I arrived thirty minutes early, wearing the black velvet dress Callum loved.

In my purse sat a small box. Inside were platinum cufflinks I had designed myself. On the back of each one, I had engraved the date of our first date.

Four years. Tonight was supposed to be ours.

I pushed open the door to the private room and froze.

Sienna Vale, Callum's childhood friend, sat beside him at the window table. She was holding out a forkful of tiramisu, and he leaned in to take it.

A waiter slid past me. "Mr. Sterling, the usual for you and Miss Vale?"

"Yes, thanks," Callum said.

He hadn't even noticed me in the doorway.

"Maren!" Sienna jumped up, her cheeks pink. "Oh my God, is tonight your anniversary? I had no idea. I was just passing by, and..."

Callum pulled her chair back out for her. "Sit down, Si. Maren doesn't mind. We're practically family."

The window table only had two seats. A staff member dragged an extra chair into the aisle for me. There was no plate in front of me and no silverware. Someone remembered my water glass five minutes later.

I opened the menu so I wouldn't have to look at them.

Ribeye. Mushroom soup. Lemon tart. All of it was Sienna's favorite.

In the center of the table sat a platter of raw oysters. I'm allergic to them.

Callum followed my gaze, and his face changed. "Take those away, please. And bring her the butternut squash soup."

He reached over and smoothed my hair. "You should've said something, sweetheart."

For a second, my chest loosened. That was the Callum I knew.

Then the manager walked in with a bottle of champagne.

"Mr. Sterling, Miss Vale! Congratulations on your one hundredth reservation with us." He set down a framed photo. "A small gift from the house."

In the photo, the two of them sat at this same window table and smiled at each other.

Sienna flipped the frame over and laughed softly. "Oh, Cal, look. Our old note."

Engraved on the back were the words *C & S, always our table.* Below them was a date from three years ago.

My fingers went cold on the menu.

"That's the night of my father's funeral," I said.

Callum's fork stopped in midair.

"You promised to sit with me through the vigil," I said. "You left at two in the morning. You said there was an emergency at the office."

"Maren..."

"One hundred dinners." I set the menu down. "Why did no one ever tell me?"

Sienna's eyes filled at once. "It's just a monthly thing. Old friends catching up. I'm sorry. I shouldn't take up so much of his time."

Callum brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb. Then he turned to me, and his voice went flat.

"We've known each other for twelve years. You knew that when you agreed to marry me."

I laughed. I hadn't planned to. It just came out of me, short and dry.

Sienna sniffed. "Cal, after you two get married, can we still keep our dinners?"

"Of course." He didn't hesitate. "Maren isn't that kind of woman."

I never took the cufflinks out of my purse.

When we left, Sienna slid into the passenger seat without a word. She adjusted it back two notches, as if her body already knew the angle. The car's speakers came on with her playlist.

I sat in the back. My reflection floated in the dark window, pale above the black velvet.

We stopped outside her building.

"My heater's broken," Sienna said quietly. "I hate being alone up there when it clanks."

"I'll take a look." Callum unbuckled. "Ten minutes, Maren."

Forty minutes later, he came back holding a hot chocolate. The lid was already off. It had cooled to the perfect temperature, half sweet, just the way I liked it.

"Peace offering," he said, and smiled.

I reached for it.

Sienna came running out the front door in her coat. "Cal, the whole place just lost power. Something's sparking in the wall. Could I stay with you two tonight?"

"The guest room next to ours is free," Callum said.

I almost dropped the cup.

"No," I said. "Not that room."

That room held my father's pocket watch, his jewelry sketches, and every last thing he left behind. Callum had installed the lock himself. He had looked me in the eye and promised no one would ever go in.

"Maren." Sienna's voice trembled. "It's fine. I'll find a hotel. I don't want you two fighting because of me."

Callum opened the car door for her. "She's not a stranger, Maren."

"Do you even remember what today is?" I asked.

He went still. Then he took my hand, and his voice softened like warm butter.

"I haven't forgotten our anniversary. Don't ruin it over a room."

I watched him lean in and buckle Sienna's seatbelt.

He remembered the date. He just never thought the day belonged to me.

