His brow furrowed slightly. “Okay, we don’t have to have dinner tonight, but we’re not calling off the wedding.” His tone was incredulous as though he was reasoning with a toddler. “Toni, we have a hundred guests coming from all over the country. Do you know how much money my parents have spent on this? Don’t be crazy.”

Crazy?

If she didn’t get out of his apartment, Antonia was going to show him what crazy really looked like. “Who are you?”

He heaved another sigh. “I’m a man who’s going to make mistakes. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” His words were like a tired recitation of something he’d memorized.

Antonia couldn’t listen to it any longer. “I’m leaving,” she murmured as she backed out of the room. “The fucking wedding is definitely off.”

He followed her, giving half-hearted attempts to apologize, but the growing buzz in her head drowned out most of his words. As she gathered her bag and jacket, she marched to the vestibule to find her shoes. Derek was still droning on, but Antonia only caught snippets like “needs” and “pressure to be the best” and “I don’t think you understand.” As her hand rested on the doorknob, she turned to look at him once more.

“Don’t go, Toni,” he said. There was a small measure of shame on his face, but not nearly enough. “Babe, what would I do without you?”

Antonia opened her mouth to say something, but clamped it shut.

“Hell,” he continued. “What would you do without me? You don’t want to waste away at that pitiful publishing place, in your thirties, alone with your mountain of books, do you?”

The final blow of his callous words made her flinch. “I think I’ll manage somehow.”

In the hallway of the fourteenth floor, she fought the urge to pass out. Every step in her high heels was as wobbly as a newborn giraffe. She quickly stumbled toward the elevator, casting a glance over her shoulder. In her mind she prayed, to whoever was listening, for Derek not to follow her. She couldn’t bear to look him in the face without slapping that beautiful smile. Images of his X-rated text message and his hurtful words mingled with those of their past. A walk in Grant Park, him surprising her at work, him going down on one knee. She kept seeing his dick and that lamp. She pressed the down button at the elevator. The orange light slowly ticked from the lobby.

“Goddammit,” Antonia yelled, mashing the button. In the time the elevator would reach her, she was sure she would faint or Derek would try to reason with her. Neither were an option. Slapping the button wouldn’t make the elevator pulley go any faster, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

A door opened down the hallway. She turned to see Derek’s face poking from his door. “Toni, just come back and we’ll talk about it as long as you want.”

“Fuck you!” she shouted. The goddamn numbers rolled onward in an agonizingly slow pace.