Page 17

Chapter Seventeen

Andrew

As we get deeper into October, Justin and I continue to visit landmarks together.

I find myself bookmarking articles about British history I think he’d find interesting, collecting weird historical tidbits like how Queen Victoria once banned ice cream because it was too sensual or how London Bridge was sold to an American who thought he was buying Tower Bridge. I store each away like a treasure to make him laugh during our adventures.

And after we both end up leaving for work at the same time one morning, it suddenly becomes a regular thing to commute together.

Our mornings now have a pattern. Justin sweet-talks Amos into accepting his breakfast while Kryptonite accepts my tentative pats before we head to the tube, where Justin’s perfected this move where he creates a small pocket of space around us, his shoulder pressed warm against mine as we sway with the motion of the train.

Then, one crisp morning, we discover a tiny shop called Cocoa & Co. tucked into an alley near the station, which serves the most incredible Belgian hot chocolate that should make all other hot chocolates bow their heads in shame. It becomes a regular stop for us, and Justin starts joking about my hot chocolate dependency.

We continue to exchange funny cat conspiracy theories, like the idea that cats actually developed opposable thumbs eons ago but hide them because they think it’s amusing for us to always open doors for them. Then it morphs into who can outdo each other with cat memes. Justin sends me a GIF of a cat staring at a wall for hours with the caption Monitoring Interdimensional Portals . I respond with clips of cats sitting in boxes labeled Feline Meditation Chamber: Do Not Disturb Unless Treats Are Involved .

It’s fair to say I’m nailing this friendship part of my plan.

Although I’m trying not to think about my plan much at the moment. Instead, I’ve been focusing on helping Justin with all the last-minute tasks leading up to the Second Chances fundraiser.

And finally, the night is here, and Justin and I are in the backseat of an Uber being whisked toward the auction.

Justin’s wearing a tuxedo that fits him perfectly, emphasizing his broad shoulders and narrow waist. His hair is styled just enough to look effortlessly tousled, and the black of his jacket makes his eyes appear even more intense than usual.

My mouth has been pretty much dry since he appeared at my door.

He’d make an excellent portrait subject for a Renaissance master, especially if they specialized in painting anxious men tugging at bow ties.

“You’re going to wreck your bow tie if you keep fidgeting with it,” I say.

“I swear it’s trying to strangle me,” Justin says, but his hands drop to his sides.

He’s left his bow tie slightly crooked, and I can’t help reaching across to straighten it, my fingers brushing against the warm skin of his neck.

Justin seems to stop breathing. His beautiful eyes catch on mine.

“Thanks,” he says softly.

I drop my hand and wrench my gaze from his.

“Just doing my civic duty. Can’t have you showing up looking like your cats dressed you in the dark.”

“I believe that’s slander against my cats’ styling abilities. Although I admit Cassie’s idea of accessorizing seems to involve a lot of shedding.”

I laugh, and Justin smiles.

But despite the lightness of his words, Justin seems to have just transferred his nervous energy from his bow tie to his leg, as it starts bouncing with such intensity that I’m worried we might accidentally trigger London’s early warning system for natural disasters.

“You okay?” I ask.

He blows out a breath. “Yeah, just…these events can be intense sometimes.”

“Intense, how?”

“There’s just so many people, some I’ve met before, but I never seem to remember them, and that can be really embarrassing…” He blows out a breath. “And there’s this woman, Vivian—a major donor. She’s generous, but she treats the shelter staff and volunteers like we’re her personal entertainment. Last fundraiser, she cornered me in the coat check room and tried to convince me that what I really needed was an older woman to ‘show me the ropes.’”

I blink at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. I had to pretend Maria needed my help with an emergency crisis.” He leans back against the seat, but his shoulders are tense. “Apparently, she’s been telling everyone she’s going to win the date with me tonight. If she wins, I’m worried I’ll have to spend the night fending off her advances without offending her.”

A protective feeling flares inside me. “That’s…not okay.”

Justin attempts a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s fine. I’m probably overthinking it. I mean, it’s for charity, right?”

Justin’s obvious unease about Vivian makes me realize that in the months I’ve been working at DTL Enterprises, I’ve never seen Justin go on a date.

It’s definitely not due to a lack of options. I’ve witnessed the constant parade of female colleagues who find excuses to stop by his desk. And the sales department has a running joke about the number of female account managers who ask for dinner meetings with Justin.

Yet Justin somehow manages to stay friendly while keeping everyone at arm’s length.

We pull up at the venue for the auction, which ends my musing about Justin’s love life or lack of it.

A dark-haired woman spots us as soon as we walk in, rushing over in a whirl of enthusiasm and clipboard efficiency.

“This must be Drew. I’m Maria,” she offers her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Maria,” I reply.

“Thank you so much for all your work with the website.”

“You’re welcome,” I say awkwardly.

She turns to Justin. “Do you mind coming with me for a few minutes? The photographer wants some shots of you for social media coverage.”

Justin’s gaze slides to me. “Are you okay if I leave you alone for a few minutes?”

“Sure. I can mingle.”

Maria gives me a big smile. “Help yourself to champagne. I promise I’ll return him in a few minutes.”

Maria whisks Justin away to a crowd of people, and I watch him transform. His shoulders straighten, his smile brightens, and suddenly, he’s the charming, gorgeous golden boy I remember from high school. The one that everyone gravitates toward.

Watching Justin dressed in a tuxedo, surrounded by a crowd of admirers, I suddenly realize this is what he would have looked like at prom.

My stomach twists.

I didn’t go to prom. While Justin was crowned prom king alongside his girlfriend Maddie Birwood, I was huddled in my bedroom coding until my fingers cramped, telling myself I was choosing not to go to prom rather than admitting I was too scared to show up.

