Chapter 14
Isabelle
I froze.
I never froze.
One of the most important aspects of my job—what made me so great at it—was being able to think on my feet. Assess the damage,
make a plan, and execute it in milliseconds.
But there, in the sparkling marble lobby, fifty feet from the elevator bank, I was stuck. Immobilized with the realization
that after years of ignoring and suppressing the awful feeling that I was being left behind, my present finally caught up
with my past.
Everything hit me at once. A torrent of memories. The spiced smell of his cologne. The flecks of brown that could only be
seen in the morning sun inside those mossy-green eyes.
More painful than all of that was the reminder that I couldn’t have both—the career I wanted and the guy I’d always figured
I’d have—and what I chose meant those memories would never make their way to being a reality again.
“We’ll wait for the next one.” Austin’s deep voice pushed me out of the spiral. Looking forward instead of down at me, he tightened his jaw.
The room went from slow motion back to full speed when I felt a light but steady pressure against my lower back. Austin’s
hand led me away from the elevators.
I didn’t say anything, only moved like I was on autopilot.
The elevator. The hallway. The room.
All of it progressed through my vision in frames, muffled by the sound of blood rushing through my ears.
Finally, the metallic slide of the lock clicking behind me pulled me out of my head.
“Are you okay?” Austin asked again, his voice soft but formal.
“Of course.” I took a hard swallow and rolled my shoulders back. The neatly organized living area in front of us was dark
aside from the tiny lamp that lit the corner. “I was . . . I was just thinking . . .”
My topsy-turvy gaze finally landed on his. The sharp edges around his face softened. “About?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. I wasn’t supposed to react like this. I should have done something. Anything to prove I was okay no matter how not okay I felt.
“It’s a good thing they didn’t see us,” I admitted out loud. Now that it was out of the way, I could be prepared, not completely
disarmed. “I guess I do need to work on my acting game.” I swallowed against a sandpaper throat. “I was trying my hardest
out there and all I did was freeze.”
His lips fell at the corners but recovered with a tiny half smile. His eyebrows drew in.
“Next time, I’ll be ready. We’ll put on a little show,” I added.
I pulled together every part of me that hurt and shoved it down. Walking into the bedroom, I made myself busy by going to the closet and grabbing a few pillows.
“You don’t have to do that.” He loomed in the doorway, pointing to the pillows with his arms crossed. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“No,” I countered. He had a recovering knee and that would have been cruel. “You’re injured.”
“I’ll be just fine.”
“It’s a giant bed; I won’t even know you’re there. You’ll be safe.” I pointed at the pillow wall. “See?”
His eyes watched me, and it was another beat before he said, lips lifting, “You can just admit you want to share a bed with
me.”
The attempt at humor did little to disguise the look on his face he’d been wearing since we got in the elevator. At first
it looked like disappointment, which didn’t make any sense.
But now I saw it for what it was. Pity. He was bantering to distract the sad girl from her humiliating circumstances. I hated
that I sort of needed that diversion.
“Seriously, it’s not a big deal.” I pointed to his side of the bed.
He didn’t say anything, but he walked into the bedroom and over to his suitcase neatly stacked on a holder in the corner.
We got ready for bed almost wordlessly, finally settling onto our respective sides of the mattress.
The curtains were drawn, and it was nearly pitch-black. I lay awkwardly in bed trying to get to sleep.
“You were really trying your hardest out there?” Austin’s voice cascaded over the pillows between us, repeating what I’d said when we got back to the room. “At acting that whole time, I mean.”
I wasn’t sure how any of this could get more humiliating, but here we were, talking like we were in sleepaway camp through
a wall of pillows cutting across the thousand-thread-count sheets.
“Yes, coach. I know my acting could use some work.” Adjusting my head on my silk pillowcase, for some reason I wanted to remain perfectly still.
Maybe I’d disappear if I did. “But don’t worry. I’m a quick study. I’ll get the hang of it before we’re in front of anyone
that might be of consequence for the foundation.”
He didn’t say anything else, and I closed my eyes, hoping that I’d wake up and feel just slightly better.
I woke up to the sound of the shower turning off, and the pillow wall very much intact.
I didn’t get to sleep until late into the night, my mind replaying him—frame by frame.
I chose living up to my full potential and that wasn’t something I was ever going to litigate. Blake was a living and breathing
reminder of what that meant. A bright career and future that didn’t look like the happily ever after we were celebrating for
Selena and Henry.
