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Her fingertips brush my shoulder, and it sends goose bumps up and down my arm.
Stop being weird, Kenzi.
“Um. Yeah. Totally.”
Nadine helps herself to the sliding glass doors—it occurs to me then how comfortable she is in this house. She was, after all, in-lawed into it at one point.
Could I ever be that comfortable here? Or will I always feel like Cinderella, feeding foie gras to my mice friends under the table?
There’s a wide pool here, outlined with stones, but it’s covered up for the winter. There’s a second, smaller pool—a Jacuzzi, I bet—that is also covered up, but looks active, a thin blue light peeking underneath the cover.
They have an array of outdoor furniture here, including comfortable lounge chairs. It’s cold as hell, but the Kings have their own outdoor heaters, these long metal things that look like tiki torches, with yellow-blue flames flickering inside. Nadine and I converge around a heater, and she adjusts the knob, turning it up. It’s surprisingly cozy, and my hands begin to thaw.
“Can we speak candidly?” Nadine asks.
“Sure,” I say. My brain is empty. I’m feeling candid.
“You and Jason. Are you an item?”
Should I feel weird admitting this to his ex? I don’t. If anything, it feels like we have something in common now. “We’re a something,” I say.
She seems to accept that answer with a nod. She glances off, across the way. “That’s good. I’m glad he’s happy.”
I stare at her. She means it. Everything about her is so composed, so pristine. She fits into this house—and Jason’s family—effortlessly.
So I have to ask… “What happened?”
She sizes me up. “What has he told you?”
I shrug. “Not a lot.” I consider it. “I think…it probably hurts to talk about.”
“Coming together was quite simple,” she says. “My father runs Oxim, a multimillion-dollar pharmaceutical company. He worked closely with Mr. King. Our arrangement was good for business.” She tips her glass of wine to her lips. “Naturally, it helped that Jason is a fox. More than that, he’s a sweetheart. Not many of those left.”
I can’t help but grin at that. “Yeah. He is all of those things.”
“We were good for a time. But ultimately, he wanted something I can’t give him.”
“Mm.” I nod knowingly. “A penis.”
She arches a perfect eyebrow. “No. A heart.”
“Oh.”
Well—that one feels like a punch in the tits.
Nadine continues. “My career always comes first. And I would do anything to get what I wanted. I couldn’t date a man who prioritized me above all. The dynamic was…uneven.”
“Huh.”
The conversation has taken a turn. I feel a strange knot twisting in my throat, and I take a swallow of wine to push it back. The heat from the open flames feels too hot suddenly, and I can feel myself grow flushed. I want to jump into the enclosed pool. Let the icy water chill me until I don’t feel anything at all.
Nadine looks at me, and her perfect smile returns. “He seems happy with you, though. Perhaps I was the caustic bitch he needed to get over to find someone like you.”
Or maybe he traded one caustic bitch for another.
We’re interrupted by a hiss—the sound of the sliding glass doors opening and shutting.
“So this is where the party is.” Donovan’s voice breaks through the haze of my self-loathing, and immediately, I feel my spirits lift.
