Chapter 9: Graham's Last Move
The ring came back in a small box left with my downstairs neighbor on a Friday.
Inside the box, beneath the ring, there was a card.
On one side, Graham had written: *I am sorry.
For all of it.
You deserved better than me.*
On the other side, there was a second line I hadn't expected: *Diane knows everything.
I told her myself.
I thought she should hear it from me.*
I read it twice.
Then I put the ring in the envelope with the printed screenshots Sienna had given me and set it on my desk.
I had been planning to do nothing with it.
The engagement was over.
Sienna had ended things.
There was nothing official that required Graham to answer for what he had done.
But Margot called me that afternoon.
"I need to tell you something," she said, "and I want to tell you before you hear it from someone else.
Graham came into the atelier this morning.
He asked to speak with me privately.
He said he wanted to place a new order."
I was very still.
"What kind of order."
"A gown," Margot said.
"For a Miss Diane Calloway.
In Manchester.
He asked whether we had availability.
He said the ceremony was being planned for autumn."
The room tilted slightly.
Not grief.
Something colder than grief.
"He said her name out loud," I said.
"He did," Margot said.
"With a deposit cheque.
Drawn on the same account that paid for—" She stopped.
"For my gown," I said.
"Yes," she said.
I looked at the card in my hand.
*I told her myself.* Either Graham had told Diane a version that kept him sympathetic, or Diane didn't know yet what kind of man she was agreeing to marry.
Either way, she was walking into something she had not been fully shown.
I picked up the envelope with the screenshots.
I didn't send them to Graham.
I didn't confront him.
I didn't call my solicitor.
I sent the envelope to Diane Calloway directly, with a single handwritten note.
*You don't know me.
My name is Juliet Hale.
I was engaged to Graham for three years.
I think you should have this information before autumn.
I am not asking for anything.
I simply believe you deserve to make your choice with the full picture.
— J.*
I don't know what she did with it.
I don't know if it changed anything for her.
I hope it did.
Three days later, Graham telephoned Patricia Vane's office and withdrew from any further discussion about the estate or the atelier.
Patricia sent me a one-line message: *He's standing down.
Nothing further to address on his end.*
I read it at my kitchen table with my grandmother's letter open beside me.
*For Juliet.
May you like
Every stitch.*
I folded it carefully and put it back in its envelope and placed it in the drawer where I kept things I wanted to keep.