At home, Sienna carried her overnight bag into my father's room. Callum unlocked the door for her himself.

I lay awake beside him until his breathing slowed.

Just past midnight, my phone lit up with an email.

*Royal College of Art, London. Postgraduate Program in Jewelry Design. We are delighted to offer you a place. The term begins in seven days.*

I read it three times.

Then I opened the airline app and booked a one-way ticket.

I didn't wake Callum. I didn't type a single word to him.

My thumb was on the power button when a sharp crack split the silence.

Glass shattered on the other side of the wall.

It came from my father's room.

I was out of bed before the sound stopped ringing.

The guest room door stood open. Lamplight spilled across the floor. Sienna stood barefoot in a field of broken glass with my father's pocket watch in her hand.

The cover had split down the middle. The second hand had frozen at 11:47.

That was the exact minute my father died.

"Maren." Her face had gone chalk white. "I was looking for a blanket. I opened the cabinet, and it just fell out. I swear."

My eyes moved past her to the display cabinet. Its glass door hung open. The little brass lock dangled from one hinge.

"That cabinet was locked," I said.

"I know, I just..."

"So how did you know where the key was?"

Her chin wobbled. Then it crumpled. "Cal told me. He said I might need something in the night, and he didn't want me waking you. He showed me where the spare was."

Of course he did.

I held out my hand. She set the watch in my palm. A sliver of the broken cover bit into my skin, but I barely felt it.

Three years ago, I had been standing at the airport gate with my boarding pass in my hand. My father had maybe a day left. Then Callum called, burning with a fever of a hundred and three, and his voice cracked when he said my name.

I turned around. I went to his hospital bed instead of my father's.

My father waited for me all night. He never saw me again.

Callum had held me after the funeral. *I'll take care of you for him,* he'd said into my hair. *You'll never face losing someone alone again.*

Now the last thing my father ever carried lay broken in a room Callum had opened with his own hands.

"Get out," I said.

"Maren, please." Sienna grabbed my wrist. "I didn't mean it."

I yanked my arm free.

She stumbled back one step, right onto a jagged piece of glass. She shrieked. Blood bloomed under her heel and smeared across the floorboards.

Footsteps pounded down the hall.

"Si?" Callum burst through the doorway. His gaze went straight to her foot. "Jesus. Don't move."

He swept her up into his arms in one motion. He didn't look at me once.

Sienna hooked her arms around his neck and sobbed into his collar. "It's my fault. Don't blame Maren."

He tilted her foot toward the light. He checked the cut with such careful fingers that my chest went tight.

Two years ago, I sliced my finger open while I was dicing onions. He had carried me to the car just like that. He drove through four red lights, and he held my hand in the ER until sunrise. He wouldn't loosen his grip even when the nurse asked him to.

"The watch is broken," I said.

Finally, he turned. His eyes dropped to my palm and the blood running down my wrist.

Something flickered across his face, soft and pained. "Maren. Does it hurt?"

I opened my mouth.

Sienna whimpered against his shoulder. "Cal, it's really deep..."

His attention snapped back to her. "The first aid kit's in our bedroom," he told me. "Clean yourself up first, okay?"

I didn't move.

"Do you remember what this watch means to me?" I asked.

He was quiet for a few seconds. "I'll find the best watchmaker in the city. If they can't fix it, I'll buy you one exactly like it."

"There's no other watch in the world my father engraved by hand."

His brow pulled down. "Do you expect me to leave her bleeding over a broken watch?"

A broken watch.

I searched his face for the man who'd promised me forever. I wanted to explain that it wasn't a watch. It was my father. It was the last piece of him that still ticked.

Instead, I nodded.

I just nodded, like he'd asked me to pass the salt.

"Cal, stay with her," Sienna murmured. "I can call a car to the hospital myself."

He was already carrying her to the door. "Maren is stronger than you think."

The door clicked shut behind them.

I sank onto the floor among the glass. I photographed the watch and sent it to Mr. Lindqvist, the old restorer who used to share coffee with my father on Sunday mornings.

He replied twenty minutes later.

