family like this.”
Callum looked around, expecting support.
He found very little.
For the first time in the years I’d known him, he had nothing clever to say.
He placed the folded paper on the table and left the reception.
The band resumed playing after a few uncomfortable minutes.
Kit embraced me and whispered that she was glad I’d come, regardless of whom I’d brought.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about Owen.
He had defended me without pretending I was helpless.
He had told the truth without claiming we were something we weren’t.
And I was beginning to care about him in a way our agreement hadn’t anticipated.
I found him twenty minutes later on the terrace.
The air had cooled.
Beyond the gardens, the North Sea lay dark beneath an enormous sky.
“Thank you,” I said.
He turned.
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“You didn’t have to do any of that.”
“I know.”
I moved closer.
“Owen, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“When you were talking about me in there…
was any of that pretend?”
He studied my face.
“No.”
The word was so simple that it frightened me.
I wanted him to kiss me again.
This time there was no dance, no watching audience, no reason to continue the performance.
But before either of us moved, his expression changed.
“Leah, there’s something I should have told you.”
My stomach tightened.
“I’ve accepted an eight-month contract in Copenhagen.
Restoration lighting for a historic theater.”
I waited for him to explain why that mattered.
He didn’t.
“When do you leave?” I asked.
“In twelve days.”
I looked away toward the water.
“When did you find out?”
“Tuesday.”
Four days.
Four days of messages and conversations.
Four days in which he’d allowed me to imagine something neither of us had dared to name.
“You could have told me.”
“I should have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Owen exhaled slowly.
“Because I didn’t know what this was becoming.
And I was afraid that if I told you I was leaving, you’d decide there was no reason to find out.”
I felt the old wound opening.
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
He lowered his eyes.
“You’re right.”
I didn’t know what to do with an apology that came without excuses.
Then he took a second folded paper from his jacket.
It was a page from his notebook, covered in neat handwriting.
“After we made those five rules, I wrote one for myself,” he said.
He handed it to me.
I unfolded it beneath the terrace light.
There was only one sentence.
Don’t make her smaller just because you’re afraid to lose her.
I stared at the words.
“Why would you write this?”
He leaned against the stone railing.
“My father traveled constantly for work.
Every time he left, he’d promise my mother he was done traveling.
He meant it when he said it.
Then another opportunity came along, and he’d break the promise.
Eventually, I think she stopped believing anything he told her.”
He paused.
“I swore I’d never make somebody feel that way.”
“So you avoid making promises at all?”
“Usually.”
I looked down at the note.
“You know that’s not the same as being honest.”
He nodded.
“I’m learning that.”
I wanted to stay.
I wanted to ask whether
