Page 27

Stella

I’ve made everything weird, and I could slap myself for it.

I know it was the right decision to put the brakes on things between Thomas and me last night, but it’s built a wall between us that’s entirely too high. After the gala, we walked away from each other once we got home, barely saying good night before retreating to our separate wings, like we were suddenly strangers again. I thought declaring our friendship—and our intentions to keep it that way—would ease the tension and make this fake marriage simpler to navigate, but nope. All I’ve done is add another complication while trying to prevent one.

I knew from the second his lips touched mine that I was going to be in deep trouble if I didn’t reinforce the rules—the kind of trouble that would make divorcing him one day emotionally messy. Worst of all, it made me question if I’d even want to leave. It was such a sudden, unbidden thought that it nearly had me running from the room, yet I somehow kept my feet planted. I even explained myself while my heart threatened to choke me, trying its best to stop the logical words from coming out.

But I had to do it, for my own sake. Because I can’t run the risk of getting attached to another man I’ve come to care about, just to have him leave me behind. Or worse, turn me into a version of myself that I no longer recognize. I barely made it out alive the first time; I don’t think I would survive a second.

Thomas is pouring two mugs of coffee when I shuffle into the kitchen. He’s bright-eyed and fresh-faced, even though I know he had just as much champagne as I did last night. In comparison, I’m squinting against the faint sunlight coming in through the windows and I haven’t bothered to take my bonnet off yet. Hard to believe that not long ago I refused to let him see me in it, but hey, we’re officially friends . No point in hiding any aspect of myself from a man who’s going to be nothing more than that.

That’s exactly what you want, Stella. Stop being bitter and start being smart.

“It’s not fair that you wake up looking like a Disney prince,” I mumble as he hands me my favorite of the two mugs.

His laugh breaks some of the lingering awkwardness, and I relax as I stir cream and sugar into my coffee.

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” He plucks the spoon from my hand and uses it in his own mug. “How are you feeling today? Up for more exploring?”

It’s comforting that he’s trying to get us back to the way we were before the kiss. He’s not holding my choices against me…which only makes me like him more.

I take a gulp of my coffee, scalding my tongue, but at least it burns away the yearning. “I’m meeting Janelle for brunch,” I answer. Then, not wanting him to think I’m pushing him away, I blurt, “Maybe after?”

He nods and leans against the counter. “Yeah, absolutely. My schedule’s empty until I start training again after the new year.”

“Must be nice.” I sigh, all the work I need to do pressing at the edge of my thoughts. “It’s going to be hell for me until Christmas, but I’ll get a break between then and the first week of January.”

“Speaking of Christmas,” he prompts, “do you have any plans? Did you want to go home?”

I grimace, reminded of the last chat I had with my mother. We haven’t spoken since Thanksgiving other than a few check-in texts, mostly her making sure I’m still alive. “Is it bad if I say not really?”

Thomas shakes his head. “I have no interest in spending Christmas with my family this year either. Not after what Andrew and my father pulled.”

Can’t blame him there. “And I’m sure your mother would hound us about the wedding anyway. Probably best if we avoid them and do our own thing.”

It’ll be my first holiday season in five years without étienne, so things are already going to be strange. Might as well shake it up more by not going home and spending it with my pretend husband. Besides, it wouldn’t take much to make it better than last Christmas when étienne took me to visit his family.

I spent the entire holiday excluded from conversations or straight-up laughed at every time I attempted to speak French. He pacified me by saying it was all in good fun, that I really wasn’t missing out on much, and he promised we wouldn’t have to visit again for years. I could handle a few days of that, couldn’t I?

“What do you want for Christmas, anyway?” Thomas asks, drawing me out of my thoughts.

I shrug and take another sip. “Nothing I can think of.” I can buy everything I want, so who needs gifts?

“Wrong answer,” he shoots back. “What do you want for Christmas, Stella?”

“For you to let me drink my coffee in peace.”

“No chance. Try again.”

I groan, knowing he’s not going to give up. “I don’t know…Maybe a vacation? An actual one with sun and warmth, where I can turn my phone off and not have to worry about work for a while.”

He nods, considering. “You know, Joshua and Amara are going to the Maldives for the holidays. We could tag along with them.”

His suggestion gets a quick and emphatic “Absolutely the fuck not” before I can even think to temper my response.

Thomas’s brow shoots up, and I know I’m going to have to explain.

I grimace. “I was supposed to go there on my honeymoon.”

Understanding passes over his face. “I see.” The conversation lulls for a moment before he says, “You don’t talk about étienne much.”

I don’t, and every time he’s come up I’ve changed the subject. I want to say it’s because I’m not ready or that I’m still processing the trauma, but it’s neither of those things. I just don’t want to be judged.

