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“I can be furious without it becoming a symptom.”

Bliss lowered her hand. “We know.”

“And I can leave this room without either of you following me.”

Aura’s jaw flexed, but she nodded. “Yes.”

I looked between them one final time. “If Ryan asks where I went, tell him I’m in my room.”

Bliss’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to pack.”

“Cee, please.”

I opened the door before her voice could pull me backward.

Music and conversation rushed into the sitting room. Across the ballroom, Ryan stood between Cade and Briggs while an older man spoke animatedly about the Inferno. Ryan smiled at something he said, but the expression never reached his eyes. Rider noticed me first. His attention sharpened on my face before moving toward the open door behind me.

Ryan followed his gaze.

Our eyes met across the ballroom.

For one terrible second, every part of me wanted to cross the distance, take his hand, and promise that none of this changed the woman I had become. I wanted to tell him I respected his boundary and hadn’t asked Bliss or Aura to give me the pain he promised to explain later. I wanted to believe that would be enough to prove I had finally learned how to hear him.

Then I remembered Lance sending photographs of my body to Milwaukee and Ryan sitting across a conference table while strangers decided whether loving me made him dangerous.

I looked away first.

My heels struck the ballroom floor hard enough to hurt as I walked toward the staircase. I passed flowers I’d helped Bliss choose, tables filled with people who had come to celebrate her, and the wedding schedule I’d spent months perfecting. Someone called my name near the bar, but I didn’t stop.

I reached the stairs before Bliss’s voice followed me.

“Charm.”

I gripped the railing and turned. She stood near the sitting-room doors with Aura beside her. Neither woman came closer.

“I’m sorry,” Bliss said.

“I know.”

“I should’ve told you.”

“Yes.”

Her face crumpled again.

I turned and climbed.

The hallway outside my suite remained quiet. My hands shook so badly that I dropped the key card before getting the door open. The room smelled like my perfume, the flowers arranged near the window, and the man who’d stood inside it earlier while I tried to convince myself one weekend might become more.

My unfinished letter waited across the bed.

I’m not afraid you stopped loving me. I’m afraid you learned how to leave while you still do.

I stared at the words until tears blurred them, then dragged my suitcase from beneath the luggage bench. The zipper caught at the corner. I yanked harder until it opened and threw the case across the comforter, covering half the letter.

I didn’t know if I would make it to the airport. I didn’t know if I could leave Bliss before her wedding or whether the first dress I’d designed entirely for myself would still be hanging downstairs when she walked toward Cade.