49%


    “I will,” she said, drawing out the words like she was bored.


    Then, with a quick goodbye, Anna and I walked to the door. Roman caught me just before I left.


    “A word, Amber,” he said. He eyed Anna, who had also stopped. “Privately, please…”


    Anna had offered to drive me to the event, so she seemed annoyed by this. Still, after a look from me, she said, “I’ll wait in the


    car.”


    Once we were alone, Roman said, “You had to say you would go in front of Anna and Alice, but you don’t have to put up the brave


    front for me. If you want to stay home, I will find a way to get you out of this.”


    I frowned. “I don’t need gotten out of anything, Roman. Not this or anything else. Not by you or anyone else. I’m nervous about going, but it is my decision to go. If I wanted to stay home, I would stay home.”


    His fingers are tight on my arm, not enough to hurt, but enough to mimic a brace, or a shackle.


    “I need to go now,” I said, though now I was hesitating for another reason. “Are you certain you feel well enough to watch Alice?”


    “I feel fine,” he said and released me.


    Though Alice could tend to be lukewarm with Roman, he was good with her. He was also a good friend to me. This behavior was strange though.


    “If you are certain…”


    “I am,” he said.


    “Then I will be back soon,” I told him.


    His face was tight, but he nodded. Even so, he didn’t let me go yet. I waited, but he just stared at me intensely. We were good friends, but not nearly on the same level as Anna and me. We could notmunicate without words.


    If he was trying to convey something to me, I didn’t have a clue what it could be.


    “You have to let me go,” I said, after a few more awkward seconds had passed.


    He looked down at his hand on my arm like he had forgotten it was there.


    “Right,” he said, and released me.


    “I’ll see youter,” I told him.


    “Right,” he said again.


    So strange. But I shrugged it off and headed outside, rushing to Anna’s car. I didn’t want to be more than fashionablyte.


    1/?


    12:40 PM Tue 26 Aug


    Julian’s POV


    ? 49%


    The banquet just started. I’d been to dozens of these events, hundreds probably, yet there was something about this one that had me anxious. I wasn’t nervous, exactly. I felt more like I had a bunch of popcorn kernels popping inside of me.


    I couldn’t sit still, not even as I grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. And not even as Olivia came to stand


    beside me.


    My eyes continually turned toward the door.


    My head didn’t want to admit what my heart already knew…


    I was waiting for Amber to appear.


    “You haven’tplimented my outfit once tonight,” Olivia said, huffy, at my side.


    I hadn’t even looked at her. I nce now, once, in passing.


    Her dress is ck. It’s fine. What did she need apliment from me for?


    “You look nice,” I said, in a half-hearted effort to keep the peace.


    “Nice?” she scoffs. “You can’t do better than that.”


    No, I really couldn’t.


    I didn’t care to.


    And-


    The minute Amber appears, all else falls away.


    Suddenly she was there in the entryway wearing a stunning, shimmering gown. Her hair was drawn up, braided borately around the crown of her head, exposing her long feminine neck. Her makeup was tasteful, subtly highlighting her features without overdoing it.


    She was always beautiful, but this… I felt as if my breath was stolen from me.


    I could have stared at her for hours.


    Maybe I already had.


    Because with her here, looking like this….


    Time had totally stopped.


    12:40 PM Tue 26 Aug