He sighed, his tone casual. "It's fine. I was never going to register the marriage with Hilda anyway. She won't find out. We'll just go ahead with the ceremony as planned."
"Keep your mouth shut about this, understand? If Hilda finds out, you know how she is. She'll cry and throw a fit and demand we break up. We've been together too long. I don't want any trouble."
His friend agreed without hesitation.
Hilda felt as though she'd plunged into an ice bath. In the last seconds before Jasper opened the door, some shred of survival instinct sent her stumbling back to the bedroom, where she locked herself in the bathroom.
She gripped the edge of the sink. Matching towels and toothbrushes sat on the counter. That very morning, she'd been leaning against Jasper right here, playfully swiping at him with his razor while he laughed.
Hilda stared at her reflection. Then she raised her hand and slapped herself across the face.
It hurt. God, it hurt.
She looked in the mirror, and the tears broke free all at once.
It wasn't a dream.
Why wasn't it a dream?
Seven years together. When they first met, Jasper Fairmont had been the golden boy gone wild, his name a permanent fixture on the school's disciplinary board for cutting class, fighting, smoking, and drinking.
Then Hilda transferred in, and everything changed. He quit smoking, quit drinking, gave up street racing. He became almost docile, reining in his temper, content to follow at her heels.
Everyone joked that the untamable Jasper Fairmont had been brought to heel by a quiet, well-behaved girl like Hilda.
And Hilda had believed it. She'd believed she was truly different to him.
She'd poured herself into planning their future together. Knowing her line of work would put him in an awkward position, she'd been ready to walk away from a career she'd built from the ground up.
She knew the Fairmont family looked down on her, so she'd hired an etiquette coach and painstakingly learned how to be a proper society wife.
The cuts on her fingers from flower-arranging lessons hadn't even healed. Under the running water they turned white and puckered, stinging so badly that tears streamed down her face.
Jasper knocked on the door. He said something had come up at the office and he needed to leave. He wanted a goodbye kiss.