Chapter 25
Isabelle
Hours after Austin got back from the Stade, guests entered private cars and left the Ritz for the last venue before we left
for the mountains.
Versailles.
It was the last night in Paris; we’d leave for the castle in the morning. Tonight was a night of music and dancing—the Sangeet—that
Henry and Selena had decided to make a masquerade.
The gold-and-brass gates opened as the line of black SUVs began to file in and drop the guests off. Even though there were
staff to lead all the guests to the Hall of Mirrors—where the festivities would take place—Austin and I got a little caught
up taking in the castle.
I linked my arm in Austin’s, and we began to make our way to the path. “How was your big-important-not-at-all-silly man-date?”
A grin stretched across his face. I had been busy getting ready by the time he got back, so we hadn’t had a chance to talk since the private cars had been filled with other guests on the drive over.
“Honestly . . .” he began. Austin’s eyes ran along the sweeping angular roofs and ornate sculptures that seemed to adorn every
corner of this place. “I think the Mistry Foundation has investment. Real investment.”
I stopped. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. He looked straight ahead, the sunset casting a shadow along his jaw.
I’d met Xander, a friend of Henry and Selena’s, enough in the past to know he could make friends with anyone. He loved soccer
and ran a venture capital firm. He was the perfect person for Austin to meet and schmooze.
We stopped in front of the entrance that led straight into the Hall of Mirrors.
“Seems like it worked out.” Like I was filled with helium, I lifted to my tiptoes and smacked his chest proudly.
I was a little invested in his success. The chance that his next dream might become a reality filled me with an excitement
I’d only felt in regard to myself before. Maybe it was selfishness back then or a greater empathy now, but seeing him gain
traction in something he wanted felt like a victory.
His hand ran along my waist, and he turned to me.
“It did. And did you get time to do some work?” he asked.
“I made a solid dent in the cases.”
He chuckled and shook his head like he was expecting that answer. “The ones that don’t matter.”
“Yup.” My cheeks hit the bottoms of my eyelids, I was grinning so wide. I looked over his shoulder to see guests filing in. I took the masks he had been holding in his hand. “I guess we should put these on.”
I took his mask and got on my tiptoes. I reached my arms around him and tied it. He let me, running his hands down my sides
and holding me steady as I did.
He could tie it on himself, but I didn’t mind the way his breath felt when it faltered and sailed along my skin.
When I was done, he circled his finger in the air, motioning for me to turn around.
I did a quick turn, and he fastened it on, but right before I could turn back, his hands gripped my hips and pulled me to
him. He whispered in my ear from behind. “There. Done.”
Goose bumps rolled down my body.
The entire night ran like clockwork according to the planner. And Austin and I basically flirted with each other without any
real attempt to rein it in. We both knew where this was going tonight. Same place it went last night.
I adjusted the mask that sat just above the swell of my cheek and turned the corner from the bar to go back to the Hall of
Mirrors—where most guests were mingling and having drinks. My eyes traced along the painted ceilings. Lush blues that created
a bright sky and muted yellow clouds that peppered it. Sliding my eyes along the fleurs-de-lys carved into the crown moldings,
my head craned back a bit more with every step.
The warm summer air drifted through the patina windows.
It was beautiful here.
I took a few more steps moving in the same direction, and it wasn’t until I clocked how quiet the hum from the orchestral
music had gotten that I looked around and realized I was nowhere near the Hall of Mirrors.
I turned in place looking for a placard, peeking down the hallway.
“There needs to be a map in here,” I mumbled to myself.
“Down the hall to the right.” Blake’s voice cut through the quiet. Behind a golden mask was the same set of eyes I’d put too
much stock in.
I jumped in my skin. “Oh.”
“Sorry, I was just . . .” He looked down the gilded hallway I’d walked through. He stood in front of a portrait of what I
assumed was some old, dead royal. “It was quiet in here; I was walking around.”
“I . . .” I pointed to the ceiling. “Got distracted.”
