The Seventh Time novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Seventh Time
At a charity gala Killian breaks their engagement from the stage on his father's cue, Romy finds her grandmother's brooch on his father's assistant, and she leaves the ring in Broderick's glass and says no to Friday; her brother calls to say the loan is due.
Killian broke our engagement for the seventh time in front of two hundred people, with a microphone in his hand.
I stood at the back of the ballroom with a glass of sparkling water and watched him do it.
The Ashworth Foundation gala was livestreamed every year, so the phones were already up.
Ten minutes earlier, in the coat check, he had held both my hands and put his forehead against mine.
"Whatever I say up there, it's the last time," he whispered. "Dad swore it to me. Seven, and it's over. I'll come get you on Friday."
"You said that after six."
"I know." His thumbs pressed into my knuckles. "Trust me one more time."
I had loved that man for three years, so I nodded.
Now he stood on the stage under a chandelier, and he did not look at me once.
"Romy and I have decided to end our engagement," he said. "We wish each other well."
The room made the soft sound a room makes when it already knows the story.
Somebody near me whispered, "Again?"
My own name sat in my ears.
I had been engaged to Killian Ashworth since I was twenty-five.
His father had arranged it over a dinner, to tie my dead father's cold storage warehouses to the Ashworth freight company.
Killian and I were supposed to be a signature on a page.
Instead we had talked until the restaurant stacked its chairs around us.
For three years it had been real, which was exactly why Broderick Ashworth kept testing it.
I looked across the room at Broderick's table.
He sat with his silver head tilted and his soft, pleased face turned toward me.
Beside him sat Delphine Carraway, his assistant, in a cream dress and pearls.
She smiled at me and touched her lapel.
A silver brooch shaped like a spray of wheat was pinned there.
I knew every grain of it.
It was my grandmother's.
I had handed it to Killian in September because he said he wanted it cleaned for my birthday.
My birthday had been three weeks ago.
He had given me a scarf.
I did not feel angry yet.
I felt very clear.
Killian finished his speech and stepped down.
The orchestra began something light, and two hundred people turned to see what my face would do.
I did what I had done six times before.
I put my glass on a passing tray and walked across the floor with my back straight.
Phones followed me, tilted.
I stopped at Broderick's table.
"Romy," Broderick said, and rose a little out of politeness. "You look lovely. Killian will call you Friday."
He said it quietly.
Delphine's smile did not move.
"The brooch," I said to her. "Where did you get it?"
"Killian lent it to me." She touched it again. "Isn't it sweet?"
Behind me, a man cleared his throat.
I turned my head and found Killian standing three feet away, white to the lips.
"Romy," he said. "It's not what it looks like."
"Then what is it?"
He opened his mouth.
His eyes slid to his father.
Broderick didn't speak.
He lifted one eyebrow by a quarter of an inch, and my fiance closed his mouth.
That was the whole answer.
Six times I had waited at home for a phone call, and six times the call had come.
I looked at the man I loved, and I understood he would never answer me while his father was in the room.
I took the ring off my finger.
It was a plain band with a small blue stone, and it had left a pale stripe on my skin.
Broderick's champagne flute stood full on the white tablecloth.
I dropped the ring into it, and it sank through the bubbles.
"I'm not coming on Friday," I said.
Broderick's smile thinned.
"Everyone says that, dear."
"I'm not everyone. I'm done."
I said it loudly enough for the phones.
Then I walked out through the middle of the ballroom, past the tables and the ice sculpture, and nobody stopped me.
Outside, the October air hit my bare arms.
I stood on the museum steps and breathed until my hands stopped shaking.
My phone buzzed.
The first message was from Killian.
"Please don't unpack anything. I'll explain."
I had not unpacked anything in three years of waiting.
The second buzz was a call.
It was my brother Pete, and he never called me after nine at night.
"Romy." His voice was thick. "Where are you?"
"On the steps. Why?"
"Broderick's lawyer just emailed me. The note on the warehouse is called, all of it, due by the thirtieth."
I stared at the dark street.
The thirtieth was seventeen days away, and the number was a million and a half dollars.
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