We Were Never Married, Mr. Holloway

Laurel's POV

In the ten years I was with Chase Holloway, I got used to him "forgetting" things.

The night he proposed, he showed up empty-handed and said the ring was still at the jeweler's. The day we went to City Hall for our marriage license, he dug through every pocket of his coat and said he'd left his paperwork at home. On our wedding day, he didn't show up at all.

I found out later he'd been in the ballroom next door, filling in as the groom for his childhood friend Mallory Fairchild after her fiancé left her at the altar.

When my dad heard, he clutched his chest, collapsed, and never woke up.

I begged Chase to come see my dad at the hospital. Instead, he raised his glass, apologized to the room, and laughed it off, telling everyone I was just someone from work who had a crush on him.

A month later he got back from his honeymoon, ruffled my hair, and smiled. "How's your dad doing? Let's pick a new date and do it right this time. It'll cheer him up."

He had no idea my dad's headstone had been up for three weeks.

And he definitely didn't know we were already over.

"Guess who?"

A pair of ice-cold hands covered my eyes from behind.

I was stuffing a stack of thick sweaters into my suitcase. I paused for a second.

It was Chase's old trick. Every time he got back from a business trip, he'd lower his voice and pull this on me. I used to laugh and say his name, then tuck his frozen hands into my sleeves to warm them up.

Now I just pulled his hands off my face and went back to folding.

For a few seconds, he didn't say anything.

"Laurel." He came around to face me. He'd gotten a deep tan, and he was giving me a wounded look, all puppy-dog eyes. "It's been a month. You're still mad? After you came barging into that ballroom, I spent half the night smoothing things over with the guests."

Smoothing things over.

I almost laughed.

That day, the ambulance had taken my dad away, and I'd run into the ballroom next door in my wedding dress, begging him to come to the hospital with me. Over a hundred guests turned to stare. He stood up there and just jerked his chin at security.

They grabbed me by the arms and dragged me out, the train of my dress sweeping across the carpet behind me.

My dad didn't last two days in the hospital.

He'd never asked me for anything in his life. All he wanted was to walk me down the aisle himself, give me away to Chase, and hear Chase call him Dad.

He didn't live to see any of it.

The funeral was back in my hometown. A few neighbors huddled outside the church, not bothering to keep their voices down.

"That's her. Got dumped on her wedding day."

"All that school and for what? Thirty and still can't get anybody to marry her."

"Poor old Porter. Only had the one daughter, and she's the one who put him in the ground."

I heard that kind of thing all day. I never cried again after that. It was like something inside me got buried along with the coffin.

I took a deep breath and looked up at him. "I'm not mad at you."

Let's break up.

The words were right there, but he cut me off.

"Fine, you're not mad. You just want to fight. That it?" He waved it off like it was nothing. "I texted you, didn't I? I explained everything. Mallory's fiancé bailed at the last minute. Our families go back decades. I couldn't just stand there and let her get humiliated in front of everybody. I was doing her a favor. It's not like it cost you anything."

He sprawled back on the couch like he owned the place, grabbed a faded red plaid scarf from beside the suitcase, and shook it out.

"You're still hanging on to this thing?" He wrinkled his nose. "Toss it. I'll get you a new one."

I didn't answer. My eyes had landed on the ring finger of his left hand.

There was a silver wedding band on it.

No wonder the hand over my eyes had felt so cold.

Chase followed my gaze down. His face froze, and he yanked the ring off and shoved it in his pocket.

"If you're gonna put on a show, you gotta go all the way, right?" He winked at me, trying to brush it off the way he always used to. "Forgot to take it off. You're not seriously jealous over this, are you?"

I wasn't jealous.

I just thought it was kind of funny.

Chase was known around the company for being brilliant. He could skim a hundred-page quarterly report once and recite it back to you. He could tell you who sat where and said what in a meeting from three years ago.

But when it came to me, it was like his brain just shorted out.

Like the night he proposed.

We were having dinner at the little place downstairs we always went to. He put down his fork, reached across the table, and asked if I'd marry him.

His hand was empty.

He said the ring wasn't ready yet. Then he said he wasn't really a ring guy anyway, that wearing one felt like being on a leash. On our wedding day, he'd slip a one-of-a-kind ring on my finger himself.

That one-of-a-kind ring did end up on someone's finger. Mallory's.

And the guy who was so scared of being tied down still couldn't bring himself to take his own off.

Jealous?

I'd spent this whole month scrolling through their honeymoon pictures. A sunset on the beach, a cable car over snowy mountains, a sidewalk café in Paris. They looked perfect together in every single one.

By the last one, I didn't feel a thing.