Chapter 2 - TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER

Twenty minutes earlier, Ava had been worried about orchids.

The Harbor Children’s Foundation gala had kept Ava working since dawn on half a muffin and aching feet.

She was repairing a flower arrangement when Damian’s voice found her.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite little barista playing dress-up.”

Some voices lived in the body long after love died.

She turned.

Damian looked exactly like the future she had once exhausted herself trying to give him.

He wore a tailored tuxedo and the confidence that had arrived with money. Victoria Langford hung on his arm in emerald silk.

“This is her?” Victoria asked.

“The very one.”

Ava said, “Congratulations.”

Ava tried to move around them.

Damian blocked her. “Victoria’s been curious.”

Ava remembered the basement apartment, Damian studying while she came home smelling like coffee, his tuition envelope beside her rent envelope.

Then his salary, friends and vocabulary changed. Their apartment became depressing, her job embarrassing.

Then came the 3:17 a.m. text.

Victoria studied Ava’s dress.

“Damian said you worked in coffee.”

“I did.”

“How quaint.”

“I also worked nights in medical billing.”

Damian laughed.

Ava looked at him and wondered whether the man she loved had ever existed.

Then Victoria said, “I suppose everyone has a starter life.”

Damian smiled.

Something inside Ava finally closed.

She turned away.

Damian caught her elbow.

“Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you.”

Ava looked at his hand.

“Let go.”

He did.

But not because she asked.

Because someone across the ballroom had started watching him.

A tall man in a black tuxedo.

Lucian Vale.

Damian followed Ava’s gaze.

His face changed for half a second.

Fear.

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Then he covered it with a smile.

That was the first time Ava wondered why her ex-boyfriend was afraid of Lucian Vale.