Page 46 of Waiting for You

"An announcement?" Eliza guessed, her eyes sparking.

"More like a proposal," Violet corrected, flashing a secretive smile when Eliza arched an eyebrow.

Simon drifted over to where I stood by the window, hands shoved in his pockets and his posture loose.

"Eliza," he muttered. It wasn't a greeting, but a subject. He tilted his chin toward the far side of the room where the women were deep in conversation.

"What about her?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

"You think she's the one?"

I swirled the amber liquid in my glass. "There's a solid chance."

"A solid chance," he repeated, polite skepticism in every syllable.

"She's kind," I defended. "She's razor-sharp. Our arrangement works for both of us. There's nothing wrong with it."

Simon weighed that for a judging moment. "That sounds an awful lot like a corporate defense you're building."

"It's a direct answer to your question."

"You skipped the part where you said you love her."

I snapped my gaze to his face. "Sometimes romantic love isn't the priority. Sometimes what matters is that two independent people understand each other, want the same things, and know they aren't going to destroy each other."

He digested it slow. "I honestly don't even know what the hell that means."

"It means Eliza and I have a clear, mutual agreement about what we are. Companionship. Friendship. Understanding. We're both detached, and it works for our lives. If something deeper grows over the years, fine. If it doesn't, also fine. We aren't faking some grand romance." I took a sip of my drink. "It's honest."

Simon's jaw flexed once. He fixed me with a deadpan look, his chin level, his mouth a thin line.

"That's a cowardly way to move through life, Xavier."

I turned toward him, my pulse spiking.

"A coward doesn't choose the hard way," he went on, his tone calm and free of malice. "A coward finds something hollow and easy to settle into."

"This isn't cowardice," I hissed. "It's two functioning adults who refuse to spend the rest of their lives managing the wreckage of relationships that blow up and fail."

"Did you go looking for this arrangement before or after someone wrecked your heart?"

I dropped my gaze to the floor.

"Sloane has nothing to do with this," I ground out.

"Okay," Simon conceded, holding his hands up. "Fine. It's just a coincidence."

He drifted off toward the kitchen to refill his drink, leaving me alone with it.

Could he be right? Was this just sophisticated cowardice?

I'd spent years convincing myself it wasn't. I'd called it emotional intelligence, a bulletproof arrangement between two people who understood that love was a high-cost, high-risk proposition. Eliza had her own guarded reasons. From day one, she'd said she hated the restrictions traditional love placed on a person's ambition.

But I hadn't even tried.

That was the damning truth under all my excuses. I'd refused to love again after Sloane burned my life down. I'd surveyed the wasteland left after I opened her package and made a terrified decision to never stand in the blast zone again. Eliza had conveniently shown up wanting the same detachment, and I'd been pathetically grateful for the escape hatch. I'd dressed up my terror and called it intelligence.

The front door clicked open.