Telling myself that high school wouldn’t matter in ten years.

The familiar resentment swirls inside me. I grab a glass of champagne from one of the circulating servers and try to wash down the bitterness.

When I look back at Justin, I find him watching me, and for a split second, his mask slips and he gives me a warm, real smile—the same smile he gives Tabitha and Cassie—before someone else demands his attention and his professional smile clicks back into place.

Shit.

It’s constantly like this when I spend time with Justin. This rollercoaster of emotions. The high I get when he acts so kind toward me, which then plunges into the low of remembering what he did to me in high school.

It’s just so hard to reconcile the Justin I knew back then to the Justin I know now.

I’ve been trying not to think about it too much because it hurts my brain and stirs up deeper feelings about my revenge plan that I don’t want to examine too closely.

But now that I can accept that Justin has changed and the version I’m seeing is genuine, I find myself desperate to know why .

Why has Justin changed so much?

But it’s not like I can ask him directly.

Justin makes his way back to me, weaving through the crowd with the same grace he shows in everything.

“Sorry about all that,” Justin says when he reaches me.

“That’s okay. I know you’re in hot demand.”

His shoulder bumps mine as he reaches for a glass of champagne, and my heart does this stupid little skip thing that I really wish it wouldn’t.

Luckily, Maria is taking the stage, distracting me from analyzing my reaction to Justin.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Maria’s voice carries across the room. “Welcome to our annual fundraiser. Thank you so much for coming.”

“As you know, Second Chances Animal Shelter specializes in helping animals that others might overlook—the scared ones, the defensive ones, the ones carrying scars from their past. We’ve discovered that with enough patience and understanding, even the deepest wounds can heal into something stronger.”

When Maria finishes her introductory spiel, she hands things over to the auctioneer, who grips his gavel like it’s a magic wand capable of transforming wealthy donors’ guilt into shelter funding.

Which, I suppose, is exactly what it is.

The auction begins.

I’m so familiar with the auction items that I could probably recite them in my sleep, complete with suggested retail values and Maria’s carefully crafted promotional blurbs.

The beach house getaway sparks a brief bidding war, while the kitten-naming rights sell for an impressive amount to a woman who keeps shooting meaningful glances at her teenage son.

As the bidding finishes for the professional photoshoot package promising to capture your pet’s inner supermodel , Justin extends his champagne glass toward me. “Can you please hold this for me?”

His face is pale.

I reach to take the glass off him, and our fingers brush, sending a jolt through me. Justin’s breath catches, matching my own sudden inhale.

His eyes fly to mine, and we just stare at each other for a few heartbeats.

“Good luck,” I say in an attempt to break the weird moment.

He looks away, tugging at his bow tie. “Thanks.”

And then he’s squaring his shoulders and making his way through the crowd with a confident stride.

Justin jogs up the steps to the stage, and even though his smile is perfect, I can spot the tension in his jaw.

How weird is it that I know Justin well enough to recognize when his confidence is more performance than reality?

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” the auctioneer announces. “A romantic evening with London’s most eligible animal lover!”

A woman in an aggressively red dress raises her paddle before the auctioneer finishes speaking. “Five thousand pounds!”

It doesn’t take an advanced level of deduction to guess that she must be the famous Vivian.

One look at Justin’s face confirms it.

“Ten thousand pounds,” calls out another voice.

Vivian immediately counters with twelve thousand.

I watch Justin’s hands clench as the bidding continues. Fifteen thousand. Eighteen thousand. Twenty thousand. Each time someone else bids, Vivian tops it with a predatory smile.

Before I can think too hard about what I’m doing, I set the champagne glasses on a nearby table. Then I pull out my phone and navigate to the auction website. My fingers fly across the screen as I quickly create an account for myself.

“Twenty-five thousand pounds,” Vivian announces with an air of finality.

The auctioneer begins his “going once, going twice” routine as Justin’s shoulders tense even further.

I enter my bid. A chime echoes through the room as the screen displays the new bid: Anonymous Animal Advocate: ￡35,000 .

The crowd erupts in excited murmurs. Vivian’s head whips around, searching for her mysterious competitor. On stage, Justin’s eyes go wide.

“Thirty-seven thousand,” Vivian calls out.

I shuffle so I’m partially concealed behind a screen before I take a deep breath and type in ￡50,000 .

It’s for a good cause. It’s for charity.

And it’s not like I don’t have the money.

When my bid flashes up on the screen, Vivian’s face turns nearly as red as her dress. She glares around the room, then raises her paddle again. “Sixty thousand.”

My finger hovers over my phone. I have more than enough money to keep going, to ensure Justin doesn’t have to spend an evening fending off unwanted advances. But should I?

When my gaze finds Justin’s face, and I see the tension there, my finger moves on the screen before I can second-guess myself.

The screen updates.

￡75,000 .

The collective intake of breath among the crowd sounds like someone just announced free champagne for life.

“And we’ve got seventy-five thousand to our online bidder,” the auctioneer says. “Is anyone going to beat that?”

People crane their necks so dramatically that I worry about a mass chiropractor emergency. Vivian’s paddle stays down.

“Going once, going twice…sold!” The auctioneer’s gavel crashes down. “To our anonymous online bidder!”

The tension drains from Justin’s shoulders as relief floods his face.

He manages a gracious smile and wave as he exits the stage.

My hands shake slightly as I pocket my phone. My heart pounds against my ribs like it’s trying to escape and place its own bid.

I just spent seventy-five thousand pounds to save Justin from an uncomfortable situation. To protect him.

What the hell am I doing?