Page 64

EMORY

I ’m rushing to get ready on Thursday night when there’s a knock on the downstairs door. It must be Katie, asking if she can drive me to the meet with the girls, or maybe even Sienna, asking me for an opinion on her earrings. She loves to pop over when she could just call.

“Coming,” I shout, pounding down the stairs in my dress, with my makeup half done. I wrench open the door and stop short.

Aiden’s grandfather is on the steps. I haven’t seen him up close since that day in high school.

He still has a full head of hair, but he’s holding a cane.

His shoulders are straight, and in his face, I see the aristocratic lines of Aiden’s.

He’s imposing in a way that makes me want to take a step backward into the house, so I straighten my shoulders and look him in the eye.

“Hello.”

“Is he here?” His voice is clipped.

“He’s out at an event.”

He frowns, then runs a hand over his hair. “Tell him I need to speak to him.”

“Please.”

His eyes narrow.

I raise my brows. “I’m not your servant.”

There’s a faint hint of respect in his eyes before he dips his chin. “Please tell him I need to speak to him.” He reaches under his arm to pull out a sheaf of papers. “These are for you.” At the top, I see “Agreement of Separation and Divorce,” and my stomach bottoms out.

“Come in,” I say finally, stepping aside. “And have a cup of tea with me.” I don’t phrase it like a question—he doesn’t deserve it.

I prepare the tea from one of the numerous boxes Aiden has purchased for me since I moved in. “Can never have enough tea,” he said the other morning when he plunked two more down on the counter.

His grandfather looks around curiously, like he never comes to Aiden’s house, before he seats himself at the kitchen counter. He looks utterly out of place, holding himself stiffly on a stool, and I remember that he must be nearing eighty.

“We can sit on the couches,” I say.

He follows me to the living room, his cane tapping on the floor.

I blow on my tea and wait for him to speak. It’s a tactic I use in meetings when I don’t want to give up a weaker position. And with those papers in his hand, he holds all the cards.

“I saw the video,” he says, without preamble, and my stomach tumbles.

I nod, letting out a shaky exhale. “The event it happened at is annual, so it comes up. Someone’s idea of a joke, I guess.

” I keep my words light, but inside I’m crumbling.

I thought people would get bored of it, but I woke up this morning to notifications about it.

The comments made me sick, and I turned off my phone for the rest of the day.

“I’m sorry,” he says bluntly, and I nod. It’s a small comfort, but not nearly enough. “I’ve realized I’m unlikely to find him another wife before his birthday,” he adds. His words are clipped. “And I know this marriage isn’t real.”

I barely control my reaction, but he sees it, and his lips press together briefly before he sighs.

“You must think I’m an awful, prejudiced old man,” he says finally.

“What gave it away? The attempts to discredit the marriage? Or the attempts to embarrass me?”

He runs a hand over his hair again, a nervous tic I realize Aiden has inherited. It’s odd seeing these pieces of him in this austere man. “All I have ever wanted is for him to have an easy life,” he finally says. “That’s all I’ve wanted for all of them.”

“And bullying them into contract marriages with strangers is the way to accomplish that?” I can’t help the bite in my voice, but instead of reacting angrily, he just looks tired.

“I was in a marriage like yours once.”

I freeze.

He’s looking down at his mug. “Her name was Susan. I met her in college. She was a radical.” He smiles faintly.

“So she smoked pot and didn’t support the war in Vietnam?”

He laughs, looking surprised that the sound is coming from his mouth.

“Something like that. I loved her. But her family and mine couldn’t have been more different.

She didn’t fit into our world. She flouted the rules at every opportunity.

I loved her for that in particular.” His voice lowers.

“But they never did. She was deeply unhappy being married to me. She was isolated at every event we went to, and the rumors about her parents, who were somewhat unorthodox—for the times, mind you—never stopped. Eventually, she grew deeply depressed. She started drinking too much, an easy feat when you’re married into a whiskey-making family.

We never conceived successfully as a result. ”

An ache starts behind my ribs.

“You know where this is going, I assume?”

I nod, my heart reaching for him, even though he’s been awful to Aiden.

“She left me.” His voice breaks on the last words. “She left me and I knew it was for the best. I remarried Aiden’s grandmother.” He sips his tea and his shoulders lower. “It was a good life with her. An easy life. And I vowed that I wouldn’t let my children make the same mistake.”

That ache is growing, spreading tendrils through me. “Loving someone isn’t a mistake.”

His eyes flare, and I want to squeeze mine shut at what I’ve implied.

“Our world is cutthroat,” he says gently.

“One day, he will be the head of this family. He will always live at Crownhaven. He will have children. He will need allies. His children will need a mother who is accepted. He will need a woman who fits into this world, and more importantly, wants this world.” He levels me an assessing glance. “Do you want this world?”

I swallow, fearing my response, knowing his words are true and railing against them at the same time.

His mouth twists. “He is the best of us. I think you see that. But he is also the Heir.”

“He’s so much more than that,” I whisper fiercely around the lump in my throat. I hate that he sees Aiden like this. “So much more than the Heir.”

A hint of uncertainty crosses his expression before he smooths it away.

“Aiden has always sacrificed himself for others. His childhood, for his siblings. His weeknights for the relationship with his father. His hand in marriage for the land.” He spears me with a look.

“He would sacrifice his relationship with his family and his future for you.”

I press a palm to my chest, trying to calm the gallop of my heart, trying to suppress that part of me that wants him with a fierceness that I shouldn’t feel. “No, he wouldn’t.”

His smile is sad. “Perhaps not yet. But when he loves, he does it completely.”

“I know,” I say. I shut my eyes briefly. I hate this. I hate agreeing with him, but everything he’s said is true.

