Three relocation apartments? I could give her three hundred with a single word. A few million in buyout compensation? If she wanted billions, I'd hand them over right now. None of that mattered. All I wanted was to understand how five years between us had just—changed.

But five words from her choked every last one of mine back down my throat.

My voice shook.

‘Mar……married?’

I searched Doris's eyes, over and over.

No reluctance. No one forcing her hand. Not a shred of what we'd been. Just bright want for the life ahead of her.

And tenderness……for another man.

‘That's right!’

She answered with her chin lifted, satisfaction written across her whole face.

‘Look—this is my fiancé, Hubert Chavez.’

She shoved the phone into my face before I could blink.

In the photo, she was nestled against a barrel-chested man with slicked-back hair, her expression shy and coy.

His thick fingers dug into her waist.

There was nothing remotely like affection in his eyes. Just possession. Just appetite.

Three years together, and Doris had never let me so much as hold her.

She always said she was saving everything for after the wedding.

And now……

‘Tch. Stare all you want—you couldn't learn that man's tricks in a hundred years.’

Oscar Pruitt let out a sigh beside her, shaped like pity but soaked in pride.

‘You know Grand Horizon Group, the company running the old-town redevelopment? Dory's future husband works there. The three relocation apartments our family's getting, all that buyout compensation? That's his pull.’

I frowned.

Grand Horizon was one of my subsidiaries. I'd been planning to sign it over to Doris today.

‘What's that look for? You don't believe it?’

Doris swiped through her phone, then tossed it straight into my lap.

‘See for yourself! That's him with the company executives.’

I lit the screen. The first photo had been taken at some upscale club. The date stamp said yesterday.

Working the room with a glass in hand, toasting everyone in sight, was the same Hubert Chavez who'd been holding Doris in that other picture.

And seated dead center—Tom Finch. Director of Grand Horizon's Strategic Planning Division, and the brother who'd built the company with me from nothing.

Doris was from this village, so I'd sent him here to handle the redevelopment buyout.

He had work to handle here today.

I'd come to make the formal proposal.

We'd planned to finish up and drive back to the office together.

I glanced at the time.

Less than an hour before he'd show up.

I kept swiping.

The last photo was taken at the old-town redevelopment site.

In the far corner of the frame, half-turned away from everyone and talking on the phone, was me.

‘See that?’

Doris had clearly noticed I'd reached the final picture.

She jabbed her finger at the figure in the corner—at ‘me’—and her voice climbed even higher.

‘That's Hub's boss. Young, successful, gorgeous. I can't even imagine how lucky the girl who marries him is gonna be.’

I looked at myself in the photo, crisp in a tailored suit.

Then I looked down at what I was actually wearing: faded work pants, a plain white T-shirt. I shook my head. No wonder she couldn't tell. Didn't even look like the same person.

‘Okay, enough! Give it back!’

Doris snatched the phone out of my hands.

The motion was rough enough to yank the chain from under my shirt collar.

It was a couple's necklace. The matching half of the one I'd given her years ago.

I'd never taken it off. Not once.

Doris saw it.

She went still for just a beat, something unreadable flickering behind her eyes.

That got to me.

Five years ago, when I left the village, it was Doris's grandfather who scraped together five hundred dollars so I could afford the trip out — and without that five hundred, there'd be no Job Delgado standing here today.

The old man was gone now, but I still remembered what he'd asked of me before he died.

Whatever I'd once felt for Doris had burned away to nothing in the last half hour,

but the promise I'd made to Grandpa Leonard — that I hadn't forgotten.

I pulled the silver necklace from my neck and looked at Doris.

‘We always said I'd replace this silver necklace with a diamond one. I brought it today — ……’

‘Brought what?!’

Oscar stepped forward, snatched the necklace from my hand, and threw it on the ground.

‘Don't tell me there's a diamond necklace in that pile of junk! Broke as you are, even if you had one it'd be fake!’

‘Enough, Dory. Don't waste your breath on him. It won't sound good if it gets back to Hubie.’

At the mention of Hubert,

that last flicker of hesitation in Doris's eyes vanished.

Her gaze dropped to the necklace on the ground. She stepped on it and ground her heel down hard.

The dirty water and mud caked on her shoe smeared straight across the silver, and the stench of it hit me before I could look away.

My chest clenched tight.

Five years. Women throwing themselves at me, daughters from every prominent family angling for an arrangement — more than I could count, and I'd never once wavered. All that time I thought I was keeping faith with something rare, and it turned out to be a lump of mud.

I was done. There was nothing left worth holding on to.

Tom Finch would be here soon to report on the old-town redevelopment progress.

Given who I actually was, the last thing I needed was too many people learning about this kind of personal mess.

That was exactly why I'd dressed down and driven that beat-up work truck.

All I wanted now was to leave.

But the moment I turned around, Doris blocked my path.

