I didn’t know what dishes you like best, so I ordered a bit of everything. None with walnuts, though.
Unshed emotion crowded my throat. I hadn’t cried since last night, and I hadn’t told my friends about the tears. They weren’t relevant; they were a physical symptom, that was all.
I didn’t let myself examine what they were a physical symptom of. “I shouldn’t go. I’m not going to go,” I said with half-hearted conviction. “Meeting him would be stupid, right? We’ll break up eventually, and it’s better to rip the Band-Aid off now than later down the road.”
Isabella frowned, Alessandra quietly cut her chicken, and Vivian took a sip of her water without meeting my gaze.
Ugh. I loved my friends, but obviously, they were biased. They were all disgustingly in love, and while they’d gotten their happily ever afters, they didn’t count. They wanted to be in love, and they didn’t self-sabotage just by virtue of who they were. I would never be the soft, loving type that did well in relationships, and I was perfectly happy being alone.
Perfectly. Happy.
I stabbed at a strawberry with so much force the plate wobbled. “Anyway, enough about my dating life,” I said. “Did I tell you about Perry’s visit to my office yesterday? He was fuming.”
I regaled the table with Perry’s satisfying breakdown, and they made all the right noises of encouragement, but I could tell they were still stuck on my Xavier dilemma.
If I were honest, so was I.
My voice petered out toward the end when I remembered what happened after Perry left. Xavier had shown up, and my heart had slammed against my ribs like it was desperate to break free.
I know you think happily ever afters are unrealistic, Luna, but they don’t have to be. You just have to believe in them enough for yourself.
My stomach roiled again, and I stood abruptly, startling my friends from their food.
“I’m going to the restroom,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I ducked my head and speed walked to the ladies’ room. The farther I walked, the easier it was to breathe and block out memories of Xavier—the warmth in his eyes, the rawness of his voice, the brief glimpse of his dimples after my Sleepless in Seattle comment. The dining room chatter helped, too. There was nothing like a little white noise to repress unwanted thoughts.
I’d chosen to meet my friends at Le Boudoir, which had cleaned up its reputation after a guest died at its soft opening last year. The coroners had ruled it a natural death, and the morbid event added a strange mystique to the restaurant, which bustled with surprising activity for this time of year.
In one corner, Buffy Darlington reigned over a table of distinguished old-money socialites. In another, Ayana sat with her date, a good-looking man with dark hair and an intense expression. They appeared to be having a heated discussion so I didn’t say hi; I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, anyway.
I pushed open the door to the restroom and used the facilities. My skin was cold and clammy, but by the time I washed my hands and reapplied my lipstick, I’d gotten my nausea under control. Sort of.
I checked my phone again. Ten and a half hours.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. That was plenty of time. Surely I’d—
“Sloane.”
My head snapped toward the door. I recognized that voice, and of all the people I didn’t want to see now or ever, she ranked in the top five.
My stepmother walked toward me, wearing a Chanel tweed suit and the expression of someone who’d just swallowed a lemon whole.
I wiped my face of any inner turmoil. “Caroline.”
I’d never subscribed to the idea that women needed to visit the restroom in packs, but I wished one of my friends were with me, if only so I didn’t get charged with aggravated assault for clawing Caroline’s eyes out.
She’d fired Rhea, kept Pen from seeing me, and was an all-around terrible human being. Given my current mood, she was lucky if I didn’t stab her with my heel.
Her own heels clacked against the tile floor as she came up beside me. She reached into her bag and fished out a lipstick.
“I didn’t expect to see you here on a Tuesday afternoon,” she said, reapplying the understated mauve color with precision. “Aren’t you supposed to be at that little job of yours?”
“My little job happens to be one of the top PR firms in the country.” I gave her a brittle smile. “Not everyone marries up for money. Some of us are smart enough to earn it.”
“How quaint.” Caroline recapped her lipstick and dropped it in her purse. “As much as I love hearing about your plebeian adventures…” She wrinkled her nose. “I have something else I’d like to discuss.”
“I don’t know where you can polish your horns. Perhaps you should google demon services and go from there.”
She pursed her mouth. “Honestly, Sloane, this is why you’re better off working than trying to find a proper husband. No respectable man would tolerate such juvenile humor.”
“It’s a good thing I don’t like ‘respectable’ men, then. They have a habit of saying one thing and turning around and doing the opposite—sometimes with your sister.”
Caroline’s eyes narrowed at the Bentley reference, but she didn’t take the bait. “This is about Penelope,” she said, and just like that, my snarky quips vanished.
I hadn’t gotten any updates about Pen since the one Xavier gave me. I didn’t want to give Caroline the satisfaction of begging for information, but my pulse beat a frantic rhythm while I waited for her next words.
“She hasn’t been acting like herself lately,” Caroline said after a pause. “She barely eats, and her transition to a new nanny has been…difficult. She’s normally so well-behaved.”
How would you know? You barely talk to your own daughter. I bit back the stinging retort so I didn’t alienate my stepmother when she was giving me firsthand insight into what’d happened after Perry’s bombshell post. The revelation that Pen wasn’t eating concerned me, but I couldn’t believe Caroline sounded shocked by the developments. She should know what the cause was.
“She misses Rhea,” I said. “Rhea has been with her since she was born. She’s practically a mother to her, and you sent her away in the middle of the night without a word. Of course she’s upset.” Caroline tensed. I didn’t think she cared about anything other than her clothes and social status, but I could’ve sworn I saw a flash of hurt at the mother comment.
“Yes, well, perhaps we were a bit hasty in our actions in that regard,” she said stiffly. “However, Rhea conspired with you to sneak visits to Penelope while George and I were gone. She’s untrustworthy, and her actions couldn’t go unpunished.”
“Untrustworthy?” I would’ve laughed had I not been so incensed. “If you’re worried about untrustworthiness, you should look to a few other people in your household. Yes, Rhea lied by omission, but she did that for Pen. You may be happy to keep your daughter at home and pretend she doesn’t exist because she’s not perfect enough for you, but she’s a child. She needs someone who cares about her, and you just took away the one person in your household who fits the bill.”
Caroline’s lips formed a thin slash of mauve. “Be that as it may, you understood the gravity of the situation when you walked away and humiliated this family years ago. Because of you, the Kensington name will forever be tainted by scandal. No one in our world forgets estrangements, Sloane, and you chose to give up Penelope along with the rest of your privileges. You couldn’t get past your pride then, and you dragged Rhea down with you now. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
