Chapter 14
FAMILY DINNER, HOLD THE TRUTH
HARPER
Sunday afternoon — the first Sunday after the Grandview Hotel opening — and I’m still not fully functional.
Technically, today is family dinner, something the my family has done for years since my grandmérè relocated her family from Canada to Queens, New York.
These dinners aren’t every week, not religiously, but consistently enough that missing one feels like skipping a heartbeat.
Whenever we can manage it — schedules, kids, jobs, holidays — we meet at my parents’ house in Astoria.
Margot brings dessert. Amelia brings chaos. I bring wine and emotional avoidance.
It’s supposed to be comforting.
It is not comforting today.
Because I’m in the back of Victor’s town car — his town car — riding to Sunday dinner like I’m someone who belongs in a chauffeured vehicle, when twenty-four hours ago I was almost pressed against him in hotel’s grand opening.
His driver James’ car is crawling through Queens traffic at a stubborn seven miles per hour, but inside the car it feels too warm, too quiet… and far too intimate.
Because I am very aware of my body today.
Painfully aware.
Every time I shift in my seat, tiny aftershocks ripple through me — reminders of how tense I was last night, how close he’d held me on the dance floor.
I can still feel the press of his palm at the small of my back, the solid heat of his chest against mine, the way I’d leaned into him like gravity wasn’t optional anymore.
Not to mention the kiss in the boutique.
God, that kiss had been everything I’d wanted and more.
If only we could repeat it. But for the moment, it’s still with me, like my brain saved it to a private, encrypted folder and refuses to let it go.
I’d been disappointed to wake up this morning to find Victor already gone—attending a brunch business meeting, a cup of coffee waiting for me on the kitchen counter.
And now I’m pretending I didn’t spend half the night alternating between cold showers, denial, and Googling things like “can sexual tension cause prolonged dizziness” and “is it possible to die from wanting your fake husband” when James—Victor’s driver—catches my reflection in the rearview mirror.
"Everything alright, Mrs. Kade?"
I wince. "Harper is fine. And yes, sorry. Just talking to myself."
"My wife does that too. Says it's the only way to have an intelligent conversation sometimes."
“Your wife sounds smart."
"She is. That's why I married her.”
We pull up to Margot's house first—a tidy brownstone that she and her husband Philippe have been slowly renovating for five years. Margot emerges in her standard Sunday uniform: jeans, a cashmere sweater big enough to fit two people, and the expression of someone who has too many damn questions.
Amelia's already with her—she must have come early—wearing a vintage band tee under a flannel jacket and ripped jeans, bouncing on her toes like an overexcited puppy.
They pile into the car, and both immediately turn on me.
"Okay," Margot buckles in, behaving like a vulture circling roadkill. “How was the hotel opening event? Spill.”
“Nothing to spill.”
“You’re lying,” Amelia chirps. “You have your lying face on.”
I don’t have a lying face.
I have a “processing trauma and also maybe lust” face.
It is extremely different.
Margot folds her hands like this is a deposition. “Start at the beginning.”
“The event was fine,” I say, voice too high. “Professional. Photos. Dancing. Very normal.”
“Liar. Declan and I saw the photos online.” Amelia snorts. “You two looked like you wanted to commit public indecency.”
My sisters are still staring, expecting answers I don’t have.
I look out the window at Queens — brick facades, bodegas, yards full of holiday inflatables. All so familiar. Grounding. Safe.
Unlike the man whose hands and mouth I can still feel when I close my eyes.
“I don’t know what it is,” I say finally.
And for once, both Margot and Amelia go quiet, the drive peaceful for a while. Until Margot asks the question I've been dreading.
“So,” she says carefully. “Are you still meeting with Vanessa Chu? From FoodFirst?”
My stomach twists. “I don’t know. I’ve kinda been….”
“Been what?” Margot presses.
“Ghosting her. I don’t know what to say, or what to do.”
“I don’t blame you,” Amelia whistles. “That woman is terrifying. I saw an interview where she made a tech CEO cry.”
“Yeah. She has that energy.”
Margot leans forward. “So? What about that coffee meeting she set up for Tuesday? Still happening?”
I stare out the window at a passing deli, my reflection faint in the glass. Then I shake my head. “No. I canceled it this morning.”
Amelia’s mouth falls open first. “Wait—what? Okay. Pause. Rewind. That was supposed to be your big escape plan.”
“I know.”
“That was the deal where you’d get your own show, bigger budget, creative control, national rollout—”
“I know what the deal was.”
“Then why on earth would you turn that down?”
