Every time Gavin Northwood promised to marry me, someone we loved got hurt.
Chapter 3
Gavin’s fingers dropped from my wrist.
“Sterling?”
Julian glanced at him.
“Is there a problem?”
Paige found her voice first.
“This is ridiculous. Maris has been chasing Gavin for ten years.”
Julian’s gaze moved to her.
“And during those ten years, Miss Merrick, who guaranteed the commercial loan that saved your bridal studio?”
Paige went pale.
Julian continued.
“Maris.”
He looked at Margaret.
“And who spent three weeks caring for you after your conveniently timed broken leg?”
Margaret gripped a chair.
“She did.”
Then his eyes settled on my mother.
“And who used Maris’s name to guarantee loans for Serena’s education?”
My mother opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Julian turned to the reporters.
“My attorneys have provided your editors with authenticated copies of the group conversation called Operation Protect Gavin and Serena.”
The room erupted.
Gavin stared at him.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing you didn’t do to yourself.”
Reporters checked their phones.
Then the questions began.
“Mr. Northwood, did you fake your dog’s death?”
“Mrs. Ellington, did you stage an injury to stop your daughter’s wedding?”
“Miss Colbrook, were you secretly engaged to Gavin while your sister believed she was his fiancée?”
“Mr. Northwood, is it true there were twenty-nine staged incidents?”
Serena burst into tears.
“Gavin, make them stop.”
Gavin looked at me.
For the first time, I saw fear in his eyes.
“Maris, you planned this.”
“No.”
“You went to Sterling behind my back.”
I almost smiled.
“You told me to learn to be independent.”
His face tightened.
“I took your advice.”
Julian put my hand through his arm and led me outside.
Behind us, Gavin called my name.
I didn’t turn.
At St. Jude’s Chapel, there were no hundreds of guests.
No orchestra.
No towering flowers.
Only Julian, me, a registrar, two witnesses, and rain tapping softly against stained-glass windows.
I hesitated before signing.
Julian noticed.
“You can still walk away.”
I looked at him.
“Would you hate me?”
“No.”
“Would you be embarrassed?”
“No.”
“What if everyone in Merrowfield laughed?”
A faint smile touched his face.
“Then Merrowfield would have found a very expensive hobby.”
I laughed.
It was the first genuine laugh I’d had in weeks.
Then I signed.
Outside, Julian opened an umbrella.
On the ride away, he handed me a cup of tea from a thermos.
“Drink.”
I smiled. “Still ordering people around?”
“Only the stubborn ones.”
I stared out at the rain.
“How long did you know?”
“Enough to worry.”
“You could have told me.”
“I thought about it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He was quiet before answering.
“Because ten years ago, you chose Gavin. If I had appeared with evidence before you were ready to see him clearly, you would have defended him.”
I wanted to argue.
I couldn’t.
For years, I had defended Gavin against everyone, including myself.
Julian continued.
“I didn’t want you to leave because I told you to. I wanted you to leave because you finally understood you deserved to.”
I turned toward him.
“And our old agreement?”
His expression softened.
“I remembered every word.”
“You were serious?”
“Maris, I was twenty and already studying contract law. Of course I was serious.”
I laughed again.
Then he became quiet.
“I loved you then.”
My smile faded.
He looked straight ahead.
“I loved you enough to step aside when you wanted someone else. I can’t promise you’ll wake up tomorrow suddenly in love with me. I don’t expect that.”
“What do you expect?”
“Honesty.”
He looked at me.
“And the chance to give you a life where you never have to beg for a place at the table.”
My eyes filled.
Not because it was romantic.
Because it was kind.
I had forgotten kindness could be simple.
By morning, Merrowfield knew everything.
The chat records spread across local news.
The so-called curse became a public scandal.
Elias Vance admitted Gavin had paid him to frighten me away from wedding dates.
Paige’s involvement destroyed her reputation.
Margaret stopped answering reporters.
My mother called me seventeen times before breakfast.
On the eighteenth, I answered.
“Maris!” she shouted. “Take those records down! Serena hasn’t slept!”
I listened quietly.
“Did I sleep when I thought you were in intensive care?”
Silence.
“That was different.”
“How?”
“You’re stronger than Serena.”
The words hit me strangely.
For my entire life, people had used my strength as permission to hurt me.
Maris will manage.
Maris can wait.
Maris doesn’t need as much.
Maris will forgive us.
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t different.”
“I’m your mother.”
“Then you should have known better.”
I ended the call.
A few days later, I signed papers opening my own interior design studio.
I had loved design before Gavin persuaded me to quit.
Walking into that empty office with sunlight spilling across the hardwood floors, I felt as if someone had returned a missing piece of my life.
Julian stood beside me.
“What do you think?”
I looked around.
“I think the walls are terrible.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“That’s your professional assessment?”
“They’re depressing.”
“Then fix them.”
“I will.”
He smiled.
There was no rescuing in his voice.
No instruction that I owed him gratitude.
Just confidence that I could build something.
Four days after the scandal, Gavin found me leaving the building.
He looked terrible.
His expensive suit was wrinkled, his eyes red.
“Maris.”
Two security guards moved forward, but I raised a hand.
“It’s fine.”
Gavin stared at my wedding ring.
“So it’s true.”
“Yes.”
“You married him.”
“Yes.”
His mouth twisted.
“How could you marry somebody else that fast?”
I almost admired the question.
After ten years of lying to me, Gavin still believed my loyalty belonged to him.
“You were marrying Serena.”
“That wasn’t the same.”
“It was exactly the same.”
He stepped closer.
“Serena left.”
I said nothing.
“The moment the company started losing investors, she packed her bags. She was going to leave the country.”
There was disbelief in his voice, as though betrayal were an invention Serena had created personally for him.
“I made a mistake,” he whispered.
“A ten-year mistake?”
“I thought I loved her.”
“You did.”
“No. I loved who I thought she was.”
“And I loved who I thought you were.”
He flinched.
Then, right there on the sidewalk, Gavin dropped to one knee.
People stopped.
“Come home with me.”
I stared down at him.
“I’ll marry you tomorrow. Anywhere you want. Any church, any dress, any number of guests. I’ll spend the rest of my life making this right.”
Once, those words would have been everything.
I had dreamed of hearing them.
I had cried for them.
Prayed for them.
Bled for them.
Now they arrived ten years too late.
“When I told you I was sick,” I said, “do you remember what you said?”
His face went still.
“You said the medicine was in the nightstand. You told me I was thirty years old and should learn to be independent.”
“Maris—”
“I did.”
I stepped back.
“I’m independent now, Gavin.”
His eyes filled.
“I don’t need your medicine anymore.”
I walked away.
This time he didn’t follow.
