No one again.
No one always.
The old ache came back so fast it took the air out of my lungs.
My gaze moved to Derek.
He was standing just beyond the fitting area, one hand in his pocket, the other curled uselessly around the stem of a champagne glass. Tall, handsome, expensively dressed, with the same polished ease that had first drawn me to him at a charity gala eighteen months earlier. He had one of those faces that photographed beautifully and apologized well. In another life, maybe that would have been enough.
But in that moment, while his mother’s words still hung in the air for everyone to inspect, Derek looked down at the carpet as though the weave of it had become unexpectedly fascinating.
He did not say my name.
He did not tell her to stop.
He did not step toward me.
His silence spread through my chest like cold water.