I never saw Julian again.
I heard that he and Molly continued blaming each other for the breach while maintaining their dead relationship in public.
They never married.
They didn't need vows to bind them. Shared lies, investigations, and mutual leverage did that well enough.
I stopped asking about them.
One year later, my crisis management firm opened its first London office.
Before leaving New York, I went to the Halstead family cemetery to visit Julian's grandmother.
I never became Margaret's granddaughter-in-law.
But the love she had given me during the seven years I was with Julian had been real. The end of our engagement did not erase it.
Someone had left fresh violets beside her headstone.
I laid the emerald brooch she'd given me beside them.
"Grandma, I didn't lose myself