He nodded and pushed his hands into his pockets. An awkward silence settled between us. Just as I was about to turn around,
his voice stopped me.
“Look, Isa.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I know I should have explained—”
“It’s fine, really.” Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about him all night. And I didn’t want to think about him. “We don’t
have to do that.”
“I should have told you about Francesca. She and I sort of just happened. It felt right. Things with her are simple . . .”
The timbre in his voice pinched my nerves. After asking to not hear the story, because I didn’t want to, it felt cruel of him to tell it. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing Austin can handle complicated.”
His eyes went wide for a moment before his shoulders stiffened, telling me I hit my mark, because if there was one thing Blake
and I had in common, it was proving that our respective family names didn’t factor into our success. I was doing it in the
male-dominated surgical subspeciality of orthopedics. Blake, a trust fund baby, had to do it in his family and he always struggled
to succeed on that front.
“I think I handled complicated just fine for years.” The venom in his words made me take a step back. “Maybe I got sick of it, Isa.”
His jaw sat on a hard line.
My brow crinkled.
He couldn’t seriously be upset with me. He had an entire fiancée he didn’t tell me about, and I’m the one who screwed up our relationship? “You can’t be pinning
our relationship not working out on me.”
I didn’t even know it was over. He didn’t have the decency to tell me. We had a plan; he deviated. Not me.
He yanked the golden mask off his face.
“You’re unbelievable,” he said through a frustrated huff. “What was I supposed to do, Isa? Wait for you to take over the world
before you finally decided you wanted me?
To finally make time for me?” He took a few steps toward me.
Those two words stuck out like pins. “I asked you a thousand times, begged you, to consider a residency in California. But no, you never gave an inch. Now all of a sudden, the infallible Isabelle Mercado is ‘making time’ to make it work with someone she hardly knows? But you’re right, you’re not culpable in anything. ”
Razor-sharp, each syllable pierced my gut. Because despite how badly I wanted to pin it all on him, he was right.
“It was the top program in the country,” I reminded him. Every one of my internal shields went up. “And what about you? It’s
my fault you chose to leave for a start-up?”
“No, Isa, because nothing is ever your fault,” he huffed, but he didn’t move back. He was too close.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Part of me wanted to lay into him about everything that had happened. Because I had to find out about his move back to New York from Selena.
I had to find out that he was engaged by seeing the ring on his fiancée’s finger. But more than that, I wanted this conversation
to be over.
That fact cleared some of the anger that fogged my mind.
Blake laughed bitterly to himself. “And in true Isa fashion, you won’t even have this conversation with me.”
“Because it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“And you wouldn’t have this conversation when it did matter. So, I made it work for us. I waited till residency, hoping you’d choose to make it work with me,” he continued. I tried to duck his gaze when it moved to follow mine. “But no, you asked me to wait. Till we both
had what we wanted. And I was the idiot because I was hoping maybe you might—”
“What? I might not put myself first?” I snapped, losing grip on the momentary balance I felt in realizing that I didn’t care to argue, because
now he was the one who hit a nerve. “You expected what? I would take some lesser arrangement so that you wouldn’t have to deal with a few tough years?”
“No, so we didn’t,” Blake bit back. “I was thinking about us, while you were choosing you.”
Every single word ached. He kept doing that, making my world feel cloudy.
My ambition was so bright that sometimes I worried it blinded me. When things got tough, I followed it like a beacon. Reminded
myself why I was working toward a sterling future, the kind my mom had to give up for me, the one so many male colleagues
were sure I’d never have. The type of sterling future that was often inhospitable to women, and that wouldn’t change until
women like me changed it.
“Then why didn’t you stay? Why was it so easy for you to chase your dream, but so hard to imagine me chasing mine?” The indignation in my voice rose, sharp and steady. “You needed
to go after your ambition, I get that. But you just assumed mine would . . . what? Sort itself out?” I shook my head. “Why
was it your future we had to prioritize?”
