Stella arrived twenty minutes later in a rush of cold air and apologies, her coat half-buttoned, her curly blonde hair escaping its pins. The room immediately got louder. Bradley stood up so fast he nearly knocked over his chair.

I was grateful for the distraction.

But Stella knew me too well. She always had. Within ten minutes she'd crossed the room, looped her arm through mine, and pulled me toward the door with the practiced ease of someone who had been extracting me from uncomfortable situations since we were twelve.

"Bathroom," she announced to no one in particular.

She didn't actually take me to the bathroom. She stopped in the hallway outside, turned to face me, and looked at me with that expression she had - the one that meant she'd already noticed everything and was just waiting for me to catch up.

"You look terrible," she said. "Not your face. Your face is fine. But you look like you're about to take a deposition."

"I'm just tired."

"Vanessa."

"I am. It's been a long week. I'm sorry, I know this is your dinner-"

"Stop apologizing." She squeezed my arm. "Go home. Get some sleep. I mean it." Then she tilted her head. "Is it Julian?"

"What? No."

"Because you've barely looked at him all night, which is actually more suspicious than if you'd been staring."

"Stella, I don't even know him."

She gave me a long look. Then she sighed and shifted into a different gear - the gentle, careful voice she used when she was about to say something she thought might hurt me.

"He's a good person," she said. "Bradley thinks the world of him. But his family, Vanessa - they're not like regular wealthy. The Sterlings are old money. His grandfather Arthur built the whole thing from the ground up, his father Harrison runs the investment board, his mother Sylvia does the charity circuit, his brother Zane has that security firm - the quiet kind, you know what I mean - and his sister Chloe is everywhere in the society pages. His uncle Charles runs one of the biggest international law firms in the country." She paused. "That's not a family you just walk into. And he's clearly already got something going on with Serena, so I just - I don't want you getting hurt. That's all."

I listened to all of it.

I didn't say anything.

She meant every word kindly. I knew that. She was protecting me the way she always had.

She just didn't know that I already knew all of it. Every name she'd listed, every detail. I'd sat at Arthur's dinner table. I'd watched Harrison read the financial news over breakfast. I'd helped Sylvia sort auction items for a charity gala. I knew that Zane's low profile was deliberate, a choice made to protect the people around him rather than any sign of withdrawal.

I had known this family. I had been part of it, almost.

And I had walked away.

I had made the same choice I'd told Serena I didn't regret, and I'd told the truth. I didn't regret it. I'd had no other option. But standing here listening to Stella describe them all like a fairy tale I could never touch - I felt the loss of it settle somewhere quiet and permanent in my chest.

Four years. Julian had loved me for four years with everything he had.

That was enough, I told myself. It had to be enough.

"You're right," I said. "I know."

Stella studied me for a moment. Then she nodded and took my arm again. "Come on. Let's go back in."

We walked back through the restaurant toward the private dining room. The hallway was long and carpeted, lined with low sconces.

I saw him before I expected to.

Julian was standing at the far end of the corridor near the emergency exit, in the small alcove that served as a smoking area. His back was against the wall, head slightly bowed, one hand raised with a cigarette between his fingers. Smoke drifted in a thin thread past his face.

I stopped walking.

He had never smoked. Not once, in four years. He'd been almost aggressively healthy about it.

Stella glanced at me, then followed my gaze.

I made myself move. We walked toward him, and I kept my eyes forward, aiming for the door to the dining room just past the alcove.

Julian straightened as we got close. He pressed the cigarette out against the wall and stepped into the corridor.

We were almost past him.

His hand shot out and closed around my arm.

Stella made a sharp sound. I felt her freeze beside me.

Julian's grip was firm. Not rough, but absolute. He wasn't looking at Stella. He was looking at me, and his eyes were the same unreadable blue they'd been all evening, but something underneath had shifted - something tight and controlled and barely contained.

"Julian-" Stella started.

He pulled me sideways into the alcove, pushed open the heavy fire door with his shoulder, and brought me through it into the stairwell.

The door swung shut behind us.

The noise of the restaurant cut off completely. Just concrete walls and fluorescent light and the faint hum of the building around us.

He turned and pushed me back against the wall. My shoulders hit the concrete hard. I didn't have time to react before he was right there, both hands pressing down on my shoulders, and then his mouth was on mine.

The whiskey was on his breath, and underneath it something familiar - the faint pine of his soap, unchanged after five years. The kiss wasn't gentle. It was forceful and angry and relentless, like something he'd been holding back all night and had finally stopped trying to contain.

I made a sound against his mouth - pain or shock or both.

I shoved both hands against his chest and pushed.