Page 121 of Perfect Composition

“Do you want to talk about it?” Carys sidles up next to me while I’m inspecting a toilet paper holder at HomeGoods. I feel like my whole life has been inundated by crap lately, so I might as well get something nice to hold the tissue to wipe it away.

Austyn made a mad dash for the sheets, dragging Angie in tow to outfit her room once I set her budget after explaining I didn’t pack her mix-and-match prints from home, which in no way reflects the woman she is now. Until now, I’ve been meandering around the store, half-heartedly poking through aisles of knickknacks.

Finding nothing special—feeling nothing special.

“Talk about what?” I hedge.

“Paige, we’re so much alike it’s scary. Case in point, I have this exact holder in my guest bathroom.”

“Carys, I act put together, but I’m really not.” Though I’m amused enough to put the holder in my cart.

She laughs softly. “And you think I am? I quit a ridiculously high-paying job because I was in love with my paralegal. I’m just glad he came to his senses and followed me.”

It takes a moment for that to process. “David?”

“Yes. When I worked at Wildcard, I met him and felt my world tilt off its axis.”

“And you didn’t act on it why?”

“There was—is—a massive no-fraternization policy there. And one day, he slapped a picture of Becks down on my desk and asked if that’s who I wanted to be associated with.” Carys smiles fondly at the memory.

But I physically recoil at her words. “You…and Beckett?”

“Oh, no. Paige, he didn’t tell you?”

“I didn’t realize your…friendship…had been more.” I fumble the words out while trying not to imagine this powerful woman in bed with the man I’ll spend a lifetime trying to teach myself not to love. And fail miserably at the job.

She immediately reads me. “Never. Not ever. Not even a single real kiss.”

That piques my interest and stills my movement. “A real kiss? What’s the difference between that and a fake one.”

“A kiss for the cameras that happens to be on the lips. Picture a kiss like one you’d give your daughter versus one you’d give your lover. The only way they’re misinterpreted is if there’s no brains behind them.” She purses her lips so dramatically I can see her frenulum.

I immediately break into laughter picturing this overly puckered-up kiss meeting a similar one of Beckett’s for the sake of the paparazzi. “Christ, Carys.”

“What’s funny is you immediately, as a normal, thinking human, went exactly where most of my affection with Becks did and does go—friendship. My husband? It took me ignoring him, quitting, and walking away for him to see me as something beyond his boss who was involved with some Lothario.”

“That’s one way of describing it.” I say, understanding David Lennan’s emotional gut check.

“Do you? Do you really think he’s been involved with that many women? That he’d open himself up to that kind of emotional vulnerability after everything in his past?”

“If they’re smart and intelligent, why wouldn’t he give them a chance? He wasn’t attached to someone.”

“Wasn’t he?” Before I can speak, Carys continues. “With you, he had all but buried the demons of his past. Not any of the women on his arm, not with me, but you. There were few of us who got to glimpse the heart beyond the man who stood on the edge of the stage. Now we know the woman who put it there.”

I open and close my mouth before dropping the towel I’m holding. “I’m the reason his whole life has been damaged. How can you think in any way I’d be good for him?”

“Because with you he gives a damn about more than being the guy in the news,” Carys tells me bluntly.

“Except you’re trying to convince me he isn’t that guy—that the last picture wasn’t what I thought it was. What am I supposed to believe?”

“You’re supposed to believe in yourself. Him.” Her eyes sharpen. “How do you think Becks sees you?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know, not anymore. Not since that photograph.” My voice cracks.

“A lover?”

“Yes. No. At least, not anymore. I mean, how could he? I’m nowhere near the caliber of women he dated—dates. See what this has done to me? I mean, just look at me.” I step back and flick my hand from my long coat to my shoes.