Page 19 of Where She Belongs (A Different Kind of Love #3)

I glance at the time display and groan. “I’m late. The final dress fitting.”

“Do you need to go?” Gabe asks, though we both know the answer.

“I do.” I sit up reluctantly, already calculating how quickly I can shower and dress. “Mother of the bride duties call.”

He nods, understanding in his eyes. “We’ll continue our experiment later?”

The question carries a casual tone, but there’s something in his expression that suggests this is more than just idle curiosity for him too.

“Definitely,” I reply, matching his light tone while my heart races beneath it. “I’m very invested in thorough research.”

His smile—warm and genuine—follows me as I head for the shower. This is still pretending, I tell myself firmly. Just curiosity, just acting, just an experiment between friends.

Even if nothing between us feels like pretend anymore.

The ocean breeze rustles the edges of our napkins as I settle at the beachside café table, still flustered from rushing through the final dress fitting.

I’d barely had time to change back into my sundress before hurrying to meet everyone for lunch.

The mother-of-the-bride gown had fit perfectly after the seamstress’s adjustments—a sleek champagne-colored creation with delicate beading that had made Tristy tear up when she saw me in it.

“There she is,” Gabe says, standing as I approach. His smile seems carefully neutral, though something flickers in his eyes when they meet mine—the memory of this morning’s kiss hanging between us like an unspoken question.

“Sorry I’m late,” I say, taking the empty seat beside him, hyperaware of the careful distance I maintain. “The fitting took longer than expected.”

“Worth the wait, I hope?” he asks as I settle in.

“You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see,” Tristy interjects with a grin. “But trust me, Mom looks amazing.”

I feel heat rise in my cheeks, remembering how I’d blushed furiously in the fitting room when Tristy had commented on how Gabe wouldn’t be able to take his eyes off me.

The memory of his lips on mine this morning, the weight of his body against mine, had been impossible to shake throughout the entire appointment.

“I don’t doubt it,” Gabe replies, his voice carrying that smooth confidence that’s charmed half the women in northern New Mexico. The same voice that had whispered “for science” before kissing me this morning.

I reach for my water glass, needing something to do with my hands that doesn’t involve touching him.

Around the table, conversation flows easily—Tristy and Tyler discussing final wedding details, Dax and Harlow debating the merits of different snorkeling spots.

It feels normal, casual, as if this morning never happened.

As if everything between Gabe and me is still the same.

But it isn’t. The air between us vibrates with unspoken awareness, with possibilities neither of us seems ready to articulate.

“You are not going to believe what just popped up on my feed,” Tyler suddenly says, his face lit with unholy glee as he slides his phone across the table toward Tristy, shattering my thoughts.

Tristy’s eyes widen as she looks at the screen. “Oh. My. God.” She glances up at Gabe, then back at the phone, then at me. “This is... unexpected.”

“What?” I ask, trying to see what they’re looking at.

“Nothing,” Gabe says quickly, reaching for the phone, but Tyler snatches it back.

“Not nothing, dude. Definitely something.”

Dax leans over to look, then lets out a low whistle. “Busted, bro.”

“Will someone please explain what’s going on?” I ask, irritation edging into my voice.

Tristy bites her lip, glancing between me and Gabe with an expression I can’t quite interpret. “It’s, um, an Instagram post. From three months ago.”

“The exact time you two supposedly started dating,” Tyler adds, his tone suggesting he’s enjoying this far too much.

Gabe’s expression has gone carefully neutral, but I can see tension in the set of his shoulders. Something cold and anxious curls in my stomach.

“Just show me,” I say, holding out my hand for the phone.

With obvious reluctance, Tyler passes it to me.

The screen displays an Instagram post from an account I don’t recognize—@SkyHighVal—dated exactly three months earlier.

The image shows a hot tub at night, snow falling heavily around it.

Two glasses of wine sit on the edge, and though the photo is artfully angled to show mostly the winter scene, there’s clearly someone in the water—a man’s broad shoulders visible from behind, dark hair gleaming wet.

The caption reads: Snowstorm silver lining. Stranded in Denver with the hottest doctor west of the Mississippi. Some layovers are worth the wait. #SnowDay #HotTubHottie #DoctorFeelGood

I stare at the image, recognition dawning slowly. The man in the hot tub is unmistakably Gabe. And the woman taking the photo—Valerie. The flight attendant from our flight to Hawaii, the one who’d greeted him by name, the one he’d been deliberately vague about when I questioned him.

