Chapter 2

When I tried to pull away, Ethan pressed me back against the wall. His free hand cupped the back of my head, cushioning it against the drywall.

I was still angry. It didn’t exactly make up for manhandling me..

“What do you want?”

He stared at me. His expression was a blank mask, but his fingers dug into my arms.

“You wanted to leave long before this, didn’t you?” he asked. “The proposal. The ring. The money. Those were just excuses.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

We’d been together eight years.

At the beginning, we’d talked everything through.

We believed that if we just communicated perfectly, there wouldn’t be any room left for misunderstandings.

Eight years later, I couldn’t work out where to start.

He was right about one thing. A relationship didn’t end because of one bad night.

But that forty-five thousand dollars had finished it, and he still couldn’t see why.

Seventeen days earlier, on my birthday, he’d arranged a party. He’d booked the space, decorated it, and invited all my friends. When he went down on one knee, his hand shook around the ring box.

“Clara Hayes. Will you marry me?”

He looked so hopeful. People cheered. Someone started chanting, “Say yes,” and the others joined in.

I looked at the ring.

I recognized it instantly. It was the exact ring I'd had my eye on when we were browsing a jewelry store. Ethan had promised he’d buy it for me when his business started making money.

His business wasn’t making money.

How could he possibly afford it?

While people cheered, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out, assuming it was just another missed notification from the day. Instead, a new alert from my bank flashed on the screen.

Card purchase: $45,000.

Available balance: $320.55.

I read it again. The amount didn’t change.

He’d used my card. Without asking me. The savings I’d built up, everything I’d kept available for an emergency, had gone into the ring he was holding out to me.

Three hundred and twenty dollars and fifty-five cents remained.

Ethan was still kneeling. He was waiting for me to hold out my hand.

“How could you do that?” I asked.

There were probably worse answers to a marriage proposal. I couldn’t think of one while he shut the ring box and stood up.

He cleared his friends out without raising his voice. The drive back to my condo was suffocatingly silent.

“Why?” he asked once we were inside.

He looked tired and hurt. I was searching the table, his pockets, the things he’d carried in.

“Where’s the receipt? We need to take it back.”

He gave a harsh, disbelieving scoff.

“Do you care about anything besides money? Do you even love me?”

“The receipt, Ethan.”

For a moment he just glared at me. Then he dug into his pocket and threw the crumpled receipt onto the table.

I flattened the paper and called the number at the top.

My voice shook as I explained that we needed to return the ring.

The woman at the store was kind. It didn’t help.

“I’m sorry. That was a custom order. Under the terms of the purchase, it’s final sale.”

I asked if she was sure. She was. The ring had been engraved to his specifications.

Two letters inside the band. E and C.

Only then did I pick it up.

I could see them. Ethan and Clara, cut into a piece of jewelry I couldn’t turn back into grocery money or a mortgage payment.

I’d been holding on to the idea that this could still be undone. I set the ring down.

We sat across from each other. He watched me; I looked at the table. I had no useful question left for the woman at the store, and no way to make him understand why my survival meant more than his romance.

Eventually, he stood.

“I’ll deal with the money,” he said. “Forget I ever proposed.”

He walked out.

That had been the last time we’d spoken before today.