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After her funeral, he told me he wished I were the one who’d died instead of her. He was drunk at the time. Really drunk. But I’ve never forgotten those words.
“This is a beautiful dinner. Coconut puffs are the way to my heart,” I said, earning myself a shadow of a smile. “But before I say what I’m about to say, I want you to know two things. One, I’m terrible at comforting people. I have no talent or desire to do so, and tears make me uncomfortable. Two, I hate platitudes. They’re fake and stupid. So I want you to listen carefully when I say this: It wasn’t your fault. You were a kid, and it was an accident.” I squeezed his hand, wishing I could imprint my sincerity into his skin because I meant every word. “It wasn’t your fault.”
looked at him, and I’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
Our lives weren’t perfect, but here, together, we were at peace.
I did it. I fucking did it. Vuk was officially my business partner, and with his stamp of approval, the rest of the pieces fell into place. That night, Sloane and I celebrated with food, wine, a so-bad-it-was-good rom-com, and lots of sex (obviously).
My relationship with Sloane was developing into something more than I’d thought possible, and the financing from Davenport Capital was in the final stages of approval.
“Don’t be sorry. You had good intentions, and you did everything you could to minimize our chances of getting caught.” Sloane gave me a wan smile. “It was a perfect day, Xavier. I’ll never be sorry that I got to see Pen, and she was happier than I’d seen her in a long time. That was because of you. It’s not your fault George and Caroline would rather prioritize their pettiness over their daughter’s well-being.” Her grip around her pen tightened at the mention of her father and stepmother. “This is on them. Not you.”
“We’ll figure it out. I promise.” I managed a crooked smile. “Between you and me, we can figure out anything. We’re geniuses.”
We didn’t speak. She didn’t shed any tears. But I held her all the same.
Some people wallowed after a disaster. Others threw fits of temper. Me? I planned.
I did what I did best: I figured out how to solve a crisis. It started with taking down Perry.
“I will not rest until that man’s career is reduced to writing cat-food copy for Fast and Furriness.”
“Interesting,” I said coolly. “Because I distinctly remember you calling me an ‘ice queen’ and telling me that dating me was like dating a block of ice.”
“You fucked my sister on our living room couch and tried to gaslight me into thinking it was my fault? Then you married her a year after you proposed to me and didn’t say a single word to me for years until you ran into me and magically realized you were still into me?”
Once upon a time, I’d thought he was the love of my life. I’d been so swept up by his good looks, his deceptively sweet words, and the magic of falling in love abroad like in the rom-coms I watched so often. His proposal was supposed to mark the start of our happily ever after. But happily ever afters didn’t always end so happily, and now, after age and experience stripped the rose tint off my glasses, I saw him with crystal clarity. His hair was too perfect, his clothes too pressed, his smile too fake. His words dripped with entitlement instead of a teasing lilt, and what I’d mistaken for
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“I’m… flattered, and obviously, there’s really only one answer.” “Obviously,” he said with enough smugness to power an entire fraternity house. “Take your proposition, and go fuck yourself with it.”
“Let me make a few things clear.” I spoke over him. “One, I would rather sleep with a leprosy-infected ogre before I ever let you touch me again. You are a disgusting, misogynist pig whose brain is inversely proportionate to the size of your giant ego, and you’re lucky I was too young when we met to know otherwise. Two, Georgia has many faults, but she and every other woman who’s unlucky enough to cross your path deserves better than you. I hope the next time she throws a vase at you, she doesn’t miss. Three, Xavier is ten times the man you could ever hope to be. He’s smarter, kinder, and
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“All that to say, I disrespectfully decline your offer to be your mistress. Don’t contact me again, or I’ll slap you with a restraining order and make sure every single person in your workplace and social circle knows you can’t take no for an answer.”
The move may be cliché, but it was damn satisfying. Sometimes, the rom-coms got it right.
“I’ve never heard you so fired up over a woman.” “She’s not just any woman. She’s…” Everything. I almost said it. The word came so easily, it would’ve slipped right off my tongue had its potential implications not hit me at the same time like a hollow-point bullet. Sloane couldn’t be my everything. Yes, I cared about her deeply, and no, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She set my blood on fire whenever she was near and when she hurt, I hurt. She was the only person with whom I felt comfortable enough to share the secrets I’d shared, and if a genie popped out of a bottle this very second and
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But impending death changes people, mijo. It forces us to confront our mortality and reevaluate what’s important.”
But you’re right. Alberto Castillo was not a man who would’ve overlooked such a glaring loophole, which meant he put it in there on purpose. I suspect…” This time, his hesitation carried a hint of caution. “It was his way of simultaneously extending an olive branch and pushing you closer to your potential. He could’ve easily cut off your inheritance unless you followed whatever terms he dictated, or he could’ve written you out of the will altogether. But he didn’t.”
Our gazes lingered, the noise from the restaurant fading beneath the weight of unspoken words.