“Because there’s no need,” I brush off.

But Thomas decides to press on the bruise. “Why not?”

He does it in such a gentle way, but it still hurts. I consider lying, but I don’t see the point. He did say he wanted to know me, so…fine. I’ll finally answer the question I avoided that night in the Cotswolds. Maybe it will scare him off enough that neither of us will have to worry about anything complicating our divorce plans.

“Because I feel stupid for staying as long as I did,” I tell him, and as much as the words scratch my throat as they come out, there’s a freedom in saying them aloud. “For overlooking everything that was wrong in our relationship.”

Thomas is quiet again, simply staring at me, but there’s no hint of the judgment I feared in his eyes. Again, he’s so tender when he questions, “Why do you feel that way?”

I take a breath, daring myself to be completely honest—to let my worst parts be seen. “Because, deep down, I knew he didn’t want to be with me far before our wedding day. And I still stayed.”

Now that I’ve admitted it, I swear a dam has burst somewhere in my mind, letting all of my guilt and grief and hate for myself surge up and over. I have to get it out before it eats me alive or I do something unwise—like drink another bottle of wine and record my drunken rantings for the world to see. Thomas is about to be in the middle of the tsunami whether he wants to be or not.

“I stayed because it was easier than leaving.” The words come out in a rushed exhale, some version of a sad laugh. “I thought things being good enough meant they were good . I mean, better the devil you know than the one you don’t, right? And then when he left on our wedding day, I thought—”

I cut short, running out of breath, and the inhale I take shudders through my body. But Thomas doesn’t try to interrupt or stop me or do anything except reach out to steady my trembling hand, keeping me from spilling hot coffee over my skin.

“I thought he would come back,” I finally admit—to Thomas, to myself, for the first time to anyone, anywhere. “I waited for him to come back. Even though he literally said to me I just don’t want to be with you, Stella , I waited. I sat in a back office of the church for hours, just hoping he’d change his mind and realize he’d made a mistake.”

This time, I do laugh, because it’s fucking comical how foolish I was to think that would happen.

“But he didn’t come back. My parents took me to my house—the house étienne and I had bought together that he still hadn’t moved his things into—and I kept waiting. I stayed there for a few days, then went to the apartment we’d been living in together, but he wasn’t there either. In fact, all of his stuff was gone.”

I don’t think Thomas realizes that he’s squeezing my hand, but the pressure is soothing, even if the flash of anger in his eyes isn’t. I have to look away before I can speak again.

“The rant that got me into so much trouble?” I remind him. “That’s what happened when I got back to the house and started drinking, as if that would help me forget how pathetic I was for waiting on something that would never happen.” I shake my head, still sick with myself over it. “You know, sometimes I think I’m still waiting for him to come back. To tell me he made a mistake. To take me back.”

Thomas’s grip tightens just a little more.

“And now you know the full story,” I finish with a half-hearted shrug and an even weaker attempt at a smile. “Bet that’s not what you were expecting to hear.”

When I stop speaking, the silence is thick, and I can feel Thomas’s gaze on me, though I still don’t dare to look up until he murmurs, “Oh, Stella.”

I pull my hand out of his grasp, somehow not spilling the coffee, but I can’t take the sympathy in his voice or the way his eyes have gone achingly soft. It’s not pity written across his face, which I’m thankful for, but whatever this is—this look of understanding and what almost comes off as anger on my behalf—is somehow so much worse.

“I need to go get dressed,” I choke out, setting my mug down on the counter and dipping my head again so he can’t see my embarrassment up close and personal. “Don’t want to be late. See you for dinner later?”

“Stella, hold on,” he calls, reaching for me.

But I’m already leaving the kitchen, determined to forget this conversation ever happened.

“I’m such a fuckup.”

Janelle eyes me over the edge of her glass, the mimosa not even touching her lips yet. “Let a girl have a sip of her drink before we start with the self-hate, damn.”

I sigh and rest my elbows on the table. “Sorry. Go ahead and down half of that, then I’ll get into it.”

She does as she’s instructed, then daintily dabs at her lips with her napkin. “Proceed.”

I waste no time unloading, catching her up on everything that’s happened since we last spoke—like the kiss at the gala and the following friendship conversation, culminating in my minor breakdown this morning. I’m interrupted once by our server coming over to take our orders, and I don’t finish my story until our meals are being placed in front of us.

“I—wow,” Janelle stammers. She slowly picks up her cutlery, looking like she’s struggling to find the right words, either to comfort me or to tell me that I’ve been a complete and utter asshole over the past twenty-four hours. “Can I say something I don’t think you’re going to like?”

