Page 5 of Dial F for Finance

“I already regret it,” she says.

The words land clean. No wobble. No drama. Just a blade slid neatly between my ribs.

I don’t move.

She laughs once, humorless. “Does that help? Since you’re so concerned about how I’ll feel in the morning.”

“Jenna—”

“No, actually, let’s be accurate.” She folds her arms across herself, putting herself back behind glass. “You’ve been after me for years. Years, Dominic. And the one time I stop fighting you, the one time I decide maybe this is a good idea, maybe I’m ready, you tell me no.” Her eyes lock on mine, bright and furious. “That’s fucked up.”

Every instinct I have wants to close the distance and argue her out of this. Tell her what I mean. Tell her what I’m protecting. Tell her that saying no to her right now feels like peeling my own skin off.

So naturally, I do none of that.

I keep my face level. My voice even.

“I’m not doing this with you angry and half-drunk on a terrace at someone else’s wedding.”

Her mouth opens in disbelief. “Unbelievable.”

“I’ll take you home.”

Something in her posture hardens further, if that’s even possible. “I don’t need you to take me anywhere.”

“Jenna.”

“I said no.” She steps around me, all sharp edges and offended dignity. “Enjoy your moral high ground.”

Then she’s gone—back through the terrace doors, into the warm spill of light and music and everyone else’s happy. I stand there like an idiot, staring at the door she just disappeared through, my pulse still hammering from kissing her, from not taking her upstairs, from the fact that apparently integrity feels a lot like getting hit by a car.

“Great work,” I mutter to the lake.

The lake, unhelpfully, remains a lake.

I drag both hands down my face and laugh once, because this is exactly the kind of cosmic joke I’d expect from a universe that has spent years dangling Jenna Pemberton in front of me like a reward for character growth. I finally get the girl onto a terrace, against a pillar, asking me to take her upstairs—and I choose ethics.

A stronger man would feel proud.

I feel homicidal.

The music inside swells—some Motown thing with a bass line you can feel through the stone. Voices rise, glass clinks, somebody laughs too loudly. Life goes on while I stand out here wondering whether I just saved my future or torched it.

I push off the balustrade and head back inside.

The pavilion is all candlelight and expensive flowers and happy people who aren’t currently trying to parse the difference between doing the right thing and being a complete fucking moron. I scan automatically for Jenna.

She’s not near the dance floor.

Not at the bar.

Not with the women.

I catch one of the servers passing with a tray of champagne and steal a glass purely for something to do with my hands. Then I spot Audrey near the dessert table, talking to Logan with the intense seriousness of two people who somehow make discussing buttercream look like a strategy summit.

“Hey,” I say.

Audrey looks up first. Her gaze flicks over my face and goes sharp immediately, because Audrey misses nothing when it comes to data anomalies and my face is apparently one. “What happened?”