“Vanessa, sweetheart, apologize.”
“I have nothing to apologize for!”
Patricia stopped walking.
Something in her expression changed.
She had spent months paying for elaborate decorations, additional fittings, expensive photographs, and countless changes to a wedding that never seemed good enough.
But she had never expected her daughter to manufacture an accusation against an elderly woman.
“Then I can’t help you,” Patricia said.
Vanessa looked at both parents.
“You’re choosing them over your own daughter?”
Edward’s voice remained calm.
“No. We’re refusing to excuse what you’ve done.”
Vanessa turned back toward Nathan.
Her anger suddenly gave way to desperation.
“Please. We can discuss this privately. We can still get married.”
Nathan looked at the face he had once believed would be the last thing he wanted to see before falling asleep every night.
He remembered the first time they met, when Vanessa had laughed at his terrible joke and made him feel like the most interesting man in the room.
He remembered her tenderness when he was sick.
He remembered the way she used to hold his hand while they walked through the city.
Those memories were real.
But so was the woman who had just tried to destroy his mother’s reputation.
He couldn’t pretend one erased the other.
“I loved you,” he said.
Vanessa’s lips trembled.
“Then prove it.”
Nathan swallowed.
“I already did. For too long, I proved it by overlooking things I should have stopped.”
He gently removed the silver wedding band he had been holding in his pocket.
He placed it on the table.
“Not anymore.”
Vanessa stared at the ring.
