One last fling before I settle

POV Ruby

With Alex, it had always been easy—since as far back as I can remember. But it didn’t feel like a child’s game anymore. Now we were finally going to complete the mission our parents assigned us the moment we turned sixteen: marry each other. And for once, right now, it actually felt right.

We’re on the rug with linen swatches and a dog-eared album of family weddings, debating flowers that won’t wilt in August and which first-dance song could make my father cry.

“Peonies die in two hours,” I say.

“You in silk don’t,” Alex says, grinning, and kisses me—slow, unhurried, easy.

For a moment I think: how many people get this lucky? No drama. Full trust.

I pull back, breathless, and let the thought tumble out. “Listen—what if we tried something different this time? Our first night… I want you to surprise me. Not like we usually do.”

His shoulders go rigid. “What the hell, Ruby? Not like usual how?”

“Not lights-off-and-done,” I say, trying to keep it light. “I want… us. I want you to want, to—”

He laughs once, sharp. “Are you kidding me right now? I’m juggling venues, caterers, my mother’s spreadsheets, and you’re calling me uncreative because you want a different… routine?”

“I’m asking you to see me,” I say, softer. “To choose me, not the script.”

His color rises. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Five years, Alex. Five years of ordinary sex twice a week, lights off, you finishing quick while I stare at the ceiling wondering if this is all there is.”

“I already organized Dubai,” he snaps. “Flights, penthouse, private driver—the works. What else do you want from me? It was supposed to be a surprise. You’re unbelievable, Ruby. Ungrateful.”

“I hate Dubai,” I fire back. “Do you even want anything, Alex? Or did you just book the highest-rated hotel your father’s friends comped? Do you have any creativity at all?”

“It’s a five-star resort,” he says, louder now. “Most people would kill for it.”

“I’m not ‘most people.’ I don’t want a brochure. I want you. I want you to choose something because you know me—not because the rating is a 9.8.”

“I am choosing,” he says, jaw tight. “I’m choosing perfection. I’m choosing to make this flawless so you don’t have to worry.”

“Perfection isn’t the same as intimacy,” I say. “You can buy a penthouse, Alex. You can’t buy wanting.”

He stares, stung. “So what—everything I do is wrong unless it fits your new script? I’m doing my best.”

“Your best is logistics. I’m asking for us.” I shake my head. “Ask me what I want. Touch me like you want me.”

Alex crossed the room in three strides, his hands clamping around my wrists hard enough to leave marks.

"You want passion? You want me to throw you against the wall? Rip your clothes off like some animal?"

"I want you to want something! Anything!"

I wrenched free, my skin burning where he'd touched me—not with desire, but with rage.

"But you don't, do you? You just go through the motions. The perfect fiancé playing house until daddy hands over the company."

"At least I'm here!" Alex's shout bounced off the high ceilings. "At least I show up instead of running off to your mysterious study groups and late-night library sessions. You think I'm stupid, Ruby? You think I don't notice?"

"Notice what? That I have a life outside of being Kenneth Pearson's daughter and Alexander Whitmore's future trophy wife?"

"Trophy wife?"

His face twisted into something ugly, something I'd never seen before.

"You live in this apartment your daddy pays for, walk to your Columbia classes he funds, wear designer clothes from his credit cards. Without our families, you're nothing!"

The Waterford crystal explodes against my marble floor, white roses and glass skittering across my Morningside Heights apartment. The sound is a gunshot in a church.

"Get out."

Alex touched his reddening cheek, stunned into silence for the first time since I'd known him. "Ruby—"

"GET OUT!"

He grabbed his coat, pausing at the door with his hand on the handle. The door slammed with expensive finality.

I stand among the wreckage, chest heaving, hands shaking with adrenaline and love forced to grow a backbone.

* * *

Two days passed in a haze of ignored calls and deleted voicemails. I had finally found peace in the silence when my phone buzzed with a message from Rachel Clark, a peripheral acquaintance from their Corporate Finance study group.

I opened the message.

‘Thought you should know.’

Three photos loaded. My breath caught in my throat.

Alex pressed against the brick wall outside Brass Monkey. Jessica Martinez wrapped around him like a second skin.

Her hands under his shirt, his fingers tangled in her hair with a desperation I'd never felt from him. His hand disappearing into her jeans while she bit his neck, marking him in a way I never had.

The next message appeared: ‘They left together. Figured you deserved the truth.’

I stared at the photos until they burned into my retinas.