Page 85 of Vow to Claim You

For a moment, I let myself believe the knuckles were about the contract—a fight to get that clause struck, the cost of moving a mountain. But that’s done. Handled, sealed, a door already shut behind him. It doesn’t explain why he’s still standing here behind a foot of ice this morning or why he couldn’t sleep next to me last night. Whatever’s hollowing him out, it isn’t the battle he already won.

And then the pieces click into place. The split skin, the rigid set of him, the night he spent anywhere but beside me. I think I understand.

“It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?” I say quietly. “The wedding.”

His brow creases. “What does that⁠—”

“Hyun-seok and Chiara.” Involuntarily, I suck the inside of my cheek. “Your best friend marrying the woman you once planned a life with. Of course it’s eating at you. Anyone would struggle with that.”

“That’s not⁠—”

“You don’t have to pretend it’s nothing.” My voice falters because I realize that last night meant nothing. Last night wasn’t about me. Or us. The moment we shared. It was about a wedding. A ghost from his past. The life that was supposed to be his. “It’s fine,” I clear my throat. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”

For a heartbeat, he looks like he’s about to say something he doesn’t know how to say. Then it passes, smoothed back beneath that flawless control.

“You should eat,” he says instead. “We leave early tomorrow.”

And there it is. The wall, back in place.

“Of course.”

I turn toward the dining room. Halfway there I stop, and without looking back—because I don’t trust my face, and I don’t want to see his—I say quietly into the cold air between us.

“For what it’s worth… I hope she’ll be happy.”

And I mean it, which surprises me most of all.

I walk toward the table and take my seat before he can say anything.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Ayanna

The jet levels off somewhere over the North Sea. Across the cabin, Aric buries himself in a stack of documents with the kind of focus that makes conversation seem like an intrusion.

My gaze catches on his hands again. The knuckles look worse. Overnight, the swelling has darkened, and the split skin has pulled tight as it tries to knit itself back together. He turns a page without so much as flinching.

“You should have wrapped them.” I break the silence.

He doesn’t look up. “They’ll heal.”

“You keep saying that.” Like the bruises are mine to see, but whatever broke them belongs to him alone.

He turns another page.

I look out the window for a while. Cloud, then ocean, then cloud. But no matter how hard I’m trying not to touch on the topic, I fail. Because if that’s the reason that broke his hands, I need to know.

“So. The wedding.”

“What about it?”

“It’s a big day. For Hyun-seok.”

“It’s a wedding.” He squares the pages against his knee. “We go, we’re seen, we show respect. We leave.” His eyes finally lift to mine, perfectly level. “That’s all it is, Ayanna.”

That’s all it is. I file the words next to it’s handled, and they’ll heal in the growing collection of sentences Aric Vold uses to end conversations he doesn’t want to have.

“Right.” I nod slightly. “Of course.”