Chapter 26
Isabelle
The next day moved so fast, it felt like it happened in flashes.
Waking up in our Paris hotel room, tangled in each other. Getting dressed and getting on the plane to the mountains. Spending
the day being a very convincing couple as we settled into the castle. Now I had the night with Selena—her last night as a
single woman.
“To the future Mrs. Amari.” I held up my glass of sparkling cider, and Selena held up hers.
At the final venue for the wedding in the Vosges mountains, Selena grinned like she had all day on our way down from Paris
to the castle where they’d be married tomorrow. She was acting almost nonsensical. Honestly, if I didn’t know her, I would
have thought she was high. I guessed she kind of was.
The cool mountain air rolled over the large balcony in Selena’s bridal suite that overlooked the sweeping hills.
“Thank you.” She took a sip and sat on one of the teak chairs that sat on the balcony.
Selena and I had a whole night planned. While the guests for tomorrow’s ceremonies made their way to the castle and got settled in their rooms, we had a night of movies, facials, and spa treatments, then going to bed early.
A text message notification lit up my phone screen.
Ami: Robert got an interview for Winthrop fellowship
Ami: I wanted you to know
My heart rate skyrocketed. Robert was my cochief resident. That meant the first-round invites went out.
I opened my email and refreshed it three times.
Nothing.
My stomach churned, pushing acid up my throat.
It meant I wasn’t a first choice. But the next round of invitations would go out in a few weeks. I was sure I’d be in those.
I tried to suck in a breath and remind myself of that.
I’d become so comfortable with the idea this fellowship was mine for the taking that I didn’t think I’d be anything other
than the first choice.
Hearing shuffling behind me, I clicked the screen off.
“You okay?” Selena’s voice cut through the beating I could hear in my ears.
“Yeah.”
“If you need to check something, you can.” She tried to reach over, but I kept the phone from her. The last thing I wanted
to do was turn this into a night about me.
“It was just Ami telling me my research paper was accepted to that conference in Oslo.” I tucked my phone back into my pocket and tried to hide the lie and the physical reaction I was having.
“That’s great!” Selena began. I could see her gearing up to ask me a million questions about it, because my best friend was
so many things, chief among them supportive.
“Tonight isn’t about that,” I reminded her.
If I let her, Selena would spend the next hour talking about it, telling me she was proud and asking thoughtful questions.
There were times—so many of them—in our relationship when I felt undeserving of Selena’s friendship. In the moments when the
pressure to be flawless became too heavy and it concentrated into frustration or isolation. And Selena met my jaded and sometimes
domineering moods with patience and understanding.
I tried to make up for those times by being there for her in every way I could, knowing it probably would never be the type
of support she’d given me. I knew there weren’t many people who would stick around while I continuously put myself in a pressure
cooker.
But Selena would; she was permanent.
“Now back to you. Any cold feet or any other things I should be checking for?” I playfully lifted the blanket she sat under.
I leaned back against the teak loveseat I was sitting in. The balcony overlooked the valley. The castle was on a mountain,
so just below us was a steep drop. In these seats—with the valley shrouded in darkness in front of us—it was like we were
hanging above the clouds.
Selena shook her head. “No, just a little morning sickness some days. And then some cravings.”
“I was wondering how Thai ended up on tonight’s menu for the two of us.” I looked at the massive table filled with all of
Selena’s favorites.
I chalked it up to Henry because I was pretty sure this was from a restaurant in Manhattan. Meaning the chef was probably
somewhere in the castle at the behest of the groom.
“Cravings and being tired. I’ve been napping a lot,” Selena noted, throwing some spicy chicken satay into her mouth. “Thanks
for keeping Malcolm busy. I would have done it if I was feeling more energized.”
The article that Malcolm was writing was set to be published in Voulez a few weeks after we all got back from the wedding. Henry and Selena would still be on their honeymoon at the time, but she’d
get an advanced read before it went to print. That meant Malcolm had to be writing as he was here attending events, so Austin’s
intervention came in pretty clutch because it meant Selena wouldn’t be bothered with a reporter buzzing around her while she
was tired, newly pregnant, and trying to relax before her wedding. She had plenty of press attention already in everyday life
as the soon-to-be Mrs. Amari.
“Stop thanking me,” I insisted. It was the only way I felt useful and I was happy to do it. Not to mention, I wasn’t doing
much. “It’s been easy. He acts pretentious but basically melted when Austin took him along to his old team at Farnham . . .”
A tiny smile crept up the sides of Selena’s mouth. “I know you’re trying to keep this all about me, but I gotta know . . .”
“Know . . .”
“Isa.” She leaned forward and took a sip of her sparkling apple cider. “Come on.”
“What?” I laughed, feeling my face heat.
