Chapter 9 — The Woman Who Won

"Is there a card?" I asked.

The receptionist read the name.

I closed the document on my screen.

"Please refuse the delivery. I'm coming down."

By the time I reached the lobby, the courier was waiting with a white arrangement large enough to hide his chest. The gift box rested on the counter.

"Sorry," I told him. "I can't accept these."

"No problem. Happens more often than you'd think."

He made a note, picked up the box, and left.

I gave reception Preston's name and asked them to decline future personal deliveries from him. Then I spoke to my manager before somebody else had to explain the situation for me.

"An ex-partner is trying to contact me after I've asked him not to," I said. "He has no business here."

She asked what I wanted the office to do. We agreed that any visit would stay with reception and that no one would disclose my schedule or personal number.

I wrote down the delivery time in the file I'd started in Boston.

That afternoon, an email arrived from an address I didn't recognize.

You always wanted the bracelet back. I thought it would be a start.

There was a photograph of the sapphire bracelet Preston's mother had intended me to wear.

I saved the email and sent one reply.

I have asked you to stop contacting me. Gifts do not change that request.

Then I blocked the address.

Nathan came over that evening with groceries we'd agreed to split. He found me sitting on the floor beside an unopened flat-pack shelf.

"Bad instructions?"

"Bad day."

He sat down, leaving the bags near the kitchen.

I told him about the flowers.

"Would you like help doing anything about it?" he asked.

"I've spoken to work. I'm keeping records. If he keeps escalating, I'll get advice about the next step."

"All right."

"You're not going to tell me to let you handle him?"

"I'd like to tell him several things. That doesn't mean I get to decide how you handle this."

I leaned against his shoulder.

For a while, we stayed on the floor.

Then he picked up the instructions.

"This shelf is upside down."

"Don't make me regret inviting you."

He kissed my temple.

"Too late. I'm committed to the shelf now."

We built it badly, took it apart, and built it correctly. He went home before midnight because he had an early site visit, and I went to bed without having to wonder where he really was.

Sienna called the following Saturday.

Her name still appeared on my screen. I hadn't blocked it; I hadn't expected to need to.

I answered while sorting old photographs from my laptop.

"You need to stop this," she said.

"Stop what?"

"Whatever you're telling Preston. He's still in Ireland."

I moved the cursor away from a photograph of us at graduation.

"I've told him to leave me alone."

"He won't come home. He barely answers me."

"That's between you and him."

"Don't act like you didn't plan this. You knew he'd follow you."

"I told him not to come. In writing."

"You're enjoying it."

I looked at the two girls in the photograph. Sienna had borrowed my gown because she'd spilled coffee on hers. Her arm was hooked through mine.

There had been a time when I'd have spent an hour trying to make her understand me.

"I'm at home, organizing photographs," I said. "Your relationship isn't part of my afternoon."

"He isn't my boyfriend."

"Then why are you calling me about him?"

She went silent.

I deleted the photograph from the folder I was preparing for the living room. I kept the evidence folder separate. Remembering what happened didn't require displaying it.

"You took him to another country," Sienna said finally. "You put another man in his place. What did you expect?"

"I expected an adult to hear the word no."

"After ten years?"

"Yes. Especially after ten years."

I ended the call and blocked her number.

Sienna arrived in Dublin three days later.

Preston met her in the lobby of the serviced apartment he'd rented. He had a laptop open upstairs, filled with unanswered questions about the proposal he'd abandoned before the Iceland wedding.

His assistant had stopped inventing excuses for him.

"You need to come back," Sienna said.

"Why are you here?"

"Because you're ruining everything. Your father won't even speak to me. Lucy says I should give you space. I've given you space."

He looked at her hand.

The ring was still there.

"Take it off."

She curled her fingers.

"Not this again."

"It wasn't mine to give you."

"You managed perfectly well at the time."

He had been trying not to think about that. Now he couldn't look anywhere else.

"I want it back."

"So you can give it to her?"

He didn't answer.

Sienna laughed once.

"She's made an absolute fool of you, and you're still carrying things to her door."

"Don't talk about her."

"You used to like it when I did."

That landed hard enough to silence him.

She stepped closer.

"I was there when she wasn't. I went with you. I made things easy."

"Easy?"

"Yes. You didn't have to spend every evening discussing her work or her mother's appointments."

He looked up sharply.

"What happened at the care center?"

Sienna stared at him.

"You're asking now?"

"Tell me."

"I asked Ruth to talk to her."

"Audrey said you brought up her father."

"I did. So what? I thought if her mother was worried about the wedding, she'd convince her to stop being stubborn."

Preston felt cold.

"She became unwell."

"I didn't touch her."

"You told me you came out of concern."

"And you believed it because you wanted the argument over. Don't make that my fault."

He remembered Audrey holding a cardigan outside the room. Her voice asking him what, exactly, he wanted her to do differently.

He had told her to apologize.

Sienna pulled off the ring and pushed it against his chest.

"Here. Take it. Try another present. Apparently, that's all you know how to do."

He caught it before it fell.

She looked at his closed fist, then turned away.

He didn't follow.

On Thursday evening, an email reached the address I'd reserved for settling the remaining practical matters with Preston.

I recognized the subject before opening it.

The ring. And an apology.

He wrote that he knew more about the care-center visit now. He said Sienna had returned the ring. He asked for one meeting, somewhere I chose.

I read the message twice.

Returning a ring didn't undo giving it away. Learning the truth about Sienna didn't explain why he'd refused to listen to me.

But there were still questions about expenses he might later use to reopen contact. I'd been gathering the receipts. I could put everything in one place and finish it.

I called Nathan.

"I'm considering meeting him once," I said. "In public. To close out the money and tell him again that it's over."

"Do you want me there?"

"Nearby. Not at the table."

"I can do that."

I waited until the next morning before replying to Preston.

Saturday. Eleven. The café by my office. Thirty minutes. I will not accept the ring, and this is not a conversation about getting back together.

His answer arrived almost immediately.

Thank you. I'll be there.

I printed the receipts and put them in a folder.

This time, I would bring more than his promises to the table.