Chapter 19
LITTLE GOODIE TWO-SHOES VS. MISS POSSESSIVE
Miss Spring? Losing her flower? Avert your eyes, children.
THANATOS
Cold water slams into my face, submerging us in seconds.
A warm arm wraps around my waist, and then we’re both sputtering for air, breaking the frigid surface as one. Drenched clothes cling to our skin, water drips down my hair and face, and I fumble for purchase on the sandy beach as we grapple to balance.
Kane’s got my elbows in seconds, steadying me, and looking—
Rather, he tries not to look at my bright red bra under my transparent, once-white athletic dress.
While unintentional—red hides well under white—there’s no denying the looks on their faces.
David, once cut like a marble sculpture of friendliness, has fallen slack, jaw unhinged.
He’s staring at me, brows raised, lips mid-gasp, transfixed in place.
I must look better than I thought.
Guess you missed out after all, Golden Boy.
I shake out my hair—every thick, sopping layer—and smooth my skirt over my rear, while Calypso barely conceals her gaping.
David drops her hand, whirling on Kane instead.
“You’re soaking wet, resident,” David bites out.
But he can’t hide the stunned lilt to his voice, the involuntary drift of his gaze back to me.
Kane ignores him, briefly glancing at me. Then he shakes out his hair like a dog, blinking furiously.
“Here.” I cup his cheeks with my hands, flicking off the last of the water, giving him a convenient excuse to look at my face and not the rest of my body. Though I notice he looks fantastic when his clothes are skin tight.
Rectus abdominis rippling, biceps the size of my thighs, pants too tight for his huge—
I swear, he has the slightest hint of a smirk when I look up.
Are they still staring? He asks with his eyes, easing me onto dry grass.
I smile back. Abso-fucking-lutely.
“Good game,” Kane says to David, who turns up his nose like he’s personally affronted. “But I think this counts as a forfeit.”
“I trust you can feed yourself,” I tell Calypso, who looks like she’d be clutching her pearls if that were an option.
Geez. Old people and their propriety.
If they could, I’m sure they’d be giving us a professionalism lecture right now.
I raise my eyebrows at Kane. Couldn’t be us.
His grin widens, still locking the gentleman’s stare into my eyes. Never.
He rips off his shirt, and Calypso’s mouth drops open. I swear he’s flexing his muscles on purpose.
“Wow,” she breathes out loud.
David makes a sound of utter disgust.
“Classy,” he says to us both. “But,” he yanks Calypso’s hand away, breaking her stare, “we like… normal game players.”
I twist my wrist to wave at him with the back of my hand, Kane’s mother’s ring gleaming.
Kane looks like he’s about to burst out laughing.
“No problem,” I tell him. “Have a good resident retreat day!”
David drags Calypso away, and they march off in the opposite direction, mumbling angrily under their breath.
They disappear into the horizon, Kane hiding his snicker behind me.
I toss my soaked hair over my shoulder.
“What are the chances they’ll tell everyone they found us naked and dripping wet on the golf course?” I ask Kane.
“100%,” he says, watching an approaching cloud cover creep across the sky. “Come on,” he says, fingers weaving through mine, “let’s get inside before we catch a chill.”
We hurry across the manicured lawn until cobblestones echo under our feet, approaching the towering brick mansion that centers the estate.
String lights twinkle in rows above the wrought-iron patio seating, while debutantes run around in white chiffon, rustling in a flurry over a faint harpist’s melody.
Their voluminous, flaring ballgowns look ten times more expensive and a thousand times more sophisticated than the waterlogged polyester I’m dripping through the patio in.
“Hold on,” Kane says, and with a mischievous tug, hides us behind a hedge.
“Kane, what—”
He points to a group of girls giggling. “Look.”
We’re hunched like trolls, but in the cracks between the thorns, I spot Jade, tulle dress spinning, emeralds dangling from her ears.
“The hospital’s cheap, which means we share the club with the debutantes,” he explains.
He rises to his tiptoes with his phone, sneaking a picture of her.
“Which works for me, because Jade didn’t want anyone there besides Dad to introduce her, anyway,” he says, beaming. “She’s all grown up now.”
Blush trickles across Jade’s face, and she spins around the veranda with her friends, looking utterly at peace in the finery, far from the judgmental eyes of anyone in the hospital.
Among her peers, she finally relaxes, dropping her hardened exterior and letting the soft little girl out.
She looks positively darling.
And it’s even better, seeing Kane watch her proudly, tucking his phone away as she drags her friend to dance.
I wonder if Jade knows how much he loves her.
The familiar only child ache settles in my stomach again, the weight of what could have been if my younger sibling had lived.
