Page 55

Before I can stop it, a tear slips free. It runs down my nose and drips off, leaving a wet splodge on the glossy cover of the magazine. The smiling bride hit by it seems unbothered, her smile still stretching up to her ears like a taunt.

A reminder of what happiness looks and feels like.

I swipe the tear off her face, but it’s quickly replaced by another one.

“If we fall in love, then does that mean we have to climb our way out of it once that person is gone?”

My uncle pats my hand and sighs. “I don’t think you ever get out of it, Sinclair. But as much as it hurts, imagine feeling nothing at all.”

“I think nothing would be my preference,” I reply.

“Hmm.” He smiles sadly. “We need to feel it. The love. The loss. The guilt. We need to live with it. As hard as that is. Anything else would be too easy.”

I look sideways at him. “What if it’s our fault we lost it?”

His face contorts like he’s lost in a painful memory. “Then I think it’s even more important that we remember.”

“Look at you two.” My father’s voice is like a fresh blast of air entering the room and lifting the somber mood. “Getting more wedding ideas?” he asks as he spots the magazine in front of us.

“Yeah, tons.” I force my voice to sound brighter. He deserves to be surrounded by happiness. He and Halliday need to have a magical day, and I’m going to do everything in my power to help them have it.

“It’ll rival any royal wedding with this one helping to plan it.” Uncle Mal chuckles as he gives my hand one final pat and rises from his stool.

“I’ve no doubt,” Dad comments, his blue eyes crinkling. “What are you doing today, Sweetheart?”

He says it so casually, like it’s innocent. But I know they’re all talking about me to one another behind my back. He’s checking I’m actually doing something that doesn’t involve wallowing in my apartment with only Monty for company. It’s out of concern, I get it. But I wish they’d all back off.

“I’m going to a meeting with Julian,” I reply. “We’re going to discuss taking the foundation public.”

My father’s brows shoot up his forehead. After Denver left, I decided to come clean about what I’ve been doing. Having one less secret from my family seemed important. And they’ve all been amazingly supportive about it. I should have told them a long time ago.

But that’s another choice I made that I’ll have to live with now.

“That’s fantastic. I’m proud of you, Sweetheart.”

“Thanks.” I shrug away my father’s compliment, a nausea caused by guilt swirling in my gut. He still doesn’t know I’ve been lying to him for weeks.

Denver’s gone. It’s over.

But the deceit that makes it hard to hold my father’s eyes is still there, as strong as ever.

“What changed your mind?” Uncle Mal asks.

“Something someone said to me. About how I could do more good if I did it.”

My father’s gaze narrows as he studies me. “Sounds like someone who gives good advice.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I mumble, flicking the corner of the magazines pages with my fingertip.

My father picks his suit jacket up from where it’s draped over the back of a stool. “I’m going to say goodbye to Hallie, then I need to head off.”

“You want me to come and sit in?” Uncle Mal asks him.

“Please,” my father replies. “We can’t hire just anyone. They have to be…” He shakes his head.

“They can’t be as good as him, so don’t say it,” Uncle Mal says. “But we’ll get the next best.”

“Hmm.” My father grumbles.

I flick my eyes between the two of them. They’re interviewing for Denver’s replacement. Usually my father would have had him replaced immediately. But he’s waited all this time, hoping he’d come back.

He hasn’t.

I hang my head, shame pulling like a weight around my neck. It’s not just me who was affected when he left. I know my father thought of him as a friend, more like family , than an employee.

But like Denver said himself, Lizzie and Dixie are his family. He needs them. We only got to have him for a while.

And the sooner I accept that, the better.

Three weeks later

“Did you order the bridesmaid’s dresses yet?”

I lift my eyes from my coffee to meet Zoey’s gentle gaze, grateful that she’s trying to distract me. I’ve been the worst company for weeks.

“Yeah. They’re arriving next week. Sterling silver ,” I muse.

She laughs. “Halliday chose them, I’m guessing?”

“She did.” I smile genuinely. “She’s so in love with my father, it’d be weird if they weren’t so cute together.”

“They are cute,” Zoey hums in agreement. Her eyes drop to my travel mug that the barista of the small coffee place we’re sitting in put my order into.

Black. Hot. A splash of vanilla.

“I know,” I mutter. “I need to get a new choice of beverage.”

“No, you need to eat.” Zoey fixes me with a serious look. “No supermodel has ever been told by her agent that she needs to gain weight.”

I rotate my hand in the air like I’m waving a tiny victory flag. “Yay for me. I am the chosen one.”

“I don’t want to see you getting sick, Sin.” She leans over the table, lowering her voice. “He’s gone, honey. And I know that’s what you said you wanted, but?—”

“I don’t regret it,” I answer with an air of finality, like I will actually believe my own words if I say them out loud often enough. “He’d have stayed if I’d asked him to. Then where would that have left us?”