“It’s going viral,” Tyler explains, a little too enthusiastically. “Someone recognized Dr. Vasquez from Tristy’s posts about you two, and now it’s getting reshared like crazy. The comments are... interesting.”

I scroll down to see the comments, each one landing like a tiny dagger.

Wait, isn’t this the same doctor who’s dating Tristy’s mom?

Timeline doesn’t add up...

Player’s gonna play

Poor Dr. Martin, always the last to know

Bile rises in my throat as I stare at the evidence of exactly what I’ve been afraid of.

Gabe, perpetually unable to commit. Gabe, with his endless stream of women.

Gabe, who was apparently hooking up with a flight attendant in a Denver hot tub at the exact time we’ve been claiming our relationship began.

“Nothing to explain,” I say as I pass the phone back to Tyler. “We’ve only been exclusive for about two months. Right, Gabe?”

His eyes widen. “Right,” he agrees after a moment’s hesitation. “We were... still figuring things out three months ago.”

“So you were seeing other people? Both of you?” Tristy presses, looking unconvinced.

“I wasn’t,” I admit, because it’s the truth. I haven’t dated anyone since the divorce became final. “But we hadn’t had the exclusivity talk yet. Gabe was free to see whoever he wanted. And I told him so, explicitly. Let’s say I was giving him a difficult time with a decision.”

It’s a reasonable explanation for our fictional timeline, but the words taste bitter on my tongue. Because even though our relationship is just pretend, the hurt I feel seeing that image is devastatingly real.

“That’s... surprisingly mature of you, Mom,” Tristy says slowly.

“Your mother is an extremely reasonable person,” Gabe says, his voice carrying a note of gratitude that only I can hear. Beneath the table, his hand finds mine, squeezing gently.

The conversation shifts to wedding details, for which I’m profoundly grateful. Gabe’s hand remains wrapped around mine under the table, warm and steady, but my thoughts are in freefall.

Why does it bother me so much? It’s not as if we were actually dating three months ago. It’s not as if his past relationships have any bearing on our friendship. It’s not as if I have any right to feel betrayed by what happened before we began this charade.

And yet.

And yet.

Seeing the evidence of his casual approach to relationships—his apparent inability to go more than a few days without female company—reinforces every fear I’ve been harboring since this morning’s kiss.

That I’m just another conquest. That I’m setting myself up for heartbreak.

That whatever is happening between us will inevitably end, leaving our friendship in tatters.

“Earth to Andie,” Harlow’s voice breaks through my spiraling thoughts. “You still with us?”

I blink, realizing everyone is looking at me expectantly. “Sorry, just thinking about my dress for tomorrow,” I lie. “What were you saying?”

“We were discussing the rehearsal dinner tonight,” Tristy says. “Dad wants to make a toast. I told him it’s fine, but he wants to make sure you’re okay with it.”

Simon. Making a toast. At my daughter’s rehearsal dinner. While I sit there with my fake boyfriend who was apparently hot-tubbing with a flight attendant during a snowstorm at the exact time we’ve told everyone we started dating.

“Of course it’s fine,” I say automatically. “It’s your rehearsal dinner. He’s your stepfather. He should make a toast.”

“Cool,” Tristy says, clearly relieved. “I’ll let him know.”

As conversation flows around us, Gabe leans closer, his voice for my ears only. “We should talk.”

“Later,” I whisper back. “Not here.”

He nods, though I can see the concern in his eyes. He knows me too well not to recognize when I’m retreating behind my walls.

The rest of lunch passes in a blur of wedding details and good-natured teasing. I laugh in all the right places, contribute appropriately to the conversation, play my part as the happy mother of the bride with the attentive, devoted boyfriend. But inside, doubt gnaws at me like a physical pain.

What am I doing? Playing with fire, letting myself believe—even for a moment—that the man beside me could ever want more than friendship or a brief fling.

Gabe Vasquez doesn’t do commitment. He doesn’t do long-term.

He does weekends in hot tubs with flight attendants, brief passionate affairs that burn out as quickly as they ignite.

Sure, he might even continue seeing someone for six months, but he’ll never tell her the three words she wants to hear.

Meanwhile, I’m Andrea Martin, the responsible one, the steady one, the one who plans and builds and commits. We are fundamentally incompatible, no matter how right it felt when he kissed me this morning, no matter how perfectly our bodies fit together in sleep.