“End this now before you both get hurt. Sign the papers,” he says quietly before he uses his cane to press to standing. “And tell him that I have a contact for the remaining bottles of Old Kingdom.”

“He’ll like that,” I say faintly. “Family is everything to him.”

He pauses. “It is. I know it is for you as well. In another life, I would celebrate your marriage. Please know that.”

Resentment and sadness tangle inside me.

I hate that he sees me this way, that I’m reduced to the girl I was that day in the principal’s office.

But more than that, I hate that he sees Aiden this way, as someone whose entire future is mapped.

He’s just finding himself again, and his grandfather seems determined to snuff out that spark.

That anger pushes me up to standing too.

“He deserves more,” I say.

His grandfather startles at my tone. Hell, I startle myself.

“I don’t disagree with you. I don’t fit into your world.

” I draw in a shaky breath. “But Aiden deserves love. He deserves to choose his future. He is the best man I know. He deserves someone who cherishes that. And he deserves for you to trust him to make his own choices. He has been nothing but kind to me in the time I’ve been here.

He demands nothing of others but everything of himself.

And now you demand that he give up everything for you. Does he get nothing for himself?”

I’m shaking by the time I finish speaking. Even if I’m not the woman who gets to keep Aiden, at least I can give him this. My heart pounds as I watch emotions flick over his grandfather’s face. He doesn’t respond, so I turn on my heel and walk out.

By the time the Mathletes meet rolls around, I feel sick. I haven’t been able to eat all day and I haven’t been able to talk to Aiden.

The girls cheer me up with their incessant questions about the estate at Crownhaven and demands to come visit it for a practice in the fall. I don’t have the heart to tell them it won’t happen.

I tell them about Katie and how we spar every morning, and they make me flex my biceps.

Rosh, who lifts weights with her brothers, flexes her own, which are far more impressive, and we all laugh.

They kill the other team, because of course they do, and the coach even takes me aside to ask how we got so good.

“Them,” I say, with a smile. “It’s all them.”

It’s tradition that we wear fancy dresses to the last meet of the season, so when we triumphantly exit the classroom with our trophy, we’re all wobbling in our heels and long gowns, except Harmony, who smartly wore her Converses.

The girls are begging me to hold the trophy, and I let them pass it around before I hoist it up.

“It’s tradition,” I say, holding the trophy over my head.

“That the graduating seniors split custody of the trophy, but since it’s just you—” I hold the gold division sign out to Harmony.

“All yours. Congratulations on Yale.” The girls cheer, and Harmony and I exchange small, secret smiles.

The trophy also comes with a ten thousand dollar check from yours truly, but it’s always disguised as coming from an LLC owned by Hunter Gaming.

We take selfies to commemorate our victory, and I follow the girls toward the double doors in front, but Harmony says my name in her soft voice before I get far. I turn to see her behind me, shifting from foot to foot.

“What’s up, genius?” I ask. She scored the most points today.

She blushes. “I thought you might be interested in this. I mean, I know you have a job, but the school needs a new AP calculus teacher. Here.” She digs in the pocket of her dress and pulls out a folded piece of paper.

“You’d be really good at it,” she says quietly.

“I know it’s not allowed, but I’m gonna hug you now. ”

“Okay,” I say hoarsely. Then her skinny arms are around my waist and I’m pulling her close, wanting all the best things for her, terrified for her and excited for her and hoping she never knows disappointment or fear.

“You’re gonna do great in college,” I tell her.

“You need anything, you call me, okay?” My throat is tight and I do my best not to cry into her hair, but I’m not sure I totally succeed.

“Thanks, Miss H.” She gives me a watery smile that I return before we push open the double doors. I’m about to pull out my phone to ask Leo for a ride home when I see him.

Aiden, leaning against his vintage cherry-red Ferrari. His arms are crossed, his sleeves rolled up to expose the forearms he teases me about.

The girls stare, then someone shrieks.

He unfolds himself, pushing off the side of the car, his eyes smiling even though his mouth isn’t. I like that about him—how his eyes tell me everything I need to know, how he saves up the joy for when it’s just the two of us.

“That’s him?” Harmony asks, her eyes wide.

“You have to invite him to the end-of-year party,” Rosh says.

“Maybe he’ll host it,” Mia interjects. “And we can ride the horses.”

The girls chatter, but my eyes don’t leave Aiden as we approach. He nods at the girls, politely introducing himself, ignoring how pink their cheeks are and the pictures Rosh is sneaking with her phone that will almost certainly end up in a group chat.

All I can think is, he won’t be around to host it. It’s in August, after final exams and summer school, and he and I will be strangers by then.

He won’t be around, and I can’t ask him to stay, and everything about him being here at the school feels so painful that I want to scream.

This is what he’d be like as someone’s real husband. Showing up to give her a ride home even though she didn’t ask, making small talk with the girls because he treats everyone with kindness. Sliding her that small, secret smile because he catches her staring.

He will never be mine. The thought slices into my stomach. He won’t be mine in the way I want him to—wholly and without reservation. No end date. I can’t breathe at the unfairness of it.

“Why are you here?” I ask. My words are bitten off and angry.

His brows lower. “Heard you needed a ride.”

“I would have asked Leo.”

Why am I so mad right now?

“I’m here to take you home,” he says. “And I wanted to meet them.” He tips his head toward the girls.

Home.

I so badly want Crownhaven to be home. My heart kicks in my chest.

“Get in the car, Em,” he says gently. Too gently. I don’t want him to be nice to me. I want him to get mad at me so I can be mad right back.

The whole ride back to Crownhaven, I feel like I’m going to burst. My emotions are too big for my body, and everything is coming to a head.

I fight to swallow them down. Aiden doesn’t deserve this. He’s wonderful. I want to savor our last days together, not cry, but as I press my head to the cool glass of his car window, I can’t stop the tears.