“Ten pounds heavier and a whole lot less miserable.” Zoey sighs. “You can’t keep going like this. Why don’t you call him? See how he’s doing?”

“No.”

“He’s in LA, not living on the moon. You guys could work something out.”

I chew on my lower lip. I considered the same thing in the beginning.

I have the money to fly over there to see him whenever I want.

My father has a private jet I can use. And so does Halliday.

I could even have a permanent suite in a hotel over there set up for me, like Sullivan has his fuck pad at The Lanceford.

And each time I left him and said goodbye, I’d feel the familiar and unbearable ripping inside me, like I’m being torn from my body.

I’ve said too many goodbyes over the last three years. I can’t handle anymore.

“He deserves more than that. Besides, my family is here, and his is there. One of us would have to give them up eventually. And I can’t be the reason that one of us has to make that choice. I can’t do that to either of us.”

“The way he thinks that you and Brad, though, I…”

“I know.” I screw my face up in disgust at myself for that Oscar-worthy performance. Maybe I should have a word with my agent and branch out into acting. “But it’s the only way I could think of that would make him leave.”

“Sure did that.” Zoey exhales, leaning back in her seat.

“So, your bachelorette?” I say, moving onto topics that don’t include heartbreak, lies, or absent bodyguards with gold-flecked green eyes.

“I’m thinking Rio.” Zoey claps her hands in delight, and I grin at her, eager to step into her excitement. I’m her maid of honor and best friend. It’s time I pulled myself out of my self-induced downward spiral and acted like it.

“Ooh, yes. Theme?”

“I don’t know,” she muses, gazing out at the street through the window we’re sitting in front of. “Nothing too crass.”

“No inflatable dicks, got it.” I lean my chin in my hand and listen as she talks excitedly about what we can do there, and how Ashton will probably want to go and play golf or something that sounds equally boring. I’m so glad I’m not his best man.

We sit and chat for ages until Zoey’s attention snags on something behind me. “Pap at twelve o’clock,” she whispers.

I keep myself from turning around. They’re entitled to come in for a coffee.

This place has a well-earned reputation for the best beans within a fifteen-block radius.

But I’d still rather not today. Some have a certain level of respect when you’re inside somewhere.

Out on the street you might as well have a flashing sign over your head inviting them to hound the heck out of you.

But inside, drinking a coffee with your friend, you’d like to think some have a modicum of decency.

“Sinclair Beaufort?”

Not this one, it seems.

I turn and offer him a polite smile. He’s doing his job, I get it. He probably has a wife and kids that he wants to put through college.

“Now I believe the hype over the coffee here, seeing you drinking it,” he says, looking between Zoey and I with an easy smile.

I glance down at the camera on a strap that’s slung over his arm. He makes no attempt to get it.

“It’s as good as they say it is,” I tell him.

“Listen.” He clears his throat. “I don’t want to disturb you any longer, but…”

I brace myself, waiting for it.

“… Can I have a quote?”

“Sure.” I brighten. “About the foundation?”

I’ve been getting questions about it since going public a couple of days ago, and it’s the one topic I’ll happily talk about for hours.

“Yeah.”

The reporter listens as I reel off some of the publicity spiel I prepared with the new publicist I’ve hired to help run it with me.

“Thanks,” he says, sounding genuinely grateful when I’ve finished. “No bodyguard anymore, then?” he adds casually as he hovers by our table.

“No. Not since…” I tip my head.

“Since Theodora Rielly was uncovered as the one leaving you anonymous threats.” He nods in understanding.

“That’s right.”

“Rumor has it Mr. Layne’s working for Jenessa Falcon in LA.”

I keep my lips pressed tightly together at the mention of LA’s latest sweetheart and Oscar winner. She’s twenty-nine and looks like a walking TikTok filter, one of the ones that makes you look stunningly, unrealistically hot. Only with her, she actually looks like that. Without makeup.

“Bet the guys over there won’t land a shot of her with him like this, though?” The reporter scrolls through the images on his camera and swivels the screen in my direction. Denver’s holding the door open for me, one hand resting on my lower back, his eyes on my face.

And I’m gazing up at him like he came up with the cure to end all childhood cancers.

“Thought I’d struck gold there.” The reporter chuckles and then clicks a button on the camera. Delete.

“Just a guy doing his job.” I offer him a polite smile before he leaves.

“Jenessa Falcon?” Zoey’s nose wrinkles in disgust.

But I know she’s only being a good friend. There’s nothing remotely concerning about Jenessa that’s ever been reported on. She’s Hollywood’s darling.

She’ll probably treat him better than I did.

But I still make a mental note not to watch her latest movie that just released. Every time I see her face now, I’ll be picturing Denver’s hand on her lower back, his eyes on her face as he opens the car door for her.

Her being the sole focus of his attention.

“I need another coffee,” I declare. “You want one?” I ask Zoey as I rise from my chair.

“Yeah.” She nods, her eyes softening with empathy as she stands with me. “But this time, I’ll get them.”