I rub my forehead. “Because the whole thing suddenly started to feel… gross.”
They stare at me, and I exhale.
“They want me to feed them information about StreamEats. Programming stuff. Budget shifts. Talent rumors. Nothing technically illegal, but—”
“But shady,” Amelia says.
“Very shady.”
Another pause settles over the car as Margot searches my face.
“Is that the real reason?” she asks.
“What does that mean?”
“It means…this suddenly sounds like a moral epiphany that happened very quickly.”
Amelia gasps dramatically. “Oh…my…God.”
“What?” I snap.
“You slept with Victor!”
I nearly choke. “I did not.”
“Did you almost sleep with him?”
“That is not the same question.”
“Harper.”
“No!”
“…Yet?” Amelia adds sweetly.
“I’m going to throw you out of this moving car.”
“Violence is not the response of an innocent person. And let’s face it. You two were practically dry-humping on that dance floor in the photos. But that’s not the real question here…”
I bury my face in my hands. “I’m scared to ask.”
“So the real question is…” She pauses dramatically. “…is Victor Kade worth losing a career-changing opportunity over?”
My stomach flips.
Because the terrifying part is…
I don’t know.
Luckily, our conversation is cut short when the car pulls up to my parents' house—a modest two-story in a neighborhood that's been slowly gentrifying for the past decade. Dad's truck is in the driveway, and I can see Mom's silhouette moving past the kitchen window.
Home.
“And speaking of Captain Attractive, where is Victor today, anyway?” Amelia asks as we get out of the car. “Not a fan of family dinners?”
My eyes roll. “In case you must know, he had an early meeting, and then was scheduled for a tuxedo fitting for his friend Roman's wedding. Roman's getting married in December, and apparently there are, like, six fittings required."
"Six?"
"Rich people are weird."
Margot exchanges a look with Amelia that I don't like.
"What?" I demand.
"Nothing," Margot says innocently. "Just seems like you know a lot about Victor's schedule."
"We live together. I know things."
"Uh-huh."
Before I can defend myself further, Amelia snatches my phone from my coat pocket.
"Hey!"
"I'm inviting him," she announces, typing rapidly.
"Amelia, no—"
"Too late, sent!"
I grab my phone back and stare at the message in horror.
AMELIA (FROM MY PHONE): Hey! Our family would love to have you for Sunday dinner. Mom's making tourtière and cipate. 5pm at our parents’ place in Queens. No pressure but you should come! -Amelia (who stole Harper's phone)
"I'm going to kill you," I tell my sister.
"You love me."
"That's unrelated to the murder."
My phone buzzes almost immediately.
VICTOR KADE: Tell Amelia I appreciate the invitation but I have that damn fitting until 6.
VICTOR KADE: Also, tell her to stop stealing your phone.
Amelia reads over my shoulder and pouts. "He said no."
I ignore the disappointment that floods through me. "Good. This is family dinner. For fam-i-ly. He doesn't need to be here."
"He's your husband," Amelia points out.
"Fake husband."
"Your face when you read his text didn't look fake."
"My face is neutral."
"Your face is acting its ass off.”
“Well, it’s a good thing my face doesn’t have an ass.”
Shoving my phone in my pocket, I march toward the house before my sisters can psychoanalyze me further.
* * *
Mom's kitchen smells like home—caramelized onions, warming spices, the yeasty scent of rising dough. She's at the stove, stirring something, and Dad's at the kitchen table reading the newspaper like it's still 1995 and the internet doesn't exist.
"Harper!" Mom turns and pulls me into a hug that smells like flour and love. "Ma chérie! Tu es trop maigre!"
"I'm not too skinny, Maman."
"Tu es! I send Philippe for butter. Real butter. You need to eat."
Margot and Amelia trail in behind me, and Mom immediately starts fussing over all of us like we're still children and not grown women in our thirties and forties.
Dad looks up from his paper, and his face lights up. "There's my girl."
"Hi, Papa." I kiss his cheek and try not to notice how his hands shake slightly when he sets down the newspaper. The Parkinson's is subtle still—most people wouldn't notice—but I do.
"How's the big TV star?" he asks in French-accented English.
"Not a star. Just a host."
"Same thing."
"Very different thing."
He grins, and for a moment he looks exactly like he did when I was ten and he'd let me help him with construction projects, teaching me to measure twice and cut once.
"Help your mother with dinner," he says. "She's been cooking since dawn."
In the kitchen, Mom has me chopping vegetables while she works on the tourtière—meat pie, traditional Québécois, the smell of it taking me straight back to childhood winters in Montreal.
