by Piper Lawson
A familiar voice has me looking up. I rise, smoothing my dress down with a hand. “Aiden.”
“Did you see my father in there?”
“No." I can't find a smile, but I force myself to suck in a breath. "I’m looking forward to meeting with him about the resort collection.”
It’s a lie, but maybe next week I’ll feel like it again. It’s the one thing I have to focus on right now.
Aiden’s expression seems more perturbed than usual. “This resort collection?” He pulls out his phone and holds it out.
I take it, studying the screen. Without asking permission, I flick through the images. There’s new branding, a tagline, everything.
“It’s done.” Disbelief echoes in my voice.
“You never had a shot. He strung you along to get your help with the wedding PR. It’s why I try to stay as removed from him, and it, as possible. If it makes you feel better, my father uses everyone.”
I’m gutted. Empty. Ruined.
Every choice I’ve made, every sacrifice this past month—more than—was for nothing.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because you’ve always been direct with me in a way most people aren’t. And because I appreciate what you said to me earlier, about making something real from something fake.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “It’s not true. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
My eyes burn.
“Don’t mention this to my father. I didn’t want you to devote additional resources to a pursuit that’s destined to fail.”
I hand back his phone and head inside, making a beeline to the bathroom. I press a damp towel to the back of my neck.
This business I’ve been building for my team and myself will suffer. My clients have already suffered.
It’s crashing down around me.
Not only that, but without the deal with Vane on the table, Ben and I never would’ve had to pretend to date. I wouldn’t be standing here, in love with my best friend who looked at me as if I’d destroyed him.
When I steady myself enough to go back out there, Tris catches my eye from the bar.
I look past him to where Ben’s talking with some other men in suits, his mom at his side.
“Want me to fuck him up for you?”
I swipe my face, finding the single tear that snuck through. “No.”
I didn’t want you to devote additional resources to a pursuit that’s destined to fail.
Is that what it’s always been with Ben? Destined to fail?
Tris shifts into my line of sight. “When he told me you were dating, I called bullshit. My brother’s a smart guy, but he’s too stupid to see what you’ve always had together.”
“Which is what?”
“Something better than a label.”
His thoughtfulness would be touching if I were capable of appreciating it.
“We were friends, Tris. And I always wanted more, but now I don’t even know if we’re that.”
The awards have concluded and there’s music starting. When I look back toward Ben, he’s watching us. Not just watching—he’s headed this way.
Tris follows my gaze before stepping closer, his mouth close to my ear. “I hope not. For his sake.”
As he leaves, I can’t find it in me to be grateful. I’m too wrecked.
I told Ben about our one night together because I wanted to be honest, thinking he’d understand. hoping he would.
When he told me he loved me, my heart expanded so much, I thought it would crack my chest. The next second, everything went dark.
Ben stops in front of me and holds out a hand. “Everyone wants to see us together. Let’s not disappoint them.”
The last part of me that held out hope that he’d see my earnestness dies.
This is for show. I realize it as he leads me to the dance floor where a dozen couples are swaying to the music.
He takes my hand and I reach for his shoulder. My gaze cuts to his, and it’s full of so many things.
Betrayal.
Confusion.
Love.
It’s that one that slays me.
“I know you’re hurt,” I say as he starts to move, and I follow his lead. “But the way I feel about you has never been a lie. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
Ben pulls me closer, until I’m staring at his lapel instead of into his eyes. His familiar scent overwhelms me, makes me want to melt into his arms, but the tension in his body tells me I wouldn’t find the comfort I crave.
He has to know this isn’t fake. That everything between us has been leading up to this moment, that this is our chance for something bigger. Deeper. Lasting.
I’m not about to dump what happened with Vane at his feet or use it to garner sympathy.
I’ve already laid my heart at his feet. It’s his move.
He clears his throat and anticipation wells inside me. “I live my life taking risks.” His breath is light against my ear, the rumble of his voice reverberating through me in the places our bodies touch. “And I know going in that some of those bets, I’m going to lose. The way I survive it is being able to cut my losses. To deal with the fallout.”
His hand tightens on mine, and I want to squeeze back, hold him as though I’ll never let go.
“I can’t deal with the fallout from you. You’re not a deal I’ll get over after a few shots of tequila and a week of being an asshole in meetings.” The raw edge in his words twists the knife deeper.
I pull back enough to look him in the eye.
“So what?” I challenge, my voice riding just over the music. “We go back to being friends and pretend none of this ever happened? Because that’s a lie too.”
I want us, I want to add.
I want to be there for his strength and his weakness, his pride and his uncertainty, the moments he wins and the ones he loses.
But he doesn’t want that. I can read it plainly on his face, and that knowledge rips my heart in two.
I always thought my heart was mine, but now I know I’ve been giving away pieces to him—every week or month or year—because he’s pulling away from me, even though I’m here in his arms, and part of me is going with him.