Then it’s promptly forgotten as Kane flashes me a grin.
He spares his sister another wistful glance, then, still holding my hand, guides me inside.
When we cross the cavernous entrance into the wooden foyer, the receptionist takes one look at us and gestures to the stairwell.
I don’t blame her. Kane looks like he just dipped himself into the Lethe and lived to tell the tale—gaunt and dripping wet. I probably look worse, but with brighter underwear.
“Sorry, Matilda,” Kane says. “I’ll clean up later.”
Matilda’s lips press into a thin line. Her grey hair is twisted up in a bun, and her keen eyes focus in on me, the soaking wet white dress, and the dripping hair, until her look of derision narrows on my scarlet bra.
I hope she doesn’t think I planned this (though I did). I’m about to be a doctor, for crying out loud.
Not that I’m acting like one at the moment.
“Upstairs. Now,” she says, directing a manicured hand to the stairs.
“Yes, ma’am,” Kane says.
Teenage laughter twinkles up from the pool outside as we climb the steps, and I imagine him growing up within these walls as we splatter pond water on the dark wood.
Was he dressed in a tuxedo when he first saw these cherubim lining the banisters?
Did he hold the hand of a much wealthier girl under the dazzling lights?
When we reach the landing, we slide under a glistening chandelier into an alcove.
Dim light fills the bar, adorned with velvet green armchairs, dark wood paneling, and eclectic paintings of heiresses on the far wall. In a distant corner, a mustached bartender takes one look at us, smiles, and winks at Kane.
The vodka cranberries are wearing off, and I’m feeling noticeably more exposed, cheap, even, in my thrift store dress in this gilded mansion.
Despite it being bright outside, long curtains block the windows, framing us in murky shadows as Kane tugs me into a leather booth.
“Kane,” I protest, “we’re soaking wet.”
“They’re renovating this faux vintage room,” he says. “They won’t care if we destroy it with water damage while we dry off.”
His forehead creases, displeased, as he takes the other side. From opposite corners, we sit, soaked, as water dribbles from our hair.
“I wish I could offer you my jacket,” he says, “but it’s just as wet.”
“It’s okay.” I resist the urge to shiver.
I’m always chilly, but the blasting air conditioner is making my skin prickle.
The initial adrenaline of getting my comeuppance against my competition is fading, and now I’m just…
mortified. And wet. And totally out of my element as the bartender from earlier comes up to our table, claps Kane on the back, and says, “I didn’t know you had it in you! ”
Kane chokes back a cough. “Neither did I.”
“Who’s the gorgeous girl?” he asks.
Before I can clear my name as someone who is definitely not a Kindling date, Kane looks up at me beneath wet lashes and says dryly, “The love of my life.”
My heart melts.
The waiter cheers and reveals two crystal glasses and two towels.
“I already know what the bastard wants,” he says, setting the glasses down. I take the warm, fluffy towel first. The other is tossed straight into Kane’s face, who grumbles. “And for you, lovely?”
“Umm…” I don’t know what the bourgeois drink, too focused on Kane snatching the towel with a scowl.
He dries his face vigorously while I waver.
My experience with alcohol usually involves a Natty Light in a dingy frat basement or a boxed wine death-adjacent concoction from a millennial’s studio apartment.
“Matcha and a coffee flight,” Kane says without missing a beat. “And a Caesar salad with fries.”
“Right away!” he says, winking at me before striding away.
He hits a switch on the wall, and the room darkens instantly, shadows plunging in like a storm.
And with it, I’m hit with the full weight of my sobriety, crystal clear in the dim aftermath.
I just fell into a pond with Kane. Willingly.
And he’s telling people I’m the love of his life? Isn’t that worse than being a fiancé?
Marriage can be involuntary. Love rarely is.
As soon as the waiter’s left, I kick Kane under the table. “The love of my life? Really?”
His face darkens. “What’s wrong with it?”
“We’re fake dating.”
“We’re madly in love to everyone else,” he retorts.
I huff and continue patting myself dry.
Kane sighs and tosses the towel to the booth behind us, rubbing a hand through his hair. He slumps against the back, eyes drifting closed.
His shoulders sag, the lines in his forehead deepening.
He looks as wrung out as the towel.
His facade of indifference crumbles in our private moments, and I’m as honored that he’s his true self around me as I fret that he never gets to rest while he’s at work. Which is all the time.
I twist out my wet hair with the towel. “Do you want to sit in silence for a while? You look awful.”
Straightening, he fixes me with one of his deathly serious stares. The kind I envision him pinning on noncompliant patients. “Why would we do that?”
“Because you’re clearly tired?”
He snorts. “Never of you.”