It was the first day of auditions for the Whitmore Symphony Orchestra, and the new girl—Jasmine Mercer—had barely set down her portfolio before she walked straight up to Julian's piano.

"I heard only your wife is allowed to play this," she said, tilting her head with a bright, curious smile. "Does that mean I can't?"

Julian didn't even look up from his paperwork. "Go ahead."

The room went quiet.

Every one of my colleagues glanced over at me. They all knew what I was—the woman who'd been almost-Mrs.-Whitmore for seven years, the one who had helped build this orchestra from nothing while somehow never quite making it through the front door of Julian's life. And they all knew that he had never, not once, let me touch that piano. It had belonged to his mother. He'd made that very clear.

I kept my expression neutral and looked away.

After auditions, the orchestra manager pulled me aside.

"Roselyn. The piano duet you'd been preparing with Julian—you can take that off your schedule."

I already knew what was coming.

"He wants to do it with Jasmine."

I nodded once. "Understood."

That evening, I sat on the edge of my bed and dialed a number I hadn't called in a long time.

He picked up on the fourth ring, voice thick with sleep.

"Roselyn?" A pause. "Am I dreaming?"

"You can say no," I said.

"Say no to what—"

"A few years ago you told me you'd marry me at Vienna Royal Music Palace. Does that offer still stand?"

There was a crash on the other end of the line—the unmistakable sound of someone falling clean out of bed. Then his voice came back, breathless and wide awake:

"Yes. Absolutely yes. Any time. Name the date."

I smiled despite myself. It was the first moment all day that something in my chest had loosened.

Julian came home an hour later, tugging at his tie, not noticing my packed suitcase by the door.

"Make me something for this hangover," he said. "The welcome reception ran long. The new girl was trouble."

I glanced at the lipstick on his collar. I didn't move.

"Julian. We should end this."

He blinked. Looked down. Saw the suitcase.

His jaw tightened. He rubbed his temple with two fingers, that handsome face of his still effortlessly compelling even when he was irritated.

"Because I let her play the piano?"

"Can you not be like this? I was just keeping a talented new hire comfortable."

She played through twelve mistakes. Some talent.

He turned toward the bathroom. "Stop overthinking. Go make the soup."

"Julian." My voice was steady. "I told you my plan years ago. I wanted to be married before thirty. I'm thirty now."

He stopped walking. The patience he'd been performing cracked.

"Roselyn, do you have any idea how exhausting this is? Pressuring someone into marriage over and over like this—it makes you look cheap."

He said it like it was nothing. Like seven years was nothing.

"The orchestra is at a critical stage. I can't afford to waste my energy on something like this."

Something in my chest caved quietly, then sealed over.

Seven years. Every new performance, every investor we'd ever signed, every milestone this orchestra had reached—I'd traded my health for those. Blood panels with flagged results shoved into the back of a drawer. Doctors' appointments rescheduled and rescheduled again. All for this.

His energy was too valuable for me. But not for her. Not for a girl who'd been here less than a day, whose comfort he was already thinking about, whose debut he was already planning.

"Julian." I took a breath. "Marry me or end this. Choose."

He yanked off his tie and threw it on the couch.

"Fine. We're done. Do whatever you want."

The shower turned on.

I stood there, listening to the water run, and I thought about all the things I'd never let myself think clearly before.

I'd always known I wasn't his first choice. His world had never lacked for women who wanted him. What I had was stubborn loyalty—I'd stayed when he had nothing, when the orchestra was an idea and a rehearsal space and not much else. And because of that, he'd kept me. Not out of love. Out of convenience. Out of the fact that he'd never had to try.

Love and its absence aren't hard to tell apart, when you're honest.

He'd buy me birthday cakes. But he always got the flavor wrong.

He'd pick up medication when I was sick. But he'd remember to do it a week after I'd already recovered.

I had a folder on my phone full of wedding planning articles—Must-Read for the Bride-to-Be, How to Look Your Best in the Three Months Before the Wedding—that I'd open in stolen moments and then hide again whenever he was nearby. He'd seen the folder once. The look on his face had been enough to make me feel like I was something embarrassing to be managed.

Seven years of running, from hopeful to hollow.

I was tired. That was the whole truth of it.

I was tired, and I was done.