Grace's POV
Grace is still pretending to listen to the mayor's wife talk about charity when she feels him.
Not sees. Feels.
The air changes. It gets heavier. It gets charged like the moment before a storm hits. Grace knows that feeling. She felt it five years ago when Ryan looked at her across a church and whispered words that destroyed everything.
She doesn't turn around immediately. That would be too obvious. That would show that she noticed him. That would prove something she doesn't want to prove.
Instead she finishes her conversation with the mayor's wife. She smiles. She makes a comment about the charity foundation. She keeps her voice steady and her expression blank.
Then she turns.
Ryan is still at the bar. He's not trying to hide the fact that he's watching her. He's just standing there with a drink in his hand looking at her like she's something he can't quite believe is real.
Isabella is beside him now. She's talking to someone about jewelry or fashion or something that doesn't matter. Isabella doesn't notice that her husband has stopped listening to her. Isabella doesn't notice anything except how to make herself the center of attention.
Ryan notices Grace.
Claire appears next to Grace and whispers, "He's staring at you like you owe him money or your entire soul. Possibly both."
"I'm going to the bathroom," Grace says.
But she doesn't make it to the bathroom.
Ryan catches up to her near the back hallway where the waiters are preparing drinks. He steps in front of her and suddenly they're alone in a crowd of a thousand people. Suddenly the rest of the world disappears.
Up close, he looks worse than she thought. There are lines around his eyes. His smile, which used to be confident, looks tired. He looks like someone who is slowly dying inside.
Grace doesn't care. She trains herself not to care.
"I need to talk to you," he says.
His voice does something to her chest that she doesn't want it to do. It makes her remember. It makes her feel. It makes her weak in ways she spent five years learning not to be.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Grace says coldly.
"I know," Ryan says. "But I'm asking anyway."
He's asking. Not demanding. Not trying to control her. Just asking. And somehow that's worse because the old Ryan would have demanded. The old Ryan would have assumed she'd say yes. But this Ryan is different. This Ryan is careful.
Grace hates that she notices this.
"Your wife is over there," Grace says, pointing with her eyes.
"I know where my wife is," Ryan says. "I want to know where you've been."
"Away from you," Grace says. "That was the goal."
"I deserve that," Ryan says quietly. "But Grace, I need to explain something. I need you to understand what happened. I need you to know that I was a coward and I've been paying for it ever since."
Grace's hands are shaking. She puts them in her pockets so he won't see.
She spent five years building a version of herself that doesn't need explanations from Ryan Steel. She spent five years learning to be strong alone. She spent five years becoming a senator so that she would never again be just the girl he left.
And he's asking her to let him explain.
Everything inside her screams that she should walk away. That she should tell him to leave her alone. That she should forget he ever opened his mouth tonight.
But another part of her wants to hear what he has to say. That part is weak and stupid and dangerous.
"Not here," Grace says quietly. "We can't do this here."
Relief floods his face like he just won something. "Tomorrow?"
Grace wants to say no. She wants to say never. She wants to walk away and pretend this never happened.
Instead she says, "There's a coffee shop on Fifth Street. Sunrise Coffee. Tomorrow at 10 AM."
"I'll be there," Ryan says immediately.
"Don't," Grace says. "Don't be there like you're doing me a favor. Don't be there thinking you're going to fix something. Be there knowing that nothing is fixed and probably nothing can be."
"Okay," Ryan says.
"And don't tell Isabella," Grace adds.
Ryan looks at her like she just asked him to do something impossible. "Grace..."
"Don't tell her," Grace repeats. "I don't need her knowing about this."
Ryan nods. "I won't tell her."
Grace walks away before he can say anything else. Before he can make her weaker. Before he can pull her back into his orbit completely.
She finds Claire by the dessert table and tells her they need to leave now.
Claire takes one look at Grace's face and doesn't ask questions. They get their coats and leave the gala. In the car, Claire doesn't push. She just drives and lets Grace breathe.
By the time Grace gets home, her hands are still shaking.
She sits on her bed and stares at nothing. She's supposed to be strong. She's supposed to be above this. She's supposed to be past the point where Ryan Steel can affect her like this.
But she's not.
Seeing him broke something open inside her that she spent five years sealing shut. The moment his eyes met hers, five years of work cracked.
She thinks about not showing up tomorrow. She thinks about calling and canceling. She thinks about pretending the gala never happened.
But she knows she won't do any of those things.
She knows that at 10 AM tomorrow, she will walk into Sunrise Coffee. She will sit across from the man who humiliated her in front of five hundred people. She will listen to whatever he has to say.
And she doesn't know if that makes her brave or stupid.
She doesn't know if hearing his explanation will help her move forward or pull her backward.
She just knows that she can't not go.
That night she doesn't sleep. She lies in bed and thinks about what happened five years ago. She thinks about the wedding dress. She thinks about Isabella walking down the aisle. She thinks about the moment her entire life broke.
She thinks about how, somehow, standing in a hallway at a charity gala with Ryan Steel looking at her like she was the only real thing in the room, some small part of her still wanted him to be the person she thought he was.
And that terrifies her more than anything else.
By morning, Grace is exhausted. She's nervous in a way she hasn't been nervous in years. She tries to eat breakfast but she can't. She tries to work but she can't focus.
At 9:45, she puts on a simple blouse and jeans. She fixes her hair. She doesn't wear makeup. She wants to look like someone who doesn't care what he thinks.
She drives to Sunrise Coffee.
She's early so she sits in her car and waits. She watches people come and go. Normal people living normal lives. People who don't have complicated histories with billionaires. People who didn't spend five years trying to forget someone.
At 9:58, she sees him pull up.
He looks like he hasn't slept either. He looks like a man who has been thinking about this moment since the gala ended. He looks nervous.
Grace takes a deep breath.
She gets out of her car and walks into the coffee shop.
Ryan is already there. He's sitting at a table by the window. He's ordered two coffees. Black for himself. The way Grace likes it. He remembers.
That detail, small as it is, breaks something inside her.
She sits down across from him and they don't say anything for a long moment. They just look at each other. Five years of absence sitting between them like a wall. Five years of pain and growth and change.
Finally Ryan speaks.
"I made a terrible mistake," he says quietly. "The worst mistake of my life. And I need you to know the truth about what happened and why it happened."
Grace picks up her coffee. She holds it with both hands because they're shaking and she doesn't want him to see.
"Tell me," she says.
And that's when everything starts to change.