He was silent.
I gathered every fiber of strength left to deliver the next words so they wouldn’t waver. “So, you see? You chose.”
I didn’t wait for him to respond. I turned sharply and walked in the direction I’d come from.
“Always right, aren’t you, Isa?” Blake taunted under his breath.
I ignored it, following the sound of laughter and music until it got a bit louder, continuing down the marbled floor until I got to the part of the hallway I’d made a detour in earlier.
My eyes landed on a few gilded chandeliers and, instead of walking into the party, I walked past it.
Right to the terrace that overlooked Versailles’s massive, perfectly manicured gardens.
I blinked away what felt like stars in my eyes. I took a few steps down to the main garden, then a few more past the fountain.
Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t register a presence at my side until he spoke.
“Isa.” Austin’s voice cut like a scalpel through the sound of blood rushing in my ears. His body was relaxed next to mine.
“I saw Blake walking through the Hall of Mirrors looking like he’d been punched,” Austin noted casually, keeping his eyes
directly forward as he walked with me further into the garden. “Figured you had something to do with that.” We walked a few
more steps. “You okay?”
My shoulders relaxed. I took a deep breath.
I was.
The crack that Blake made in my resolve was patched, filled with the knowledge that if I had chosen him, I would have lost myself.
“Yeah . . .” I looked around at the tall hedges surrounding us, blanketed under a dark, diamond-studded sky, realizing just
how far I’d walked off from the palace. “I think I know why he got under my skin the way he did.”
Austin looped an arm around me. “Don’t keep me in suspense . . .”
“His engagement made things blurry for me,” I said plainly.
Having Blake made me think that vision of finding some happy middle ground between my mom and dad’s life was possible. But
it wasn’t. The myth of having it all was just that: a myth.
I should have known that, because my mom had already tried. Blake getting engaged had been confirmation I wasn’t ready to receive.
“It made me question what I wanted,” I clarified. “What I gave up getting here. But the truth is, I’ve always wanted the same
thing—to make my own legacy.”
Not my father’s or my mother’s. Not a husband’s. Mine.
Because I was tired of constantly proving that I deserved my accolades. My own legacy—procedures named after me, textbooks
with my words in them—would prove to every mediocre man that this woman was not only an impeccable orthopedic surgeon, but I got what I had on my own merit, despite all the headwinds. I’d have what
so many female doctors were locked out of for so long because of the nature of medical training. I couldn’t fumble that.
“You’ll have it.” Austin’s reply was strong and swift, like it was a fact of nature.
I smiled. After weeks of feeling lost, my vision was finally clear again.
Wanting Blake had been a detour, not the destination. A part of me saw what Selena and Henry had and simply slotted Blake
in, thinking it was my version of their love. But I was okay on my own, chasing the life I’d always dreamed of, and I didn’t
need anyone beside me to make it real. And I’d rather be on my own than with someone who wanted me to be simpler, because
I’d always be a little complicated.
“Thank you.” I let out a long sigh and leaned into him as we walked.
The gardens were quiet and cool. The breeze sent an occasional rustle between us.
We took a few more steps along the tiny stones, further into what was sort of like a maze.
It was an elaborate set of paths anchored between towering hedges and perfectly manicured trees.
In that moment, all of the prickly emotion slid off me like I was Teflon.
His eyebrows raised. The tips of his mouth slanted up. “Thanks for what?”
With Austin, I could relax. He was a good guy, we had fun, and he didn’t ask me for things I couldn’t give. He gave me what
I wanted: amazing sex, good company, and a willing partner to enact a little bit of petty vengeance. “For being a great fake
date.”
He hesitated, his gaze drifting past me to the maze ahead before settling back. For a moment, something hardened in his expression—then
it softened. He gave a quick nod and a small, tentative smile. “Of course.”
We’d have to get back inside soon, but for a moment, in the hypnotizing quiet, I felt better. Even-keeled. Steady again.