“The way he looked at you?” she says with a sigh. “I think you know. At dinner. He couldn’t pry his eyes off you.”
“We werepretending.”
“Remember Cooper? Ethan went off like a jealous idiot in front of everyone.” She folds her arms. “Tell me he’d do that if he was just pretending. In case you hadn’t noticed, you’ve had a glow-up since we were young, and I think he’s noticed.”
The idea sends a little thrill through me.
Personally, I wouldn’t go that far, but I’m more confident than I was as a dorky teenager being bullied by her older brother.
Back then, I could barely string a sentence together around him.
And now he wants me.
Henoticedhow I’ve changed, and he doesn’t want me to diet and slim down into supermodel mode just to feel like I’m good enough.
That’s crazy.
Borderline incomprehensible.
“Oh no,” Margot says, her frown deepening the longer she stares. “You’ve got it bad.”
“I donot.”
“You do.” She sighs again. “I guess that’s why you’ve got that sappy little smile on your face. How serious is it?”
“Not serious!” I’m almost shouting.
She sniffs.
“For your sake, it better not be. You don’t want to get tangled up with Blackthorn drama, babe. Not a second longer than necessary.”
“I mean, I spent whole summers with you and Leo and that was fine?”
Margot raises an eyebrow.
“PopPop basically made Ethan get engaged to you. Does that strike you as a normal thing to do?”
“No,” I say eventually. It’s the one thing I haven’t been able to figure out. “Why do you think he did it?”
Margot takes my arm, leading me back off the docks.
Her face is set like stone, unusually serious.
A sad, strange part of me wants to believe Leonidas did this because he wanted to set us up.
I want to believe he knew—or at least he was hoping—that the legal handcuffs would blossom into something real.
But that’s just the thing. We didn’t choose this.
To have a lasting love, at some point you choose each other.
Although deep down I wish it could be more, I know it’s ridiculous.
I’m so notthe onefor Ethan Blackthorn.
Not for real.
Not in this life.