"So," she says casually, too casually. "Your Victor. He is good to you?"
"Maman—"
"I ask because I see the photos. From the hotel. You look happy."
"It's complicated."
"Love is always complicated."
"It's not love. It's—" I struggle for words. "It's an arrangement."
Mom stops stirring and looks at me with those perceptive eyes that have seen through every lie I've ever told. "Mon c?ur, I have been married to your father for forty-two years. I know what love looks like. I see it in those photos."
"You can't see love in a photo."
"Non? Then you weren't looking close enough."
Before I can respond, Dad appears in the doorway. "Harper. Walk with me?"
It's not really a question.
* * *
We end up on the back porch—which Dad built himself fifteen years ago—wrapped in coats against the November cold. The yard is small, mostly concrete with a few stubborn plants Mom refuses to let die, and the neighbor's dog is barking at something invisible.
"Your mother's worried about you," Dad says.
"I know."
"I'm worried too."
"Papa—"
"Not about the TV thing. Or the marriage thing." He's quiet for a moment. "I saw Thomas last week. At the pickleball court."
My blood goes cold. "You play pickleball?"
"It's good exercise. Doctor recommended it." He waves a hand dismissively. "But Thomas. He was there. With that…woman. Showing off like always."
"Dad—"
"I almost hit him with my paddle."
I can’t help but laugh. "You didn't."
"I wanted to. I would have found an attorney to defend me. Self-defense. Temporary insanity." He's smiling, but there's something serious underneath. "He hurt you, ma petite. Bad. I wanted to hurt him back."
"I'm okay now."
"Are you?"
The question sits between us, honest and painful.
"I'm getting there," I say finally. "It's just... hard. Trusting again. Knowing when something's real or when I'm just seeing what I want to see."
Dad nods slowly. "Your Victor. He makes you happy?"
"Sometimes. When he's not being a frustrating brick wall.”
"That's marriage."
"It's fake marriage."
"Maybe." He looks at me with those eyes that have always seen too much. "But you don't look at him fake."
"You sound like Mom."
"We've been married a long time. We think the same."
I lean against the porch railing, looking out at the small yard. "I don't know what I'm doing, Papa. With Victor. With the show. With everything."
"Nobody knows what they're doing. We're all just making it up as we go."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's honest." He puts his hand over mine, the tremor more visible now. "The treatments start next month. Your mother thinks I don't know about the money. How much it costs."
My throat tightens. "Papa—"
"I know you've been helping. Your mother told me."
“That’s because Maman has a big mouth."
"She's worried too. We all are." He squeezes my hand. "But Harper, you don't have to save everyone. Sometimes it’s enough to just save yourself."
"I can do both."
"Can you?"
The doorbell rings inside, cutting off my response.
"That's probably your sister’s husband Philippe," Dad says. "Late as always after dropping the kids at the babysitter’s. Your mother will kill him."
We head back inside, where Mom is already moving toward the door, muttering in French about husbands who can't tell time.
"Finally! Philippe, tu es en ret—" She stops mid-sentence.
Because it's not Philippe at the door.
It's my boss—in all his six-foot-plus, gorgeous glory, standing on my parents' front porch in Queens, holding a bakery box and looking completely out of place in his expensive coat and dark jeans.
"I'm sorry I'm late.” He blinks, a lock from his dark hair falling forward. "The fitting ran over."
Mom stares. Margot appears in the hallway and smirks. Amelia lets out a squeal.
And I just stand there, frozen, trying to process the fact that Victor Kade—who said no, who had a fitting until six—is here.
At my family dinner. Looking at me like there's nowhere else he'd rather be.
“Amelia mentioned tourtière," he says into the silence. "And I realized I was hungry after all.”
Mom recovers first, her face breaking into a delighted smile. "Victor! Bienvenue! Come in, come in! You must be freezing!"
She ushers him inside, already asking about his coat and whether he wants coffee or wine or "maybe something stronger?"
Victor catches my eye as he passes, flashing me a rare smirk, and suddenly my heart is beating an uncomfortable rhythm against my ribs.
Amelia appears at my elbow. "He came."
"I can see that."
"He said no. But he came anyway."
“Yes, Amelia, thank you. I have eyes.”
"That's not fake, Harper."
I watch Victor let Mom fuss over him, watch him shake Dad's hand, watch his curious saline-gray eyes wash over my childhood home, my gut tightening.
"No," I admit quietly more to myself than Amelia. "It's definitely not."