Chapter 5: What Graham Said in the Car Park
He was waiting outside my flat when I got home.
He was sitting on the low wall beside the car park entrance with his jacket folded over his knee, and when he saw me he stood up immediately, the way he always did when he felt guilty about something.
Graham stood up very straight when he felt guilty.
I had always thought it was a good quality.
Now I understood it was just a reflex.
"I need to explain," he said.
"You said that last night," I said.
"You didn't explain anything."
"I know." He stepped forward.
"Jules, please.
Five minutes."
I stopped.
Not because I wanted to hear it.
Because I needed to know what version of the truth he had decided on.
"How long," I said.
It was not a question.
He pushed his hand through his hair.
"Seven months."
Seven months.
My grandmother had been alive for four of them.
"Did she know?" I asked.
"My grandmother.
Did she know about you and Sienna when she was commissioning my gown?"
Graham's face moved in a way that answered before he did.
"Graham."
"She found out," he said.
"About two months before she passed.
She — she confronted me.
At your parents' house.
She told me that if I was going to end things with you, I needed to do it directly and honestly and before the dress was finished."
"And what did you say?"
He looked at the ground.
"I said I was going to handle it."
"You said you were going to handle it," I repeated.
"Jules—"
"While she sat at a worktable at Atelier Fontaine and stitched sixty hours into a gown for my wedding," I said.
"While she filed legal documents to make sure I couldn't be cheated.
While she wrote me a letter she gave to her solicitor because she knew — she *knew* — that someone in my family would try to take what was mine.
She did all of that while you were telling her you would *handle it.*"
He had nothing.
"Did my mother know about you and Sienna before Grandmother died?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"She introduced us," he said.
The word landed like something physical.
"My mother."
"She — she thought Sienna and I were better suited.
She'd thought it for a while.
She invited Sienna to a dinner that she told me was a family thing, and it—"
"She set it up," I said.
"Jules, I'm not saying what happened was right—"
"My mother set up my fiancé with my little sister," I said.
"While I was embroidering my wedding gown.
While my grandmother was quietly building me a legal fortress around everything she was doing because she could see what was coming."
Graham opened his mouth.
"Don't," I said.
"Whatever you are about to say — don't."
He closed it.
I looked at him for a moment.
The jacket over his arm.
The way he was standing so straight.
Three years.
Three years of Sunday mornings and shared playlists and learning the way he took his coffee and trusting, the whole time, that the people around me were not the kind of people who would do this.
"I want the engagement ring back," I said.
"I'll give you a week."
"Of course," he said immediately.
"Of course.
Jules — I am sorry."
"I know you are," I said.
"That's the worst part."
I went inside.
I put my grandmother's letter on the kitchen table and made tea I didn't drink and sat in the flat that was very quiet until the light changed.
Then my phone lit up.
A message from Sienna.
*We need to talk.
There are things you don't know.
About Graham.
About Mum.
Please, Jules.
Please just meet me.*
I set the phone face-down on the table.
May you like
Sienna wanting to talk was either the beginning of an apology or the beginning of something worse.
I didn't know yet which one it was.
