For years Liam had been the one protecting me.
After the wedding that never happened, I finally had the chance to protect him too.
Months later, we walked past a hotel ballroom during another family event.
Music drifted through the doors, and for a second I was back beneath the chandeliers at the Plaza, watching Sofia turn pale as the first photograph appeared.
Liam noticed.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
This time, I meant it.
I no longer wore my wedding ring.
Liam no longer carried Sofia’s photograph in his wallet.
The lives we had planned were gone, but so was the lie holding those lives together.
I once thought the worst thing that could happen at my brother’s wedding was discovering my husband kissing the bride.
I was wrong.
The worst thing would have been seeing it, swallowing the truth, and letting both of them walk back into the ballroom believing our silence belonged to them.
It didn’t.
That day, Liam and I lost the futures we thought we had.
But when the ballroom doors finally closed behind Sofia and Itan, we kept something they had underestimated from the beginning.
Each other.
And for the first time since I stepped onto that balcony, I understood why Liam had been able to stand beside me so calmly.
He had not been calm because the betrayal did not hurt.
He had been calm because once the truth was undeniable, neither of us had to protect the lie anymore.
