And Victoria — who could not read the quality of that coldness, who mistook a man’s containment for a man’s weakness — laughed.

“Oh, please,” she said.

“It’s not like she can even see the stain.” It was, perhaps, the single cruelest thing said that evening, and it was the sentence that ended everything, though Victoria would not understand that for weeks.

Chapter 5 — It’s Over

Something inside Emily, which had been bending all evening, finally broke.

Deliberately, she removed her engagement ring.

She placed it on the table, in the center, where everyone could see it.