Page 79 of Dial F for Finance

“Because I wasn’t.”

CHAPTER 19

Jenna

“Jenna,” Dominic warns, and holy hell, that voice of his goes right through me. Even when I’m frustrated with him.

“No.” I sit up straighter. “Do not say my name like that. Like the answer is simple because you don’t like it.”

“The answer isn’t simple. The claim is.”

I look toward the window.

Dark glass. My reflection. His face behind mine.

“You were sober,” he says. “We both were.”

“I know.”

“We planned the whole thing together.”

“I know.”

“You said yes. While sober.”

“I know.”

His jaw flexes.

Good. Let him be frustrated. I’m frustrated too. With him. With me. With Tokyo. With the version of myself that stood under soft lights in a city where nobody knew my mother or Teddy Pemberton or the girl outside prom and thought yes was a survivable word.

“Sober isn’t the same as sane,” I say.

Dominic goes still.

“I was drunk on Tokyo.” My voice sounds steadier than I feel. “On you. On not being the person who knew better. No one was watching. No one knew us. There was a hotel suite and neon and sex good enough to damage brain function, and then there was a night where the whole world felt like it had been built for bad decisions that could somehow turn beautiful if we wanted them hard enough.”

His eyes stay on me, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“I was drunk on the fairy tale,” I say. “Not legally, maybe. But emotionally? Completely.”

He inhales slowly.

“And then I woke up.”

“In my arms.”

“Yes.”

“Wearing my ring.”

My throat closes around the word.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And reality got in.”