The woman running toward us moved like she belonged in a different world than mine.
Her heels struck the polished airport floor with sharp, expensive clicks. A cream-colored coat flew open behind her, revealing a fitted navy dress and a diamond pendant at her throat that flashed under the terminal lights.
“Graham!” she called again.
His face had gone pale.
Not uncomfortable.
Not surprised.
Pale.
Like a man watching two separate lives collide in front of him.
I shifted Oliver higher on my hip. He pressed his sticky little fingers against my cheek and babbled something I couldn’t understand. Beside me, Lily kept offering Graham her half-eaten cracker, completely unaware that she had just cracked open the foundation of a billionaire’s life. Sophie stood near my leg, serious and quiet, clutching the sleeve of my coat.
The woman reached us breathless.
“There you are,” she said, touching Graham’s arm as though she had every right to. “I’ve been calling you. Our boarding group—”
Then she saw me.
Her hand froze.
Her eyes moved from my face to the children.
One.
Two.
Three.
A strange silence formed between all of us, despite the noise of the airport continuing around us.
“Emily,” Graham said, but my name came out like a warning.
The woman looked at him slowly.
“You know her?”
I almost laughed.
It was not a funny sound inside me, but it rose anyway, bitter and sharp.
“Yes,” I said before Graham could answer. “He knows me.”
Her gaze narrowed. She was beautiful in the polished way people became beautiful when they had never had to choose between diapers and electricity. Dark hair, flawless makeup, skin untouched by sleepless nights. She studied me as if trying to place me in Graham’s life and finding no acceptable category.
“I’m Caroline Vale,” she said, her voice cooling. “Graham’s fiancée.”
The word landed harder than I expected.
Fiancée.
For eighteen months, I had told myself I was past him. I had told myself the worst of the pain was over, that nothing connected to Graham Whitaker could still wound me unless I allowed it.
But some words were knives even when you saw them coming.
Graham’s fiancée.
