Page 17 of The Valentine Agenda

Heat pricked behind her eyes, threatening to spill over. She clenched her fists beneath the table, nails biting into her palms, focusing on that sharp, clean pain instead of the ache spreading through her chest. She wouldn't cry. Not here, surrounded by strangers who'd already seen too much. Not in front of him.

"Hannah—" James started, but his attention suddenly shifted. Vanessa and her date were getting up to leave. Without finishing his sentence, he stood. "I just need to... The check, please," he called to a passing server. "I'll be right back," he told her.

She watched him follow Vanessa and her date toward the exit.

The check arrived in its sleek leather folder, placed carefully beside her untouched drink.

Mrs. Chen's words echoed in her head:Sometimes the heart sees what it wants to see. But the eyes... the eyes must see what is.

Her eyes were certainly seeing now. She just wished she didn't hurt so much.

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The bubbles in Hannah's champagne glass traced endless paths upward, each one marking another moment James didn't return. The bottle sat in its ice bucket beside her, impossibly expensive and now impossibly heavy with meaning. Dom Pérignon Rosé. She'd never even seen a bottle up close before tonight.

Her phone read 9:47. Then 10:12. Then 10:36.

Other diners glanced her way with growing frequency, their pity becoming harder to ignore. The sommelier had poured with such flourish earlier. Now the glass sat untouched, the bubbles growing smaller, more tired. Like her hopes.

"He's not coming back," she whispered to herself, but still she sat. Because leaving meant admitting what had happened. Meant facing the reality that James Park had used her for an Instagram post and a moment of revenge, then forgotten her existence as completely as he had every morning in the lobby.

At 10:53, her server approached again, genuine regret in his expression. "I'm so sorry, miss, but we have another reservation for this table at eleven." He glanced at the leather folder that had been sitting beside her untouched glass for the past hour. "And I'm afraid we'll need to settle the check."

Hannah stared at the folder, her cheeks burning. Of course. She'd been avoiding looking at it, just as she'd been avoiding reality. With trembling fingers, she opened it. $847.92. The champagne alone cost more than her monthly rent. More than her dignity too, apparently.

Her emergency credit card felt like lead as she pulled it out, praying it wouldn't be declined.

The server returned with the credit card machine, angling his body to shield her from nearby tables as she entered her PIN. A small kindness that somehow made everything worse.

"Would you like me to call you a taxi?" he asked softly.

Hannah shook her head, already gathering her wrap. "No, thank you."

As she stood, she caught her reflection in the window. The same green dress that had felt so full of possibility hours ago. The same carefully styled hair. The same foolish girl who had spent months imagining catching James Park's eye.

But something was different now. The champagne bubbles had stopped rising in her abandoned glass, and her schoolgirl crush had finally, mercifully, gone flat.

"Happy Valentine's Day," the hostess called automatically as Hannah passed the front desk.

It wasn't happy. But it was, at least, over.

She would go back to her real life now. She would face her classroom of third-graders, help Mrs. Chen with her groceries, and straighten those lobby photographs that always tilted slightly to the left.

James Park might not have seen her, but Hannah was finally seeing herself clearly. And that, she decided, was worth every painful dollar.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hannah

Hannah couldn't feel her fingers.

The credit card receipt was still clutched in her hand, creased and damp from the snow. Eight hundred and forty-seven dollars and ninety-two cents.

Why had she waited? What was wrong with her that she'd kept hoping, kept making excuses—maybe he got held up, maybe there was an emergency—even as other diners whispered and stared?

She should probably be worried about maxing out her emergency credit card, about how she'd have to eat ramen for the next three months to pay it off. Instead, all she could think about was how the manager had looked at her with such pity when she'd finally admitted to herself that her date wasn't coming back.

Herdate.

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