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A quiet street in Montmartre. A dinner in a courtyard. A secret visit to a garden. The scent of roses. And then the words—no, no, no.
You’d have said the same to me. I should have said something sooner, but I know now. And when I look at the sky, all the stars are laughing.
* * *
A busy week of work onThe Rendezvous, a night of filling in for Scarlett on piano at a speakeasy in Murray Hill, and on the weekend, I’m lounging on Harlow’s orange couch, waiting for the rest of the women to either stay in or fold.
Layla hums as she studies her cards, then tosses them down with a harrumph. “Cards, you suck.”
Harlow sighs. “I’m out,” she says, folding too.
Camden shrugs, having already bowed out.
I grin like a Cheshire cat then take their money. My poker face is still good, even with this ace high. “Poker night should never end,” I say.
Before we begin another round, Layla turns to me. “Paris report. Now.”
Here goes. I was expecting this demandtonight. I made my decision before I walked in the door. “Well, since you asked,” I say, nerves chasing me, but confidence too. I’m trying to change. Trying to let my friends in. “There’s this guy.”
Harlow’s eyebrows lift in obvious excitement. “Two things that go together well—Paris and a guy.”
“Yes.” Even though there’s a pang in my chest over missing Finn, I push past it, turning to Layla. “And you know him.”
She blinks. “I do?”
I’m not violating his privacy here. My friends aren’t going to blab about Finn to my father. “He’s Nick’s brother,” I say, connecting the dots for them.
Layla’s mouth falls open. “Finn,” she whispers in shock.
“Yes,” I say, and I don’t tell them everything. I don’t break Finn’s confidence. But I tell them a little more about our time together abroad. “I fell in love with him in Paris, and he fell for me.”
The sighs, the hearts, the flutters from my girls.
But then, I tell them the heartbreak. “Except it’s not meant to be.”
Harlow tosses up her hands. “Why not?”
“He’s friends with my father and Dad’s his lawyer,” I point out, because hello? That’s still a thing.
“So? Bridger was in business withmyfather,” she says, and damn, she’s not wrong. They crossed that hurdle.
Still.
“He’s in a different place in life. He has a kid,” I add.
Layla scoffs. “Um, Nick has a twenty-two-year-old kid. Who I used to date.”
And that’s fair too.
Camden just smirks. “Girl, you picked the wrong audience if you want sympathy for this dilemma.”
I sigh, then try again. “Because…neither one of us said we wanted to keep going.”
That shuts everyone up. Really, that’s the bigger issue. Icouldhave said something on our last night together. I didn’t. Because there are things I need to work on—for me.
And I did one of those things tonight—I stopped hiding myself from my friends.
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