You Gave Her My Anniversary Necklace, So I Chose Your Rival

Grant found me at eight-fifteen the next morning, which meant he'd checked the joint credit card.

I was in the lobby café of the Halden, halfway through a black coffee I didn't want, when he dropped into the chair across from me. He was wearing yesterday's shirt under a fresh blazer, and his jaw was rough with stubble. For a second, he almost looked like a man who'd lost sleep over me.

Then he set his phone face-up on the table, the Harbor Glass email glowing on the screen.

"You want to tell me what this is?"

"It's a cancellation," I said.

"I can read, Audrey." He rubbed his forehead. "Forty percent of the deposit. Do you know what that is? That's eighteen thousand dollars, gone, because you got upset at a birthday party."

"I didn't get upset at a birthday party."

"Then what would you call it? You walked out without a word, you turned off your phone, and you canceled our wedding over email." He leaned in, lowering his voice the way he did when a waiter might overhear. "Viv is my oldest friend. You've known that since day one. It was a necklace. It was a gift. I get that the timing was bad, but you're acting like you caught me in bed with her."

I wrapped both hands around my cup and said nothing.

He took my silence as permission to keep going. He always had.

"Honestly? I think you're doing this on purpose." He sat back. "You want me to pick. You want me to stand in front of everybody and say it's you or her, so you can feel like you won something. That's what this is, right? A test."

I thought about the mirror at Maison Delaure. About his voice saying *It looks like you*.

There were a hundred things I could have said about that necklace. I'd already decided last night that I wasn't going to say any of them. Explaining it to him would mean believing he hadn't understood.

"I'm not testing you, Grant."

"Then call Harbor Glass back. Tell them it was a mistake."

My phone buzzed on the table before I could answer.

The email was from Maison Lune, the private dining room in the West Loop with only six tables and a three-month waitlist. I'd booked it in October for our anniversary. When the Chicago trip came up, Grant had kissed my temple and told me not to worry, he'd move it so we could celebrate when I got home.

*Thank you for dining with us, Ms. West. Please find your receipt below.*

Table for two. Seven-thirty. Last night.

Tasting menu, two. Wine pairing, one. And at the bottom, the line item that made me set my cup down very carefully.

*2002 Krug Clos du Mesnil, reserved by guest. Opened.*

I'd called the sommelier myself in November. I'd asked him to hold that bottle for us. Two thousand and two was the year Grant's father had taken him sailing for the first time, the one story about his childhood he told with his whole face. I'd wanted to watch him read the label.

I turned the phone around and slid it across the table.

Grant glanced at it. I watched him recognize the name, then the date. His mouth tightened.

"You told me you'd moved it," I said.

"I was going to."

"You said you had a reservation for Saturday."

"I was going to *make* one for Saturday." He pushed the phone back toward me. "Look, you weren't here. Do you know how hard it is to get into that place? It seemed stupid to let a table like that sit empty. Viv was having a rough night, so I took her to an early dinner before the party. It's not a big deal."

"You opened the Krug."

"It was sitting there, Audrey. They asked if we wanted it." He let out a breath, like I was exhausting him. "It's champagne. We can buy another bottle."

"Not that one."

"Then a different one. Jesus." He shook his head. "Do you hear yourself? You're keeping score over a bottle of wine."

Behind him, the café door swung open, and I realized he hadn't come alone.

Vivian was standing by the hostess stand in a cream coat, her hair pulled into a neat bun. The necklace was tucked under her collar, but I could see the thin platinum chain at her throat. She must have been waiting by the entrance long enough to hear us. Her eyes were already red.

"Grant, stop," she said softly, coming over. "Please. This is my fault."

"Viv, you don't have to—"

"I do." She turned to me and pressed her hand to her chest. "Audrey, I'm so sorry. I would never have gone to that dinner if I'd known. I would never have touched any of it."

I waited.

"It's just," she said, and her voice wobbled, "Grant told me you don't really care about birthdays and anniversaries and all that stuff. That you think it's kind of performative. He said you'd rather have a quiet weekend than a big dinner, so I honestly thought you wouldn't mind."

She said it like an apology.

It landed like a diagnosis.

I looked at Grant. He'd gone very still, his eyes on the tablecloth.

I'd never said that. Not once in six years. What I'd said, the first year, was that I didn't need anything expensive, because he'd been a junior associate drowning in student loans. What I'd said, the third year, when he forgot entirely, was that it was fine, because his mother was in the hospital.

He'd kept every one of those moments and polished them into a version of me that never needed anything. A woman who didn't care about the necklace, didn't care about the table, didn't care about the date. A woman who couldn't be hurt.

And if I couldn't be hurt, then nothing he gave Vivian was ever taken from me.

"Is that what you tell people?" I asked him.

"That's not what I said." He finally looked up. "I said you're low-maintenance. It was a compliment."

Vivian's hand drifted to her collar, right over the diamond.

I picked up my phone, opened the wedding planning app we'd shared since the engagement, and went to the vendor list. Florist. Photographer. Caterer. The string quartet I'd found after four weekends of auditions. Every single one of them had a little toggle beside it that said *Shared with Grant Calloway*.

I turned them off, one at a time.

Then I opened my email and started typing to each vendor, copying in my personal address and nothing else.

"What are you doing?" Grant asked.

"Moving everything to my account."

"Those are *our* vendors."

"I booked them. I paid the deposits." I didn't look up. "You can have the eighteen thousand back from Harbor Glass if you want to fight me for it."

"Audrey." His voice sharpened. "You're being ridiculous."

I hit send on the last email and set my phone down.

Grant stood, buttoning his blazer the way he did when a meeting was over. Vivian hovered at his elbow, her eyes going between us.

"Fine. Take a few days," he said. "Do whatever you need to do. I'm not going to chase you around a hotel." He picked up his phone and slid it into his pocket, almost gentle now, almost fond. "You always come back after you calm down."

He meant it. That was the worst part. He was completely sure.

I picked up my coffee and took a sip.

What I didn't tell him was that at eleven-forty last night, standing by the elevators on the Halden's rooftop, Sebastian Reed had asked if I'd let him buy me dinner again on Friday.

And I'd said yes.