"Miss Harding, there's a storm rolling in. It's hard to get a cab out here in the suburbs."
I stared at the ice in his eyes and went blank for a moment.
Before I could respond, Grace shot him an annoyed glare.
"Don't be rude!"
She turned back to me, her voice warm with apology.
"Don't mind him, Miss Harding. He was born with that scowl. Too used to playing the big boss at the office."
"But with me? He's honestly the sweetest man alive."
"Sometimes I think I must have saved the galaxy in a past life to deserve someone like him."
As she spoke, she rolled up her sleeve, revealing a faint scar across her wrist.
"Four years ago, my company sent me overseas on assignment. The region was unstable."
"He didn't hesitate. Flew out to be with me for two weeks. But when it was time to leave, fighting broke out. He threw himself over me, shielded me with his body, and we missed the last flight home."
"He was in a coma for a full week before he woke up. After we were finally evacuated, we found out that the flight we'd missed had crashed."
"After surviving something like that, we both knew. We were meant to be. We got married without a second thought."
The ache in my chest deepened until it was unbearable. I had never felt so pathetic in my entire life.
So while I'd been glued to the news back home, sleepless and sick with dread, crying until I had nothing left, he'd been overseas. With her. By her side the whole time.
When the news of his death reached me, grief tore me apart. I passed out from crying, again and again.
I'd been clutching his clothes, burying my face in the fading scent of him, ready to end my own life—and all that time, he'd already found someone else. Already chosen her. Already planning a wedding.
"When we first got together, I had a falling-out with my roommate. I was going to rent some cheap place in the old quarter, but he took every penny he'd saved and bought me an apartment near work. Put it in my name."
The memory surfaced without warning.
When we were looking for a place to rent, the sun-facing rooms cost two hundred dollars more a month. I couldn't bring myself to spend it, so I lived in a room with no sunlight for two years.
My clothes never dried properly. I got a urinary tract infection.
One night I woke up at 2 a.m. passing blood, drenched in cold sweat from the pain.
Julian panicked. He scooped me up and ran to the hospital like a man possessed.