*I'm so sorry, Maren. The original movement is beyond saving. I can replace the parts so it runs again. But it won't be the same watch.*

I held it against my chest until the sky turned gray. By morning, the cut on my palm had dried into a dark crust.

At ten, Callum's assistant knocked on the door.

"Morning, Ms. Rowe." Priya held out a velvet box. "From Mr. Sterling."

Inside lay an antique pocket watch, the same model as my father's, polished to a mirror shine. Tucked under it was a card in Callum's slanted handwriting.

*I hate seeing you sad. Dinner tonight?*

"It's worth about two hundred thousand," Priya said gently. "He canceled two board meetings to track it down. He also asked me to check whether you'd eaten breakfast."

My heart gave a stupid, traitorous little lurch.

"Tell him thank you," I said.

At three, my phone buzzed. It was Callum.

"How's your hand?" His voice was warm and low, as if last night had never happened. "Did you put antiseptic on it?"

"It's fine."

"I booked Lucette for tonight. Your favorite. I've got a surprise for you, too."

I almost said yes. The word was right there on my tongue.

"And Sienna wants to apologize," he added. "Just don't make her feel worse, okay? She cried the whole way home."

The word died in my mouth.

"I have the final review for the design competition tonight," I said. "I don't have time for dinner."

"Tonight? What time does it end?"

"Around eight."

"Then I'll pick you up myself." His voice dropped, coaxing and sweet. "Win or lose, I'm proud of you, sweetheart."

My eyes burned without warning.

For four years, every time he lowered his voice like that, I had forgiven him. Every single time.

"I'll see you later," I whispered, and hung up before I could say anything else.

My finished piece sat on the workbench, ready to be packed. It was a pendant shaped like an open watch face, with tiny sapphire hands set at the moment my life had stopped.

This was the one thing I still had for myself. I would fight for it one last time.

I wrapped it in silk and closed the case.

I didn't know that across town, Sienna was propped up on Callum's couch with her bandaged foot in his lap.

I didn't know she had already asked him, so sweetly, exactly when and where my review would be.

My entry was called *The Last Second*.

It was a high-jewelry set built from my father's pocket watch. A blue sapphire sat at the center, wrapped in tiny moving gold gears. Time had stopped, but the love kept growing around it.

Two years. More than a thousand sketches. I sold my mother's ring to pay for the metal.

The New York Young Jewelry Design Award came with a scholarship and a contract with an international brand. Callum thought it was a hobby. I never told him the truth. Before I left New York, I wanted to prove I could stand on my own work, without a single Sterling dollar.

At 3:20, the armored courier van pulled away from my building. Submission closed at four.

My phone buzzed. It was Callum.

"Did you eat lunch?"

"A granola bar."

"That's not lunch, Maren." He sighed, fond and patient. "I booked dinner for after. We're celebrating."

I traced the edge of the case on my lap. "What if I lose?"

He laughed softly. "Then I'll still be proud of you."

London rose to the tip of my tongue. *I got in. I'm leaving in six days.*

"Callum, there's something..."

The van slammed forward.

Metal shrieked behind us. My head cracked against the window. The case flew off its rack, and glass burst across the floor.

When I could see again, *The Last Second* lay in three pieces.

I didn't feel the blood on my forehead until it dripped onto my hands. I was already out of the van and on my knees on the asphalt, hunting for stones. One sapphire. Two diamonds. A gear rolled into the gutter.

The main hinge, the heart of the whole piece, was crushed flat.

A white sports car sat crumpled against our bumper. The driver's door opened.

Sienna stepped out, sobbing.

"Maren, oh my God. I just wanted to apologize in person. I followed you, and my phone fell, and I bent down to grab it, and I didn't see the van slow down..."

I pulled out my phone and dialed 911.

She seized my wrist. "Please don't. If there's a police report, I'm done. My racing qualifier is next month."

"You followed my van," I said. "You were looking at your phone."

"I'll fix it! I'll help you fix it!" She dropped to the ground and snatched at the broken gold. Then she screamed. A thin line of red opened across her wrist where the sharp metal had caught her.

Callum's car screeched up to the curb ten minutes later.