I look past his shoulder toward his mom and Tris, his business partners.
He pulls me closer. “Are they watching?”
His words are an aching reminder of the first time this happened in a club a month ago.
I turn into him, his lips an inch from mine. “Yes.”
The feel of his warm touch at my back through my dress makes me want the world to fall away until it’s just him and me and everything else is gone.
He claims my mouth.
It’s not like the first time he kissed me, or any of the countless times since. This is anger, need, regret, resentment.
My fingers curl around his collar, holding him against me.
Every slide of his mouth says, fuck these people. Fuck this place.
It’s punishing and earnest at once, as if he can erase the last twenty minutes by making me hurt.
I take it all. I’ll take anything he has to give me right now.
I pull back first, both of our breathing coming shallowly. “Don’t tell your mom we broke up yet. Wait a week. Let her have tonight.”
Ben’s throat works, and his hand comes up to caress my jaw in the way he said meant he was holding me here with him.
Except this time, he’s not.
This time, he’s pushing me away.
27
Pretending can be the easiest thing one second and fucking perverse the next.
Like in the limo ride to drop off my mom.
Once it’s just the two of us, Tris looks at me from the other side of the limo. “You need a drink.”
I turn the award over in my hands. I want to tell him to mind his own damn business. Instead I buzz down the divider and bark out the name of a gritty place I like.
We get out at the bar and I follow my brother out of the limo.
/> “Oh, we can’t leave this behind,” he says dryly, hoisting my award.
Once inside, he orders us a booth, but I shake my head. “Let’s sit at the bar.”
I take the crystal statue from him and set it on the sticky bar before unfastening my tie with the other hand.
I used to love this bar but now, taking in the faded wood and dingy surfaces, I can't fathom how.
When our drinks are set in front of us, Tris says, “You know, for a moment, you looked like you owned everything in the world.”
“The award doesn’t mean anything. Xavier all but said I won’t be succeeding him.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His sharp tone has me looking up. “You looked like that when you danced with her.”
The words land like embers in my already stinging gut.
I kissed her, pretending it was for show, but it was because I couldn’t not kiss her. After, she wove her way through the dance floor, leaving my fucking heart bleeding out without knowing which of us tore it first.
“It wasn’t real, Tris. None of it was. We were supposed to be fooling the world. But the whole fucking time, she was fooling me.”
"What are you talking about?"
I stare him down over my glass and fill him in—on what happened then and now.
“She lied.” I take a long drink that does little to soothe my anger.
“So did you. To yourself and to her.”
I glare at him. “That’s why I’ve kept my distance from this bullshit. I can take risks at the office because, at the end of the day, you pick yourself up and do better the next day. But when it’s your heart… you risk everything. Your life, your pride, your soul.”
Daisy put a hole in my chest tonight, and her admission is acid, corroding the edges every second I think of it.
“I know how much it tore you up to watch Mom and Dad,” Tris weighs in. “But what you and Daisy have is different. If you don’t see it, you’re a bigger moron than I thought.”
His dig glances off me. Nothing he can say could fuck me up more than I’m already fucked up tonight.
What could we have had?
I play it out in my mind, a hundred snapshots of a thousand days. Waking up with her in my bed. Holding her when she’s upset. Spending weekends together traveling, taking a fucking vacation even. Laughing and joking.
But it wouldn’t work. We’d eventually have a fight that couldn’t be solved with me inside her.
Something else would happen to bring up those emotions again, to make me feel helpless and angry and lost, and we’d end up the same way.
Alone.
28
“Another battle down,” Camila says at my shoulder.
I force myself to smile. “This is quite the battle gear.”
I nod toward her gorgeous cream gown and matching gloves. The diamonds at her ears blink as she angles her head, clearly relieved the program is over.
“The shoes are killing me. Come with me while I swap them out.”
I follow her to the coat check, where she grabs a Louis Vuitton weekender bag, and on to the empty powder room, a huge expanse of white and gray marble with three unoccupied stalls.
There are thirty people at the rehearsal dinner Wednesday, most of whom are familiar. It’s the home stretch for the Vane wedding events. By the end of this weekend, it will be over.
“I didn’t grow up with this,” Camila says through her smile as she sets her bag on a chair in the corner. She tugs off one pump, sighing with pleasure as she steps barefoot onto the marble. “I went to school in the States, but my parents live in Cape Town, and they don’t approve of Aiden.”
Normally I’d be intrigued, but my interest in everything is dulled this week. “Really.”
She takes off the other shoe too, wiggling her toes on the floor. “Technically they don’t approve of this wedding. Would you mind?” She nods to the bag and I unzip it, finding a pair of elegant, cream Louboutin flats.
“Why don’t they approve?” I ask, holding out the shoes. “You could have your pick of men. It seems you could do worse than Aiden Vane.”
Camila tosses me a smile before pulling on her shoes. “The thing you realize once you’re not eighteen anymore is what a woman has to do if what she wants to achieve is bigger than love."
