Chapter 495

Chapter 495:

Right. Cold feet. Or at the very least, a late case of pre-wedding jitters.

“To our friends and families—okay, maybe not the family part—but to our friends, it doesn’t feel real. Even Yvaine keeps pestering me to confirm her as maid of honor p>

Mira gave a tired smile. “She wants it in writing. As if I’d pick anyone else p>

I nearly said, “Maybe it’s because she thinks you’re not taking the wedding seriously,” but thought better of it. That’d only make things worse.

So I kept my mouth shut.

“Anyway, got asked out today.” Her smile turned sheepish.

“You’re wearing a ring,” I said, instantly on guard. “Was it Fabrizio? Wouldn’t put it past a Frenchman p>

“Not him. Someone else at the company. He didn’t know—I’d taken the ring off because I was using the laser cutter p>

The ring was back on her finger now. That soothed me. A little.

I liked that she told me things like this. It meant she trusted me.

But the darker part of me—the part that hadn’t unlearned jealousy—was unsettled. She didn’t even flinch when she told me. Either she knew I wouldn’t be upset, or she knew I would, and didn’t care.

Neither option felt good.

“Anyway, that was my day. How about you? Anyone hit on you?” she asked, her tone light. She looked up at me, backlit by the streetlamp outside the window, lashes shadowing her eyes. Hard to read her.

My mind jumped to dinner, to Lea’s tears.

She had been part of the founding team when I started up in Wessexia, but we hadn’t met in person for years, despite her now being CEO of Titanova.

All our meetings since had been video calls—formal, clipped, distant.

I knew it was her way of telling me she was still pissed. She thought I’d bailed on the company, leaving her and the gang to carry it alone while I faded into a background shareholder role.

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I got it. She wasn’t the only one who felt that way, just the most vocal, so I kept my distance.

Still, it stung when she didn’t invite me to her wedding.

Over time, we’d let the silence stretch. Updates about each other came secondhand, via Olivier or Kylian.

An occasional holiday card. That was it.

Which made it all the more shocking when she confided in me over dinner—told me what her husband had done.

Mira was still watching me. Her bare face made her look younger than twenty-four. Like a uni student still figuring life out. She was waiting for an answer.

Lea’s name reached the back of my throat. But I didn’t say it.

Would it help Lea to hear about someone else’s experience? Hers and Mira’s weren’t the same, though.

I knew Mira had ended things with Rhys after he slapped her. Just once—but once was enough. She’d told me everything. Her stance on domestic violence was zero tolerance. I agreed.

But Lea? She was still with Pierre Marchand, even after telling me all the things he’d done—hitting her when drunk or angry, stalking her when he thought she was cheating.

I told her—no, demanded—that she divorce him. Right then and there.