He saw me first. He crossed the road in four long strides and cupped my face in both hands.

"Maren, look at me. Are you dizzy? How many fingers?"

His thumbs were warm. His voice shook.

Everything I'd been holding cracked open. I swayed toward his chest.

"Cal..." Sienna's voice floated up behind him, thin and faint.

He turned. He shrugged off his coat as he went and pressed it against her bleeding wrist.

"Sienna hit us," I said to his back. "She destroyed my piece."

He glanced at the wreck, then at her. "Si, why weren't you watching the road?"

That was all.

An officer walked over with a notepad. "Who wants to tell me what happened?"

"Can we get everyone checked out first?" Callum said smoothly. "Any damages, we'll settle privately."

"No," I said. "Put it in the report. She was distracted. She was on her phone."

Callum's brows drew together. "Maren. Don't make this bigger than it is."

"The piece is ruined. Judging closes in forty minutes."

"I'll find the best restorer in the city."

"There's no time."

"I'll call the judges."

"They won't break the rules because you're rich."

He went quiet. Then, low and tired: "It's just one competition, Maren."

My head snapped up. "Do you have any idea what this competition means to me?"

He didn't answer. "There'll be other chances. I'll give you more."

I gathered the broken pieces against my chest and stepped toward the street, waving at a yellow cab. Callum's hand landed on its door and held it shut.

"You'll walk in there with a pile of broken jewelry and humiliate yourself."

Something in me finally snapped.

"You don't get to decide what matters to me!"

The cab driver stared. The officer stopped writing.

Behind us, Sienna doubled over and gagged. A paramedic rushed to her side. "She might have a concussion. We need to take her in now."

Callum looked at me. For one second, I saw him waver. His jaw worked.

Then he turned away.

"Stay and finish with the police," he said over his shoulder. "Once she's okay, I'll go with you to explain to the organizers."

The ambulance doors swung shut on both of them.

At 4:01, an email arrived.

*We regret to inform you that your submission was not received by the deadline. You have been removed from final judging.*

I stood on the curb with the sapphire in my fist. I waited for the tears.

None came.

---

At seven, I unlocked my apartment to pack.

Callum and Sienna were already on the couch. Her wrist was wrapped in white gauze. Her eyes were swollen. On the coffee table lay a stapled document.

*Accident Settlement Agreement.*

Callum uncapped a fountain pen and slid it toward me. "Sign this. You waive any civil claim against Sienna."

"No. She has to answer for what she did."

Sienna's face crumpled. "I know I was wrong, Maren. I know. But if this goes on my record, they'll pull my license. I've been training for this since I was sixteen."

"I trained for mine for two years," I said.

Callum leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Your competition is over. Punishing her won't bring it back. Sign, and I'll build you your own studio. Private. Fully equipped. Anything you want."

"I don't need your charity."

He watched me for a long moment. His face gave nothing away.

Then he took out his phone and made a call.

"Gary. It's Callum Sterling. The Brooklyn studio lease. Stop the renewal. Have the space cleared tonight."

I shot to my feet.

My father's old studio held every design he ever drew. Callum had promised to protect it until I was ready to sort through it myself. He had sworn it on my father's grave.

"Are you threatening me?"

"I'm giving you a choice."

Sienna tugged his sleeve. "Cal, don't. Please. I'm not worth hurting her over."

He pressed the pen into place again, right beside my hand.

My phone rang. It was a video call from Mr. Okafor, the old caretaker at the Brooklyn building.

"Maren?" His face was wet with rain. "They're moving everything out. I tried to stop them."

He turned the camera.

Box after box of my father's sketches sat stacked on the open loading dock. Rain drummed on the cardboard. The top page had already soaked through, and the gray pencil lines were bleeding into nothing.

I knew that drawing.

It was a ring with two hands clasped around a small stone. My father had drawn it for me the week before he died. *For your wedding,* he'd said.

I grabbed Callum's arm. My voice barely made it out.

"Please. Make them stop."

He looked down at me. Something soft passed behind his eyes, and for a heartbeat I thought he would end the call.

He didn't.

He nudged the pen one inch closer.

"Then sign it, sweetheart."