21
“Kieran Alexander and Luna Aldridge’s Countryside Weekend: Everything They Wore, Saw, and Ate”
—English Insider
“WHAT IS GOING on?” she said, her eyes resembling large stars with no direction, searching my face.
Why was Aldridge staring at me like that? It was blinding. Confusing. Definitely not a look designated for me. Too similar to the half-asleep gaze she granted me on the carpet last night.
Oh, God, last night. I didn’t expect anything that came of last night.
Had I assumed she’d dent the shape of my shoe with her heel when I cut off her photograph? Yes, but that didn’t happen.
Did I expect the smell of vanilla and coconut on her skin? No, I did not see that coming.
The sound of her lips parting when I told her how she looked? No.
The quiet gaze she unlocked with wide eyelashes when I backed away? No, no, no. None of it.
I thought she’d sneak cyanide into my jacket pocket and watch it kill me slowly halfway down the carpet. She wasn’t supposed to gravitate toward me when I leaned forward. She wasn’t supposed to hold on to my words like she wanted to pull the sentences from my lips.
That left me suffering from the pain of remembering the sweet smell of her hair as I looked down at her.
“You were about to hit your head on a stone staircase,” I explained, gesturing to the stairs behind us.
She followed my stare but didn’t gain any clarity.
She started again. “I…” but pulled her words right back like a fisherman’s line. Her eyes darted to my hands on her waist—mierda.
I lifted my hands and ran them through my hair, put them in my pockets, and then…
I wasn’t completely sure, to be frank. I felt frazzled.
Her eyes were often filled with this fury, hotter than an 1800s furnace in a home like this (and by home, I meant mansion, which could fit an entire English town and its distant relatives).
Now, they were clear. A sense of vulnerability and reality. A calm ocean so vast, it was impossible to explore it all.
I didn’t know where on her face to focus. I was unsure of what letters in the alphabet to grab at and string together to distract from my long pause. But she spoke up first.
“Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “Your hair?” she said—asked? What the hell was happening?
“My hair?” I dipped my chin, trying to pull myself together and focus.
She pressed her eyes shut. “Yes, it’s, uh, different.” Was she flustered?
I tugged at pieces behind my neck, suddenly remembering the old color. “Bad different?”
Her lips parted. “Not at all,” she replied.
I nodded, feeling puzzled by her honest response. No offensive comment or quip.
“Well—” We jumped at the sound of a car horn. I turned, noticing the long line of cars accompanied by drivers. Their arms waved outside their windows because they were stuck behind my unattended car… Wonderful.
After I moved my car, I walked inside. The estate’s walls rang with an unexpected silence.
The wood looked as if it carried generations of memories.
Its age showed in the creaks of the floorboards and the curved lines in the walls.
I wondered how many of those memories Aldridge was part of, and why it caused her shoulders to stiffen when she stared up at the mansion.
I wanted to shake her when she agreed to another social outing, asking if I’d come to ensure our fake relationship looked real.
I wanted to tell her no, for both of us.
But I was the last person she’d listen to, so I kept my mouth shut—after saying yes.
Why did I say yes? Well, thinking about it meant thinking about how I felt about her.
Ugh. The floor and I groaned in unison as I stepped forward. Walnut wood stretched over my head in arches as I entered the foyer. The foyer, decorated with a chandelier and oil paintings, emptied out into a large circular space dedicated to two hallway entries going in opposite directions.
I shouldn’t have insisted on Franny taking the week off.
It looked like I was walking through one of his episodes of Downton Abbey, which I was almost positive he daydreamed about during our work meetings.
He’d stare at the paintings and practice his British slang, most likely offending someone and embarrassing himself in the process.
A home of this magnitude looked difficult to fill.
With the number of cars I had been waiting behind, I was surprised to see no one, so I followed the voices to a terrace that overlooked an ocean of ivy-green hills (the East Lawn, according to a small sign).
At the bottom of the never-ending greenery, a plateau formed where guests mingled under lace umbrellas, wearing long dresses, eating hors d’oeuvres, and playing croquet.
Right in the middle of it all was Aldridge hitting a ball as if she were trying to send it to the West Lawn.
She was the only one playing solo, unless you included the woman standing beside her.