She pointed at the puddle of filthy water on the ground and the gifts soaking in it, chin lifted, voice dripping with contempt.

‘Take your trash with you!’

‘And scrub my family's yard while you're at it! It's filthy — just looking at it makes me sick!’

Lola saw her chance and shoved a broom into my arms.

‘That's right! Clean it all up! A broke nobody like you — sweeping our yard is about all you're good for!’

Five years in the business world had taught me enough.

A man with nothing to hide walks away clean. Petty people cling.

I wasn't going to waste another word on them.

I unclenched my fists, picked up the broom, and swept the mud from the yard, stroke by slow stroke.

Crushed letters. The hair clip I'd bought for Doris. The clothes.

All of it went into the trash, along with everything we'd been.

I'd just finished sweeping and hadn't even set the broom down

when a grating horn blared from down the road.

A beat-up old Mercedes swayed to a stop in front of the Pruitt house.

The door swung open, and out climbed a man in an ill-fitting suit.

That slick, over-gelled hair told me instantly — Hubert Chavez.

He was a lot heavier in person than in the photo.

His bulk squeezed through the car door with visible effort,

and his first move was to kick my truck, spit on the ground, and curse.

‘Which dumbass parked this thing in the way?!’

I cursed Tom Finch ten thousand times in my head.

The man had built Grand Horizon Group from nothing alongside me, and he was solid in every way — except he let too many clowns hang around him.

What kind of bottom-feeder was this, and how did he even land a job at Grand Horizon Group?

The second Tom got here, I was going to deal with this.

‘Mr. Pruitt! Mrs. Lambert! I'm here!’

Hubert jogged into the yard carrying two bottles of red wine, a fawning grin plastered across his face.

Oscar's and Lola's eyes lit up instantly.

They hurried over with beaming smiles to take the bottles from him.

Doris switched expressions just as fast, her face melting into something impossibly sweet,

and she slipped right into Hubert's arms,

letting his hand slide back and forth along her waist

without a trace of the ‘shyness’ or ‘modesty’ she used to perform when she was with me.

Something sleazy flickered behind Hubert's eyes.

He reached down and grabbed a handful of Doris's backside,

then turned to her parents.

‘Mr. Pruitt, Mrs. Lambert—just a little something. Once I move up at Grand Horizon, I'll bring you the real stuff!’

Mid-sentence, his gaze landed on me.

He looked at the pickup parked outside, then at me standing there caked in grime, and his eyes filled with open contempt.

‘So you're Job Delgado?’

He made sure his voice carried, loud enough for the whole village to hear.

‘The broke loser who strung Dory along for five years?’

‘What are you doing at her house?’

‘A formal proposal.’

I answered him straight.

The words barely left my mouth before Hubert let out the most shameless, mocking laugh.

‘You? Rolling up in a beat-up pickup, dressed like that, and you have the nerve to come here with a proposal?’

He stepped closer, his bloated gut pressing into my chest.

‘I'm telling you—you don't deserve her.’

He patted down his ill-fitting suit and pointed at the secondhand Benz parked out front, God knows how many owners deep.

‘See that? I work at Grand Horizon! Dory's family's relocation apartments and their buyout compensation? I arranged all of it!’

‘Only a man with my kind of standing deserves to be with Dory!’

I raised an eyebrow slightly.

‘You arranged it?’

‘Damn right I did!’

Oscar jumped in before Hubert could say more,

‘He works at Grand Horizon. Makes over ten grand a month. He's tight with Director Finch—the one handling the whole village redevelopment. A broke kid like you couldn't catch up to him in your next life!’

The commotion had already drawn a crowd of onlookers outside the yard.

Hearing Oscar's words, they started buzzing among themselves.

‘The Pruitts landed a son-in-law like that? They're set for life!’

‘No kidding. That Delgado kid doesn't even deserve to carry the man's shoes!’

‘Better watch how we talk to Mr. Pruitt from now on. Can't be too casual anymore!’

‘The Delgado boy's not bad either……’

Clyde Lambert barely got the words out before someone beside him cut him off.

‘Keep it down, old man. Cross the Pruitts and see if you get a relocation apartment at all!’

Clyde shook his head helplessly, swallowed whatever he'd been about to say, and retreated to the back of the crowd.

The chatter only pumped Hubert up more.

He thumped his chest and kept going.

‘Once those relocation apartments come through, you're all invited to the wedding! Everyone who shows up gets a big cash gift from me!’

‘And the neighbors who've been good to us lately? I'll have the company let you pick the best apartments first, and I'll push to get your buyout compensation paid out early so you can all rest easy!’

Doris looked up at Hubert with nothing but worship and adoration in her eyes.

I swallowed down the churning in my stomach and turned to her, keeping my voice level.

‘Doris, since you've already made your choice, I wish you well. I hope you don't regret it.’

‘Regret?’

Doris leaned back into Hubert's arms, her gaze on me cold as frost.