She was so fucking beautiful it almost hurt to look at her. I wondered if she knew that. I wondered if she knew how much she occupied my thoughts and how I counted down the minutes to seeing her again when we were apart. I wondered if I’d upended her life the way she had mine, to the point where the pieces would no longer fit if she weren’t there, because she wasn’t a pit stop; she was the destination. The bullet from earlier dug deeper. I opened my mouth, but Sloane blinked and looked away before I said something I regretted—not because I wouldn’t mean it, but because it would’ve been too
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I smiled. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Worry less about my relationship with Xavier and more about your own marriage,”
I prefer partners who understand the concept of loyalty,
What kind of sick, heartless monster doesn’t shed a single tear when their mother’s gone? Thank God we got rid of Rhea. You know Xavier’s going to leave you. In her absence, Georgia’s taunts rushed to fill the void, and without my pride to keep me upright, I was suddenly so, so tired. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through the rapid patter of my heart. I hated how I’d taken her bait before I cut her off with the Bentley recording. I hated how transparent I was to her, and how deeply her words cut when I should’ve been immune. I’d known she was trying to hurt me, and I’d let her do it
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Everyone wants to melt the so-called ice queen. How long do you think a guy like that will stay with someone like you before he gets bored?
I wasn’t sure what I would do—stay in a relationship that made me terrifyingly happy and risk it ending one day, or run back to the comfort of my solo bubble? That was, of course, assuming I had a choice and Xavier wanted to be with me after the trial period concluded.
Part of me wanted to ask for a raincheck, but seeing him always made me feel better. I needed him after this shitshow of a day. Needed. I’d never needed anyone, and the idea that I needed him sent a little shiver down my spine—from fear or pleasure, I wasn’t sure.
But I’d lived with him for five years, and for five years, in this sterile apartment, we were all each other had. I sank onto the couch and willed myself to cry, to expel the pressure mounting in my chest. Once. I wanted that relief just once, but as always, I didn’t get it. And an eternity later, when the pressure became unbearable and my will to fight eroded to nothing, I simply curled up on the couch, squeezed my eyes shut against the pain, and pretended I was someone, somewhere else because that was the only thing I’d ever been able to do.
A cold spike of terror pierced me at the prospect.
Even if she wasn’t fatally wounded, she was hurt. I could feel it, an insistent cocktail of instinct and intuition that drove me into the back of a cab and toward her apartment.
“You had him for years,” I said gently. “It’s normal to feel grief over a pet passing.” “For other people. Not for me.”
“Forget about dinner. We’ll order takeout and watch the new Cathy Roberts movie.” I’d rather be here than at some stuffy restaurant anyway.
“You can tell me anything.”
Pen’s question from the simulation center echoed in my ears. And I wondered, my mind flipping from the first time we’d met in her office to this moment right here, right now, just how in the hell I’d fallen in love with Sloane Kensington.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, still with my affable tone. “I’m not here to talk.” Then I drew back my arm and slammed my fist into his face.
I wasn’t a violent person. I rarely had to resort to physical brawls to solve a problem, and in Bentley’s case, I didn’t have to; I wanted to.
“That was your first and final warning,” I said, my words quiet enough to reach only his ears. “Touch, talk, or even think about Sloane again, and I’ll make what Richard McEntire did to that ball boy with his tennis racket look like a walk in the fucking park. That includes any indirect contact. If you make her life difficult in any way, you’ll be blacklisted from New York society so fast, it’ll make your head spin.”
“Pass the message along to your wife,” I said, my face hardening. “The same goes for her.” I wouldn’t touch Georgia. Sloane’s relationship with her sister was her domain, but that didn’t mean I had to stand by and watch while Georgia tried to tear down the woman I loved. Loved.
I loved her, totally and completely, and I’d be damned if I let anyone hurt her.
But I hadn’t, and he’d been here, and he’d stayed. Overnight. That was already a big deal for me because I didn’t let random men in my personal space. But he wasn’t a random man; he was him, and the house felt so much more vibrant when he was there that I’d thrown caution to the wind and invited him over for the weekend. That was right. I, Sloane Kensington, had willingly invited someone to stay—count them—one, two, three nights with me, and I didn’t dread it.
“I’m giving half of it to charity.”
Bad luck comes in threes. I’d been exposed to that superstition since I was a child, but no one ever defined the time period for when those three bad things happened. It could be a day, a week, a month or, in my case, three months. My father’s death and new inheritance clause in October. Perry exposing our outing with Pen in November.
I looked back once—just long enough to see the vault, my dream, and everything that came with it burn.
One mistake, and people had gotten hurt.
was lucky there hadn’t been more people inside and that the fire hadn’t spread to other floors or damaged the structural integrity of the building. I was even luckier the fire hadn’t happened after the club opened and was packed with people. But I didn’t feel lucky; I felt like I was drowning.
Sloane. One out of a thousand knots loosened, but that was enough. The world snapped back into crystal clarity.