“The tension.” She threw her head back with a loud giggle. “It’s palpable. You’re sleeping together, right? You have to be.
That chemistry can’t be fake.”
“Okay, fine.” After getting almost no sleep last night, Austin and I had spent the morning locked in our hotel room. Getting
out of bed and having to be presentable for the short flight from Paris to the Vosges mountains felt like slow torture. “It’s
not serious. But it’s been . . . fun.”
We were keeping it casual, but oddly, I felt a strange sense of gratitude that we were still pretending to be a serious couple
for the other guests. It had given me a reason to touch him on the plane—as part of the act, of course—but that didn’t stop
me from privately appreciating the cords of muscles in his bicep beneath my fingers. I couldn’t exactly explain the way I’d
snuggled into his shoulder as we’d wandered the castle’s dark corridors earlier, when no one was looking. Or the way he’d
pinned me against the cold stone and kissed me breathless. I’d spent the entire day with him before I came here.
A wolfish grin painted Selena’s face. She stood from her chair across from me and squeezed in next to me on the loveseat.
“This castle has stone walls. You can be as loud as you want.” She leaned her head on my shoulder. She shifted, tucking her
legs beneath her. “Trust me.”
“Noted.”
“And . . .” she added in a singsong fashion. “He seems to be making friends. And he’s doing a huge favor to your best friend
by keeping Malcolm busy.”
“Because it helps him, too,” I reminded her, knowing what she was getting at.
“Mm-hmm,” Selena hummed disbelievingly.
For all the time I’d known her, Selena had always been completely single or in a committed relationship—never anything in
between. She didn’t do casual or situationships. She liked the security in knowing where she stood with someone and having
those lines clearly drawn.
I wasn’t like that. To me, neatly drawn lines were a way to box me in. I needed flexibility and a backup plan.
“Don’t read into it,” I told her resolutely. This was quid pro quo. A hot one. “We’re together while we’re here. Then we each
get what we need and can go our separate ways.”
Maybe one day I’d find what Selena had with Henry without losing myself, but for now, the sex was more than enough. We both
needed to focus on our respective futures. The Winthrop fellowship was still on the horizon, and I needed to keep my slate
clear for it.
“Okay, got it. You have what you need.” Selena looked out onto the horizon. “And there’s nothing wrong with a palate cleanser.
But what do you want?”
The idea that I wasn’t going to see Austin much after this did rattle a bit in my chest. Maybe the occasional hello while I finished my work at the Lightning facility.
I tried to ignore it. It was a path I’d been down before and gotten burned from, and I had no interest in putting myself through that again.
Especially when the outcome was going to be the same.
Someone was going to have to give something up and that wasn’t fair to anyone.
“I already have what I want.” I thought about the interview invitation I was still waiting on. “Well, I will. Just like we
planned since college. Back when we probably drank too much and ran around New York City in sky-high heels and miniskirts
in the middle of winter.”
“Now, here we are on the night before my wedding.” She lifted her sparkling apple cider. “And I’m knocked up, too.”
I laughed, clinking her glass. “A big family, happily-ever-after, the whole package.”
We sat like that, quietly smushed together on the loveseat.
“Isa.” Selena’s voice settled into something serious. “My kids are going to need their cool aunt to remind them how to be
normal. Things won’t be all that different.”
I nodded.
In the last couple years, I realized I had become the loneliest I’d ever been. Not because I wasn’t busy with my own life,
but because everything was changing, and I couldn’t help but feel I was left behind.
“We’re a package deal. You know it’s not going to change, right?” Selena repeated.
Selena had fallen in love, and Henry and his family had become a huge part of her life. That happened around the same time
I was in the toughest, most demanding parts of residency. Now that things were easing up, it felt a little bittersweet. I
was finally going to have some time and as I reached that milestone, my best friend reached a different one.
Austin’s words from the Mehndi pushed a sentimentality to my eyes. It condensed to a glassiness that coated them. Love isn’t finite; it makes room.
“Of course I do.”
It wasn’t really a loss but a change. The realization that those days of just the two of us traipsing through the city were
over hit me in waves. Things were going to be different, but it didn’t feel as dark as it had even a few weeks ago.
Selena leaned her head on my shoulder. “What would those crazy college girls think of us now?”
I laughed, blinking away the emotion. “I think they ended up where they planned to be.”
Back then I had a map for where I wanted to be in life, and now I was there. I’d get the interview and I’d nail it when I
got back. I’d get everything I wanted.
“Not where they planned,” Selena corrected, sitting up and motioning her arms at the darkness ahead of us, lit only with the
occasional lantern in the vineyards. “But I think we are where we’re supposed to be.”
“Your personal castle?”
She shook her head. “Together.”