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“Since I left him,” I muttered.
“You did. Even if I don’t understand it.”
I inhaled a rattling breath, pasting on a fake smile as there was no way I would ruin the biggest day of my sister’s life by publicly lamenting my own bad decisions.
“I don’t want to talk about him today,” I said.
Her stare flickered over my shoulder, a small smile falling across her face as she took a step away from me.
“Then how about you talktome?”
Archie’s voice behind me was like a bucket of ice water being dropped on my head…in the middle of the desert.
Mandy gave me a quick jerk of her head, then turned back toward her wedding party. It took me a solid minute to find movement in my legs, and when I finally brought myself around to face Archie, my knees almost gave out anyway of their own accord.
Archie looked better than he ever had, in a finely tailored tux made of material so expensive it almost glimmered under the market lights that were strung zigzag above their heads to light the dance floor. He’d always been tall and slim, but the dark wool accentuated the shape of him, and Archie subconsciously pressed a hand against the buttons of his tux, catching my stare and holding it.
“What are you doing here?” I rasped, unintentionally mirroring his pose by pressing my hand over my middle, but on my end it was to settle my stomach and not throw up all over our shoes. His probably cost more than my entire outfit had, and that was just a rental for me.
“Your sister invited me,” he said.
“Sure. But what are youdoinghere?”
“Your sister invited me,” he said again, this time cocking his head to the side and winging a brow up in the air.
“She’s a traitor.”
“She wants you happy,” he said.
“And she thinks you have anything to do with that? You’re just a bad habit at this point, Archie.”
My blood boiled, starting at the tips of my fingers and working up through my body until my spine was on fire and threatening to sear through my muscles and my skin. I’d tried so hard and for so long to quit the man in front of me, but somehow he still had his hooks in me. No matter how far away I swam, he was able to reel me back in with a look or a phrase, and it felt so unfair for him to have that control over me after so long.
“Come on, Owen.”
Archie sounded tired and it was then I noticed the dark bags under his eyes. At first, I thought they were a shadow, but when he stepped toward me and brought himself into the light, I realized their shading remained unchanged. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who felt trapped at the end of someone else’s line.
At that moment, the music took a decidedly more romantic turn, and I knew my sister had a hand in the change of pace. Archie smiled quickly, then held his hand out for me and stepped back, almost into a bow. “May I have this dance?”
I loved when Archie told me no. Our entire relationship had been built upon it, which was ironic considering the instances I told him no were the times when things began to crumble and wither.
“Fine.”
I put my hand in his, and Archie hauled our chests together, bringing our mouths inches apart. He smelled so much like I remembered. It brought me an unexplainable sense of comfort that dulled the fire in my bones, and I allowed myself a deep breath of him as he slid his hand around my waist to hold me like a proper dance partner would.
Our feet moved in time like it was our thousandth dance, not our first, and when he brushed his nose against my temple, I let my eyes fall closed. I let him lead. He must have noticed a shift in my demeanor, because the arm around my waist wrapped tighter, the grip on my hand turned less sweaty.
“You look nice,” I muttered, which earned a low laugh in my ear.
“I look like a man obsessed,” he whispered, giving me a whirl around the dance floor.
“With what?”
“With the one thing he can’t have.”
“You’re rich, Archie,” I reminded him. “You can have anything you want.”
“Evidently not.”
