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He must be surprised because he says nothing, and hanging up now would only make it awkward, so I do the only thing I never do.
“Heard Emily is making Leo and Cassie sweat over the wedding.”
“Clearly, she’s making up for Christopher and Arabella. You know what your grandmother is like.”
“Sounds about right.”
I’m about to reach my car when he tells me, “It’s good that you’re going to be there.”
Good has nothing to do with it. Georgina is right—I am a moth, completely and utterly enthralled by her light. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself to let go, I find another reason to hold on. To protect her. To keep her close. To do everything fucking thing except for the one I should do—walk away.
Chapter 3
GEORGINA
It always strikes me how light and airy Christopher and Arabella’s home feels. The bright white walls of the stairs are artfully arranged with an endless mosaic of photos that span the years they’ve been together. There’s one particular picture that I can’t help but stop to admire every time I pass it. It’s from their wedding day. A jumble of terribly arranged people that are all smiling. All except one.
It doesn’t matter how angry I am at him or how badly I wish I could hurt him. My heart falters every single time I follow his stare to me. In that moment, I was completely oblivious to him. Freddie was simply Christopher’s cousin, the one that everyone pussyfooted around like a ticking time bomb. Although I didn’t know him, I didn’t like him. The constant scowl coupled with his clear lack of tact or even humane filter made me wary of him. Warier than I have ever been of any person, and still every time I saw him, as much as I wanted to pull myself away, I couldn’t help the curiosity that bloomed. It only got wilder and harder to ignore when he practically moved into my home.
“I’m going to start charging real estate for that step,” Christopher chuckles as he comes up the stairs, stopping on the step below the one I’m standing on. “What’re you looking at?”
A light, begrudged chortle pushes from my lips as I point to the photo. There’s no point in trying to hide the fact that I stop here just to catch the smallest sight of his cousin. Besides, Christopher’s far too switched on not to have noticed it.
“You’re as bad as each other,” he laughs dryly, shaking his head as he traces the length of Arabella’s body with the tip of his finger.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re as bad as each other,” he repeats, buffing the mark he left on the glass with the cuff of his shirt before he turns to me and adds, “He watches you, and you watch him. It’s oddly sweet.”
“Hardly.”
Another low snicker vibrates from him as he goes back to staring at the photo. Christopher’s all dark hair and tanned skin. Although he’s tall, he’s a couple of inches shorter than Freddie, and while he has that same pout, his lips are slightly thinner and naturally curved up at the edges. There isn’t a single tinge of the ruddiness that naturally tinges Freddie’s high cheekbones, softening the sharp edges.
“Keep hanging in there.” He smiles at the photo, lifting his finger to stroke over Arabella again. He pauses just shy of the glass and holds it right over her belly. “Trust me, it’ll get harder before it comes good. But it will come good, Georgie.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“It will.”
The tightening of my chest threatens to squeeze all the tears I’ve managed to hold off out of me. There’s nothing I want more than to believe that Christopher’s right.
“How can you be so sure?”
Glancing back to the photo, he takes a deep breath. A grimace pinches his face as he tells me, “Because I’ve been where you are.”
“Christopher, your baby died. Your life was turned upside down…it’s hardly the same thing.” His wince gives me pause. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to push through all the loss. Still, they were married. Even when they were apart, it was obvious that they would find each other again. “You knew that Arabella loves you.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t love you?”
“I needed him. I really fucking needed him to…” Tears swell at the back of my throat and burn the back of my eyes. I can’t carry on this conversation with him. It’s only going to make it harder to breathe and smile and keep going. “I just needed him.”
“I know, George, and you might think that he’s not there for you, but…”
“But what? What excuse can you make for him that’s going to make all the photos and the silence and… I’m hanging on. Even when I force myself to let him go, my heart keeps hanging on. And there’s nothing I can do about that because the more he breaks it, the more it yearns for him to fix it.”
“I know it looks bad. That seeing him with Lucy was hard, but—”
“Lucy. I don’t give a fuck about Lucy. Do you know how many Lucys I’ve come across in my career?” He chuckles at my rhetorical question. “I can take Lucy-fucking-Stanton, but Freddie…”
