“No,” Carissa said. “This was all you.”
A woman with silver bracelets lifted one hand hesitantly. “I’m sorry, I genuinely don’t understand. Damen, you’ve shown pictures of Nikki for years.”
Carissa nodded. “Yes. Because that was easier than explaining he married the other sister.”
The sentence traveled.
She saw it happen.
The other sister.
Maybe she should not have said it. Maybe it was too cruel. But cruelty had already happened. This was only filing.
Damen looked like he might lunge for her arm again, but Jackson shifted slightly between them and whatever was left of Damen’s courage retreated into posture.
“Tell them,” Carissa said. “Tell them why I’m wrong.”
Damen looked around the room and discovered something men like him often discover too late—that charm requires momentum, and once momentum breaks, explanation starts to sound like confession.
“It was just a misunderstanding that got out of hand,” he said.
Carissa laughed softly. “Ten years is not misunderstanding. It’s branding.”
Nikki’s eyes were wet now. For anyone who did not know her, she might have looked pitiful. Carissa knew better. These were not grief tears. These were collapse tears. Tears for a story failing to hold.
“We weren’t trying to hurt you,” Nikki whispered.
Carissa turned fully toward her. “You rehearsed my memories in my living room.”
Nikki flinched.
Carissa kept going.
“You repeated the story of my proposal. My first anniversary dinner. My first trip with him. You took pieces of my life and tried them on like dresses. So forgive me if I don’t believe this was accidental.”
No one in the circle said a word.
It was one of the most intoxicating silences Carissa had ever heard.
Not because people agreed with her.
Because for once they were not interrupting the truth to make room for comfort.
The man in burgundy blazer looked at Damen with open disgust now. “Dude,” he said.
Sometimes a whole reputation can be punctured with one syllable.
Damen rounded on him. “Stay out of it.”
Then Nikki did something spectacularly foolish.
Maybe panic made her do it. Maybe ego. Maybe she truly believed if she attacked first she could still control the angle of the damage.
“He told me you didn’t even want him anymore,” she said to Carissa. “He said you were cold and obsessed with work and made him feel like a failure every day of his life.”
The room seemed to contract around them.
Carissa turned her head slowly toward Damen.