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He Gave Me a Plastic Ring，I Gave Him Back the Wedding
Novelix
Completed
"Ivy Bennett spent seven years being easy to love. Easy to overlook when Sebastian rearranged their wedding for another woman. Easy to dismiss when his mother called her understated. Easy to laugh at, apparently, when he swapped her engagement ring for a nine-dollar plastic one in front of two hundred guests—while the eight-figure diamond from his family vault sat on his childhood friend's finger. He was certain she'd stay. Seven years was too long to walk away from. He was wrong. By morning, Ivy was on a plane to Paris. And she wasn't coming back to beg."
Chapters (3)
第1章
Before our engagement, my fiancé Sebastian Wright led me to the vault in his family's Manhattan penthouse and told me to pick any ring I wanted.
Some of them were worth eight figures. I chose a plain platinum band in the corner, priced at three thousand two hundred dollars.
Sebastian caught my hand and laughed.
"So easy to please. Don't come crying to me later."
But at our engagement party, when the master of ceremonies opened the ring box in front of two hundred guests, what lay inside was a nine-dollar plastic ring from a gumball machine.
The ballroom exploded with laughter.
Sebastian leaned back in his chair, entirely at ease.
"Just curing you women of that awful habit of comparing engagement rings."
Before I could speak, his childhood friend Delilah Ashford, seated at the head table, covered her mouth and giggled.
On her ring finger sat the eight-figure diamond from the vault.
Sebastian noticed me staring and frowned.
"She closed a major deal for the company. I gave it to her as a bonus. You're not going to nitpick something like that, are you?"
His mother, Vivienne, smiled and smoothed the moment over.
"Darling, if you really want to marry into this family, you can't be so fixated on money and jewelry."
I stared down at the plastic ring for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed.
"Sebastian."
"Do you really think I can't live without you?"
The room went quiet for a breath.
Sebastian seemed genuinely surprised. His eyebrow lifted, and then he laughed.
"Ivy, this is our engagement party. Don't say things you don't mean when you're sulking."
He reached for my hand, his voice almost patient.
"Nine dollars or three thousand—what's the difference to you? You said yourself you didn't care about the price. It was just a joke."
I looked down at his outstretched hand and didn't move.
So this is what it looks like when someone is certain you'll never leave. Even humiliation gets rebranded as a joke.
Vivienne rose to take my arm.
"Ivy, darling, Sebastian is just blunt sometimes. You two are going to spend your lives together. Are you really going to make a scene over a ring? People are watching."
I gently pulled my arm free.
"They've already watched."
Her smile stiffened.
Across the head table, Delilah finally seemed to register the shift. She hurried to slip the diamond off her finger.
"Ivy, if you really love it, you can have it back."
She held it out.
Sebastian's hand closed over hers before I could respond.
"What I gave you is yours."
He said it as naturally as breathing, then turned back to me.
"You've always hated fighting over things like this."
Something in me almost wanted to laugh.
Yes. I never fought.
Which meant, all these years, one sentence from Sebastian—"You're the reasonable one"—and I would step aside automatically.
Delilah said the wedding photographer wasn't refined enough. He replaced them.
Delilah had a nut allergy, so he had every dessert removed from our engagement menu without telling me.
I'd never thought any of it worth mentioning.
Until tonight, when I finally understood: if you don't push back for long enough, people stop believing you have a line at all.
I slipped the plastic ring off and set it back in the box.
"All right, then."
Sebastian frowned. "What do you mean, all right?"
I didn't answer. I picked up my clutch and walked out.
Someone behind me whispered that he should chase after me.
Sebastian's voice was mild. "Don't bother. She'll come back once she's calmed down."
My steps didn't slow.
The night air hit me as I stepped out onto Park Avenue.
I made my first call to the wedding planner.
"Margaret. Cancel October eighteenth. All of it."
She paused for two full seconds. "All of it?"
"All of it."
"And Mr. Wright—"
"Don't ask him about anything."
I looked back at the enormous engagement placard by the hotel entrance and felt, absurdly, lighter.
"The wedding is mine. I'm not having one."
The second call went to my attorney.
"I need a full itemization of my contributions to the apartment and the parking spot. Tomorrow morning."
The third call was to the director of the Paris atelier.
Six months earlier, she'd invited me to Paris for a year as a co-designer at Maison Lévrier. I'd turned it down because the wedding was too close.
When she picked up, I asked one question.
"Is the position still open?"
She laughed. "For you, always."
I stood at the curb, and for the first time I did not look back at the hotel.
"Good," I said. "I'm coming."
第2章
Sebastian didn't come home until after midnight.
The foyer light blinked on as I was sorting files in the study.
He tossed his jacket on the sofa and glanced at the empty dining table.
"You didn't leave me anything to eat?"
I didn't look up. "No."
He seemed surprised. Before tonight, no matter how badly we'd fought, I always left a lamp on and a plate warm.
He stood there a moment, then walked over and rapped his knuckles on the desk.
"Still angry?"
"No."
"Good."
He exhaled, almost relieved, and sat down across from me.
"What Mother said tonight came out wrong, but she was thinking of our future. And Delilah's ring—it was a bonus routed through the company. It's a totally different category."
I looked at him. "Mm."
Sebastian paused. "Nothing else?"
"What would you like me to say?"
That stopped him. After a moment, his brow tightened.
"Ivy, this passive-aggressive thing isn't cute."
I almost laughed.
I hadn't shouted. I hadn't cried. I hadn't even mentioned the ring again. But the moment I stopped smoothing his path for him, I became passive-aggressive.