Should have known it was going to be the second option. “Go for it,” I grumble, picking up my fork and stabbing at my eggs.

“Number one—”

“Oh God , it’s a whole list?”

“Number one,” she repeats. “I understand why you made the rules you did, but they’re ruining your life.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re preventing yourself from being happy.” She slices into her eggs Benedict with perfect precision. “You could be getting your rocks off with a nice man who seems like he’s very willing to give you all the orgasms you could want.”

My face goes hot, not because I fear we’ve been overheard by the gray-haired ladies at the table over but because she’s right. Thomas has been up for the task since day one.

“Because it would complicate things when we get divorced,” I stress. “I don’t want to get…”

“Attached?” Janelle finishes for me, like she knows exactly what I’m afraid of. “Is it so bad if you do?”

“Um, yeah .”

“Why, Stella?” she challenges.

Because I can’t get my heart broken again.

“Because it’s just not a good idea, okay?” I say instead. “What’s next on your damn list?”

Janelle doesn’t miss a beat. “Number two: It’s clear that you already like him.”

I shake my head, but I’m lying to us both. “I don’t like him like… that .”

“Oh, baby girl.” A grin spreads slowly across her face. “You’re fully sprung for that man.”

I almost choke on the eggs I’ve shoveled into my mouth. It’s a few seconds before I recover enough to speak. “I am not .”

“You so are. I bet you’re already thinking about what your little biracial babies would look like.”

“Janelle!”

She shrugs and takes a bite of her food, chewing thoughtfully and then swallowing. “Number three.”

“Oh, here we fucking go.”

“No one said you have to get divorced.”

I squint at her. “It was part of our agreement from the very beginning. Of course we do.”

“Don’t go acting like some oblivious little girl,” she reprimands. “There’s no reason this marriage can’t turn into something real, even if it started out as a mistake.”

I hunch in my seat. She’s not completely wrong, but the idea of deviating from my original plan and allowing things to change along the way makes my skin crawl. Then again, didn’t I tell myself to stop making plans?

“I don’t know if it ever could,” I admit. “I don’t know if we could last in the long term. And who knows, this may just be a silly crush that will go away the next time I get laid.”

Janelle considers for a moment, then levels me with a curious stare. “Should we do a pro and con list to see if this is the real deal?”

With our type A personalities, we both love a pro and con list, so I kick it off, even if I don’t think it’s going to help in this situation. “Pro: Thomas is so handsome it should be illegal.”

She nods with solemn enthusiasm. “I love Ron with my whole heart, but…yeah, you’re right.”

“Con,” I immediately follow up, “he’s younger than me.”

She scoffs. “By like two years, Stella, come on. He’s old enough to eat corn bread without getting choked.”

“Fine.” I hold my fork up in defeat. “Pro: He’s shockingly nice. Just really, really kind. He actually cares about my opinion and how things make me feel.”

“Honestly, that’s a three-pointer. It shouldn’t be so difficult to find a man who treats you like a real human being deserving of respect, but it is.”

“Con: The other day he slapped his thighs and said ‘Right’ before he stood up.”

She winces. “Okay, that’s about negative five points.”

“Pro: He found a nail place for me and a salon to get my hair done weekly.”

“We’re back in the positives, baby.”

“And get this—he insists on paying for both every time.”

Janelle leans back, pressing a hand to her chest. “I’d say marry him if you weren’t already married.”

I laugh, a little less burdened by heavy emotions. “I forgot to mention, he wants me to go to the Maldives with him and his friends for Christmas.”

“You should go! Don’t let étienne overshadow the chance to go somewhere beautiful.”

I shake my head. “I have so much work to do to get this new shop off the ground and keep the rest of the empire running. I don’t have time for a vacation.”

“Which is exactly what someone who needs a vacation would say,” she points out. “Let him take you on a little trip. Get some sun, swim in the ocean, and give yourself a hard reset.” She reaches across the table to grasp my wrist to drive her point home. “You deserve this, okay? I’d go so far as to say you need it.”

A break from the stress of life and work does sound spectacular. And it’s not like my company will tank if I take a week or two off, as I’ve already learned. What’s the harm in giving myself a real break this time?

“Plus,” Janelle goes on, “you clearly need some vitamin D. Firstly from the sun but also from Thomas’s—”

“Don’t you dare say it,” I interrupt, but I’m already pulling my phone out of my purse with my free hand.

I unlock the screen and tap on my short chain of messages with Thomas. Janelle, as sweet and vulgar as she is, has a point. I deserve to have a hot man sweep me off to an even hotter destination.

I changed my mind , I type before I can think better of it. Let’s escape to paradise, your highness.