You stood near the wide marble-topped coffee table, the cool stone brushing the backs of your thighs through the thin fabric of your silk slip dress. The dress was the color of pale champagne, something you’d bought hoping it would soften him tonight. It hadn’t. Wedding binders and glossy printouts lay scattered across the surface—pages of floral arrangements heavy with blush and cream roses, the kind that cost thousands per stem when sourced from the right greenhouse. Fifty thousand dollars just for the ceremony arches and centerpieces. You had circled them in gold ink, heart-shaped notes scribbled in the margins: these, exactly these.

Nate leaned against the kitchen island a few feet away, arms crossed over his broad chest. His eyes were fixed on you with the kind of unyielding focus that made the air between you feel thinner.

“You’re not listening,” you said, voice soft but edged with that airy lilt, the one that made everything sound a little more pleading than you intended. “These aren’t just flowers, Nate. They’re the ones I showed you last week. The ones that make the whole space feel like… like something out of a dream. Our dream.”

He let out a low breath, almost a laugh but without any warmth, pushing off the island to take a slow step closer. “A dream that costs fifty grand on flowers alone?” His tone was controlled, the way it always was when he was reining something in. “Baby, come on. We talked about this. Simple, remember? Nice backyard here at the house, some string lights, maybe a DJ who doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. People eat, they dance, we get married. That’s it.”

This was the Nate you had fought for, stolen from Maddy in a whirlwind of late-night quickies and stolen glances that had left bruises on both your hearts. You had won. The ring on your finger, modest by your standards, glinted under the light as you gestured at the pages. The wedding was weeks away now. Everything had seemed so concrete once the fighting with Maddy ended, once his toxic edges had turned toward you in a different, more possessive way. You were used to it, mostly. The control; the way he decided what was best without ever asking if it matched the picture in your head.

But the money thing… God, it grated tonight.

“You said I could have what I wanted,” you murmured, stepping around the table so the marble no longer separated you. “At that dinner last month, when you told me we’d do it right. Not… not some ghetto backyard thing with paper plates and whatever’s on sale at Costco.” Your lips curved in a small, frustrated smile that didn’t reach your eyes, the kind of expression you’d perfected: pretty, a little helpless, but underneath it, steel.

Nate’s gaze lingered on your mouth for a beat too long, then dropped to the ring on your hand before rising again. He closed the distance another step, his hand lifted, fingers hovering near your wrist like he was deciding whether to pull you in or hold you at arm’s length.

“I did say that,” he admitted in a low voice, the control freak in him surfacing in the measured way he chose each word. “But ‘right’ doesn’t mean blowing half my dad’s money on roses that’ll be dead in two days. You think I want to start our marriage with my old man breathing down my neck about budgets? Or worse—watching you turn our wedding into some Instagram fantasy that has nothing to do with us?”

His eyes searched yours, intense and unblinking, the kind of stare that made you feel seen and cornered all at once. Nate hated waste. Hated anything that felt performative, even when it came from you; the girl he’d chosen over the chaos of Maddy, the one who understood his darkness enough to stay. Yet here he was, digging in, testing how far your patience would stretch before it frayed.