My phone lit up on the desk. The Paris contract had come through.
I dimmed the screen with my palm. Sebastian didn't notice.
He reached into his pocket and slid a small box across the table.
"Enough. Stop pouting."
I opened it.
Inside was the three-thousand-dollar platinum band I'd originally chosen.
"I had someone go back and get it."
He leaned into his chair, visibly satisfied with himself.
"This was the one you wanted, wasn't it? I'll have the officiant redo a small ring ceremony tomorrow."
I looked at it for a few seconds, then pushed the box back.
"That's all right."
His brow snapped tight. "Now what?"
"I don't want it anymore."
He stared, trying to read the sulk on my face. Failing that, he decided I still needed time to cool off.
"Suit yourself."
Before standing, he seemed to remember something.
"By the way—the south-facing studio in the apartment. Clear it out."
I looked up. "Why?"
"Delilah's launching a new collection. Her office is being renovated. She needs somewhere to keep her samples for a month."
He said it as if it were self-evident.
"You just sketch anyway. You can work anywhere."
I was quiet for two seconds.
"Fine."
Now it was his turn to freeze.
"You agree?"
"Mm."
I even took the apartment key off my ring and set it on the table.
"Tell her to pick it up directly tomorrow."
He was clearly pleased. He reached out and rumpled my hair.
"That's my girl."
I turned my head aside.
He didn't notice—he was already replying to Delilah's texts.
First thing in the morning, I had my assistant move every one of my design boards, samples, and personal effects out of the apartment and into my studio.
At noon, Sebastian texted.
Mother wants us for dinner tonight.
I sent back two words.
Can't. Working.
The phone rang immediately.
"Still angry?"
"I have work."
"Since when is work more important than dinner?"
I held the Paris contract in my hand. My voice was flat.
"Since today."
Silence. Then a soft, disbelieving laugh.
"Fine. You go be busy. We'll talk when you're done with your tantrum."
I didn't correct him.
Someone who has already decided to leave doesn't owe the other person a translation of her silence.
第3章
The next three days, I barely stopped moving.
The Paris contract was signed. Maison Lévrier expedited my work visa. I redistributed a year's worth of studio projects and handed my long-term clients over to my business partner, Claire.
Each item I completed, I crossed off the list.
Paris wasn't a fallback I'd scraped together in a panic.
Three years ago, when my collection first made the shortlist for the Geneva International Jewelry Exhibition, Maison Lévrier had asked me to stay. Sebastian's company was mid-funding round. I compressed a six-month residency into three weeks and flew home to help him through the hardest stretch.
Afterward, he liked to say that between us, it didn't matter which one traveled farther.
I actually believed him.
It took me until now to understand: when you spend too long standing still for someone else, you forget how far you were capable of going.
So Paris wasn't an escape from Sebastian.
It was me walking back onto a road I had once, willingly, stepped off.
Strange thing. Once seven years actually began to end, it ended more cleanly than I'd imagined.
On the fourth evening, Sebastian showed up at my studio.
He was holding a box from Bouchon Bakery—my favorite chestnut cake.
"For you."
I didn't take it.
He set it on the edge of the desk, sighing a little.
"Enough is enough. I made Delilah return the apartment key."
I looked up. "Why?"
"Because you were upset."
He frowned, as if the question puzzled him.
"It's just a studio. She doesn't need to use it."
Even now, he was still convinced this was about a room and a ring.
I didn't bother to explain.
He drew the platinum band out of his inside jacket pocket. This time he didn't use the box. He just took my hand.
"Ivy. I admit the joke at the party went too far. Let me put the ring on you myself. All right?"
I withdrew my hand. The motion was light, but final.
"Sebastian. I said I don't want it anymore."
His hand hung in the air.
For the first time, real displeasure surfaced in his face.
"What exactly do you want from me?"
"You want me to blow up at Delilah over a ring? Or should I go in tomorrow, rescind a project bonus in front of the whole firm, and tell everyone my fiancée was jealous?"
I looked at him quietly.
He seemed to take my silence for an answer, and his voice went colder.
"Ivy, you didn't used to be like this. You used to be able to tell the difference between work and personal life. You didn't fixate on Delilah."
I finally smiled.
"You're right."
He blinked. "What?"
"I didn't used to be like this."
I used to be afraid of not looking dignified. Afraid of losing seven years to a handful of small things. Afraid of being called petty.
So I forced myself, again and again, to understand.
But understanding was never a duty.
I bent my head back to the sketch on my desk.
"I have a meeting."
The dismissal was unmistakable. Sebastian's expression darkened.
Just then his phone rang. Delilah's name lit up the screen. He picked up almost reflexively.
Whatever she said made his brow smooth instantly.
"You forgot the keycard again? Stay where you are, I'll come."
He hung up and turned back to me.
"Dinner at home tonight. There's something I want to talk to you about."
I made a noncommittal sound.
He walked to the door, then looked back.
"I'll leave the ring here. Put it on yourself when you've come to your senses."
The door closed.
I looked at the platinum band on my desk, picked it up, and slid it into a document sleeve along with the plastic ring from the engagement party.
What was mine, I would not surrender an inch of.
What wasn't mine, I wanted none of.
That evening, I went to see my attorney.
I had covered half the down payment on the apartment. I had paid the parking spot in full. I had fronted the engagement venue deposit.
I had never wanted to tally any of it before.
Now I found that numbers were more honest than feelings.
After the attorney went through the final document, he couldn't help but look up at me.
"You're sure?"
I signed my name.
"Yes."
"Seven years."
I capped the pen.
"Which is exactly why I can't waste an eighth."