I sat up in bed. I needed to reset, regroup, and focus on what I wanted: petty revenge in the form of watching the skin melt
off Blake’s face when he saw me again . . . and being a decent maid of honor.
A puff of steam floated out of the bathroom as the door opened, and Austin walked out.
Wrapped in a towel. Again.
“You’re up,” Austin said, running another towel over his hair.
The water trickled from his wet hair, down his torso’s broad expanse, and over every ripple of his washboard abs. My eyes
tracked a drop of water like I was staring through a car window on a rainy day. The rivulets glided down the rigid muscles
slowly—down his pecs, running over each rippled curve of his abs, and finally disappearing into the towel.
Right at the spot where the V at his hips met the towel, just above . . .
“Tell me again how you don’t have a little crush on me?” His voice yanked my eyes to his.
Warmth ran up my face, against the deep warning from my brain reminding me that while I wasn’t above a fake boyfriend to piss
off an ex, I was above getting pity fucked.
Not that he was offering, but still. Standards.
So, I was going to pretend that all of . . . that did nothing for me. I was sure the dopamine would wear away quickly anyway.
“You could get dressed in the bathroom.” I waggled a finger in the air, trying not to let the memories from last night pull
down my voice. Seeing Blake was a shot at my heart that hit dead-on. I took a breath, reset to calm and confident and unbothered.
“This is clearly a cry for attention.”
The deep notes in his corresponding chuckle clanked against my ribs.
“I have to get to the Stade, the soccer stadium outside the city,” he called as he walked into the small closet where our suitcases had been unpacked a bit. “To meet with FC Remy.”
A few minutes later he came out in suit pants with a neatly ironed shirt in his hands.
“Right, you’re meeting with that team.” I folded my legs beneath me in the bed. His manager had a pretty tight schedule for
him to go see teams and be present here.
“Informally.” He nodded and paused. “You gonna be okay today?”
“Yeah.” I dropped my eyes to the blanket. I began adjusting the pillow wall even though it was remarkably intact. “Selena
invited me to wander around Paris. But I was hoping to find some downtime later to do some work.”
“Wander around Paris all day or spend it working,” he wondered almost playfully.
I wished he’d stop doing that. Teasing me because he could tell I was sad. I didn’t want his pity.
My eyes glanced up along that chiseled muscle, when he looked back at me and clocked that I was staring.
I scrambled to find words. “I can do both.”
I could at least try.
“I was thinking about going to this place on the Seine after the Stade. We have a few hours before that welcome party thing,”
he offered. “Want to come along? Maybe it’ll get your mind off things.”
“No, thanks,” I answered before I gave myself a chance to think about it. “If I have some time, I’d really like to get those
cases logged.”
He paused, threw the shirt over his shoulders, and began to button it up. “The ones that don’t actually matter because they’re plan B?”
“Everyone needs a plan B.” My mind twitched at the idea of not getting the one thing I’d been killing myself for. “Even me.”
He nodded, then his expression turned more earnest. “Are you sure you’re okay? Last night you—”
“I wasn’t expecting to see him at the elevators is all,” I excused. “I was jet-lagged and tipsy. I’ll be Oscar-worthy next
time, promise. I’m over it.”
I forced a toothy smile.
“Yeah,” he agreed, his voice dropping to a mumble as he walked out of the bedroom, low enough it sounded like he was talking
to himself. “Seemed like you were over it.”
It was almost inaudible, but I heard.
I didn’t know what I was feeling. I was holding on to something all this time. Love seemed to be the only explanation as to why I felt so completely turned around. And the humiliation that
someone happened to witness me being that weak only made it worse.
I was Isabelle Mercado. If something hurt me, it was because I let it.
I let myself believe that the fairy tale I witnessed happen for Selena could happen for me. Nobody was waiting for me at the
end of my long journey to my goals, and that was fine because I wasn’t giving up my chance at a legacy for anyone.
I was choosing myself, and the world had a way of punishing women for that.
All I had to do was remind myself of my mom and all that she could have been if it weren’t for what held her back.
She had all the makings of greatness, but then she became a wife and mother.
Only one person could have the crazy schedule because someone had to raise me. So, she did. And my dad got the legacy.
I wasn’t ever going to let anyone do that to me.