I haven’t thought much about love for myself until the past few weeks. Now, it’s hard to think of anything else.
Since Ben cut me out of his life and his heart last week, I’ve been going through the motions.
I get home late and leave early. I’ve thrown myself into work. Getting my schedule back on track and trying to figure out how to get my business back on track after not landing the Vane account.
One of Camila’s bridesmaids comes in, offering a warm hello to me as she heads for one of the stalls.
“That’s better,” Camila says of the shoes.
“It’s nice to see all these people from our trip to the Vineyard,” I say as we head back out. “You have good friends.”
“Ben could’ve come tonight.”
My chest aches, a full, raw wave of emotion I’ve been trying to bury until I’m alone at home in the dark, where I can let it overwhelm me. “I don’t think it’s going to work out.”
“Why not?” Her pretty eyes cloud.
I shouldn’t spill to a client, especially not one on the brink of her own wedding, but she looks so genuinely caring. “He doesn’t want a relationship. At least not with me. I confessed something I hoped would set us free, but it only drove a wedge between us.”
She turns to search out her future husband in the crowd of well-dressed bodies, frowning when she finds him. “When I was younger, I fell in love with a man. I tried to be what he wanted, was afraid to lose him. I lost him anyway. For all his flaws, Aiden knows who I am and why I’m here. Nothing can make up for going to bed knowing you have no secrets between you.”
Except that’s not true. They might have shared secrets from the world, but he’s kept his feelings from her. There’s no way a man like Aiden Vane spills his guts on what was built as a business transaction. And there’s no way Camila could be as distanced talking about him now if he had.
“I’m impressed with how you managed us,” Camila continues, steering us back toward the coat check to drop off the bag once more. “In the photo shoot and article draft, we look together, on the same page. I’ll be sure my father-in-law knows that when he decides on the person to run his campaign.”
“Apparently, the decision’s been made.”
“Has it?” She sets the bag on the coat check counter.
The attendant starts to take the bag, but Camila holds up a hand. She tugs the ends of one elegant glove until it gives. The other one follows suit.
Turning back to me, Camila folds her arms. “Tell me what you would do.”
Despite what happened with Ben and me this week, working with the Vanes has reinforced that you find devils where you least expect them—and friends too. Some relationships you didn’t expect to find emerge while you’re busy desperately clinging to others.
I lift my chin. “Not all relationships are the same. People want to rediscover one another, and they change over time too.”
She listens thoughtfully as I go on for a few minutes, and when I’m finished, she nods. “Well. I hope we’ll see Ben at the wedding on Saturday. There’s still time.”
There’s no chance of that. He’s made his position clear.
He loves me. But he doesn’t want to be with me.
I’m still not enough.
Only this time, it has nothing to do with my sister and everything to do with me.
"I’m glad you decided to come," Lily says as she holds the door to the climbing gym Thursday afternoon.
“It’s the first time you’ve expressed an interest in climbing.” I leave my sunglasses in place as I follow her inside. "Plus, my ass needs the workout."
We get ourselves checked in and change into our gear before heading out int
o the main area.
“I’ve been talking to professors at school about getting a research assistant position," she says.
Surprise has me turning to look at her as I get out my harness and strap it around my waist and legs. “That’s great.”
“I want to help pay for my tuition.”
“I have it covered. I’m getting a final check from the Vanes after the wedding."
She squeezes my arm. “Then I’m going to start helping with rent. Or at least bagels. I know I'm not the most… worldly, but I'm figuring it out.”
“You don't have to change for anyone, but I’m glad. Not that you’re paying for things, but that you're expanding who you think you are.”
“It was Ben’s idea."
My hands still on the clip at my waist. The past week I've been able to focus on work and the Vane wedding, plus make plans for going forward.
None of it made it easier spending Friday night without Ben, or the weekend that followed.
"The way you’ve been acting the last week is scaring me,” Lil comments as if reading my mind. “You barely say anything. You live at the office and in your room. I figured you'd at least want to talk about… something.”
"There's nothing to talk about. Ben needed a fake girlfriend for the month. The month is over, and so are we."
I work my way up the wall, even though part of me wants to punch it. Once I reach the top marker, I glance over my shoulder to tell Lil I’m coming down, but I’m so surprised by what I see that I let go anyway. The lead rope snaps taut.
"What are you doing here?" I call down.
"You skipped out on happy hour last week and we figured after the Vane rehearsal, you could use a break," Kendall supplies.
“So we brought happy hour to you." Rena holds out a flask.
I can't help snorting.
They release the lead rope a bit at a time as I work my way down the wall.
“Plus, it’s obvious you’ve been keeping something inside,” Kendall says as I reach the bottom.
“Tris didn’t text you?”
They exchange a look.
“Okay fine, Tris texted, too. But we waited a few days to see if you’d say something. Now, we’re intervening.”