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“You came because grand gestures play well when there are people watching.”

His fingers tighten around the bouquet hard enough to bend the paper wrapping. “You’ve changed.”

“I stopped protecting you.”

For the first time since I walked outside, he doesn’t have another polished answer waiting. He studies me, searching for the hesitation that used to follow every argument, the opening that always let him steer the conversation back where he wanted it.

It never comes.

Spencer isn’t deterred. “I think you’re letting your emotions make this harder than it has to be.”

“I think you’re still trying to decide which version of me the cameras should see.”

The crowd falls unusually quiet before another wave of questions crashes over us. Spencer doesn’t acknowledge a single reporter. He keeps watching me, waiting for me to become the woman he remembers.

I don’t.

His smile slips before he catches himself, and I’ve seen that happen often enough to recognize exactly what it means. For an instant, I see the irritation he’d usually save for after the cameras were gone.

But then his shoulders relax, his expression softens, and he lifts the bouquet a little higher as if reminding everyone why he’s here.

“Emma,” he says. “Please. Just hear me out.”

“I’ve heard enough.”

He exhales through his nose and shakes his head with the patient smile that used to make me wonder whether I really was being unreasonable.

“I know you’re angry. You have every right to be, and I’m standing here because I want to fix what I broke.”

“No,” I say, meeting his eyes without moving an inch. “You’re standing here because every camera in Manhattan is pointed at you.”

The reporters react before Spencer does, turning toward one another as pens begin moving across notepads and microphones edge closer between us. Spencer doesn’t even acknowledge them, but I notice the way he squares his shoulders ever so slightly before looking back at me.

“Emma, come on,” he says, loud enough for everyone to hear. He forces the bouquet into my trembling hands, ignoring every possible social cue I’m radiating. “Relationships fall apart. People hurt each other. I’m trying to show you that I still love you.”

I roll my eyes. “I blocked every number you used, and you still found new ones. When that didn’t work, you came here instead.” I gesture around us. “You picked the one place where you knew I couldn’t simply walk away.”

A murmur spreads through the crowd.

Spencer gives a small shake of his head, like he’s disappointed in me. “I think you’re letting your emotions get the better of you.”

I almost laugh.

Four years together, and that’s still his answer. Whenever I questioned him, I was emotional. Whenever I called him out, I was overreacting.

Whenever I asked him to choose me over another interview, another party, another red carpet, I was asking for too much.

Standing here now, with half the city watching, he hasn’t changed at all.

He’s simply performing for a larger audience.

“I remember every promise you broke,” I tell him. “I remember every event where you disappeared and left me standing by myself while you chased another camera. I remember birthdays you forgot, dinners you canceled, weekends you promised we’d spend together before changing your mind because someone more important called. Then every time I tried to tell you how much it hurt, you acted like I was the problem.”

“Emma…”

“No.” I don’t raise my voice, but I don’t soften it either. “You don’t get to package all of that into a bouquet and call it love.”

The plaza grows quieter than it has been since I walked outside.