I recognized her from last night, following Aldridge with a notebook.
Blond hair and an inch shorter, hand on hip.
Aldridge stuck out like a tulip in a field of sunflowers.
Tiny pieces of her hair were frizzing under the sun, even when tied back.
She was epically failing at hitting the ball with her friend micromanaging.
It made me laugh. I could feel her grumbles about not needing help bubbling underneath her tongue.
Others looked on, watching, amused. I struggled to make out her reaction because someone else caught my attention.
A man, several feet over, was watching her with a possessive stare.
One that said he was debating approaching her.
It twisted and tied a knot around my throat.
My gut was completely clear of any confusion, though.
Suddenly, I was moving.
The bottoms of my shoes were crushing shards of grass as I entered the tea party. I wish I could say I entered without drawing looks. (You’d think I was dressed in head-to-toe sparkles or shouting to Aldridge. Nope. Just walking.) My father would love this.
You draw attention for what? For looking pretty? I could hear his voice as if it were bouncing off the back of my head.
I scratched the back of my neck, catching my hair. My hair. He was going to be livid. It looked just like his. Even though it was also mine.
He hated that I was his mirror, walking around with his eyes, hair, and nose, doing something that embarrassed him. Our resemblance was only amplified with my hair back to black.
He always knew I wanted to act, to leave Spain and study in New York. It wasn’t until I had an acceptance letter from New York’s Film Academy at eighteen that the true fight started.
“If you’re going to prance around Hollywood using your face to earn money rather than put in hard-earned work at a business I spent my life building, then you won’t share our name. You won’t share anything about this family.”
I dyed my hair blond the next day out of spite and to prove how committed I was to acting. He took that as me accepting his demands and never spoke of it again. Kieran Alexander Alvarez became Kieran Alexander the next day, and I moved to New York to major in drama.
I exhaled. This was a problem for another day.
Walking. Moving. Those were good distractions. An even better distraction was Aldridge.
When I reached the blonde, I stuck my hand out. “Kieran.”
Her brows rose, but she accepted my hand. “Cecilia.”
“Mind if I take over?” I asked.
“Please,” she begged, walking off to grab a drink.
“Hello, darling,” I greeted Aldridge, praying she wouldn’t react in a way that resulted in damage to my internal organs.
Instead, she looked at me as if I were a ghost who had crawled out of the estate’s walls.
She stood up straighter with the croquet mallet in her grip, accepting that I was, in fact, not a ghost. Her worst nightmare?
A Level One Nuisance tucked in the index of her diary?
I would’ve assumed so. But no, her cheeks took on a pink color, something similar to the color of my favorite wine.
I cleared my throat, filling her silence. “Do you mind…” I said, referring to joining her.
She nodded. Reluctantly, I placed my arms around hers and rested my hands on the mallet. I looked down at the ball, refusing to analyze the feeling of her hair against my neck or her back against my chest.
She moved our arms, hitting the ball across the field. The small applause was an alarming reminder that we, and the rest of those involved in the game, were being watched.
I let go and walked beside her toward the ball as others took their turns.
“What’s going on?” I asked, dipping my head as we waited.
“I’m actually really good at playing croquet, but men have this problem where they can’t help but insert themselves,” she explained, refusing to look at me.
“You know what I mean. Something’s off; you hate social events—”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she cut me off. “Now I’d like to get back to my game. Are you on my team or not? Because I’ll wave down someone—” She began to lift her hand. I grabbed her wrist, stopping it from rising any higher. Patience was a thinning concept around her.
“That’s not necessary.” As much as I disliked Aldridge, the unspoken worry between her brows was worse.
Looked like I was playing croquet.
After an hour of the sun chasing sweat across my forehead, yet not affecting her in the slightest, I could truthfully say that she was more competitive than every woman in my family.
Which said a lot, because I’d seen two of my tías tear an Uno wild card in half over our coffee table more than once.
Aldridge might be polite and civil to save face, but even a game of croquet couldn’t submerge her need to win.
I watched her jump when she knocked the ball perfectly through the hoop, laugh when I completely missed the ball, and admire the land around us with a melancholic look as we waited for our turn.
“You’re horrible at this, I can’t believe I let you on my team!” she had admitted with a bright smile.