasn’t tilting beneath them.
-----
Jeffrey’s fingers inched toward hers—hesitant, hopeful.
But the mont their skin brushed, she flinched.
A slight, involuntary jerk.
Small. Subtle.
But it struck him like a blow to the chest.
He froze. His hand hovered, then retreated like it had no right to reach for her.
She had never flinched from him.
Not even when she was fresh out of trauma—jumping at sudden noises, wincing at crowds.
Even then, her body had known he was safe.
But now...
Now her heart no longer did.
And that realization unstitched sothing in him. Sothing raw and sacred. Sothing he didn’t even have a na for.
He stared out the window, but the rolling hills and soft green landscapes didn’t reach him. The world had color, but no aning. It might as well have been grey.
It was his fault. He knew it.
She had asked—really asked—about Heather.
And instead of opening the wound, instead of trusting her with the truth, he had dodged. Distracted. Danced around the danger.
But she wasn’t a fool.
She knew. She felt the weight he carried and saw the shadow in his eyes. And now that shadow had reached her, too.
And how could he explain it?
That Heather wasn’t just a ghost of a past love, but sothing far more sinister—an open threat.
That she had found her way into the mansion through old mories and familiar faces, the staff letting her in with smiles and warm greetings, not knowing the damage she could do.
That she had co spewing bitterness—about Congressman Campbell—her stepfather’s brother, about betrayal, about vengeance. That she felt entitled to a life he no longer could give her. That she stood in their room, touching his tie like she still had a claim to him.
And worst of all... As she caressed his tie around his neck...
She tied a noose around his neck by speaking of Caruso.
She had reminded him of the unintentional betrayal he carried like an iron weight inside his chest—that it was his trail, his careless miscalculation, that led danger to Joanne’s doorstep, that nearly ended her life.
His throat tightened as the echo of Heather’s final words rang again, venomous and cold:
"If you think she’d forgive you, you’re mistaken. If you think you can cheat on and live happily ever after with her, you are mistaken. You are mine. Never forget that. If you can almost kill her, I can kill her for sure. My step-uncle still has connections. You can’t be with her 24/7."
He didn’t know how to respond to that.
Didn’t know how to protect Joanne without making her hate him.
Didn’t know how to tell her that the sa hands that had once failed to protect her... were now too busy shaking.
So he kept talking—about little things, aningless things.
He tried to bring up funny monts, trivial observations, sweet nothings. He filled the car with his voice, hoping to ease the quiet that settled between them like a growing chasm.
But she only answered with half-smiles and soft nods.
Like soone being polite to a stranger.
And it broke him.
Because for the first ti, he realized...
She wasn’t just upset.
She was quietly building a wall.
And he was on the other side of it.
-----
Joanne sat still, her gaze out the window, watching the countryside blur past like fragnts of a daydream she could no longer hold onto.
Beside her, Jeffrey talked. Soft, steady, desperate.
He tried to fill the silence between them with lightness, with charm, with whatever scraps of comfort he could gather.
And she knew. She knew.
He wasn’t enjoying a word of it.
It wasn’t conversation—it was an apology dressed in small talk.
He was reaching for her, gently, without force. Like a man trying to coax a frightened bird to perch on his hand again.
And a part of her... hated that it worked.
Because it did move her.
He was still trying. That ant sothing.
But she was still hurting. That ant more.
Until just a few hours ago, she had been thrilled to co here with him.
Wimbledon. With him.
She had imagined the smiles, the shared glances, the subtle brushing of hands in public that made it feel real, feel whole.
But that mont—that woman—had changed everything.
No, he had.
With his silence. With his evasion. With his refusal to let her in, even now.
And yet...
She didn’t want to punish him. That wasn’t what love looked like.
Love wasn’t just about holding soone when they’re sweet; It was standing beside them when they’re breaking, when they’re wrong, when they’re afraid.
She took a breath, steadying herself as the car pulled to a gentle stop before the venue gates.
The grandeur of the mont might have once thrilled her, but now it felt muted, distant—like a stage she wasn’t sure she wanted to step onto.
Still, she turned to him. Her heart battered but unbowed.
Without a word, she reached into her purse and took out the envelope.
The invitation.
A formal, gold-edged, velvet-lined card—the kind reserved for legacy nas and old money.
It was addressed to The Winchester Family.
Joanne held it out to him, her hand calm, her eyes unreadable.
"Here," she said softly, offering it with a smile.
This was her giving him another chance to be honest with her.
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