Thirty-Eight
Ari stood at the edge of the garden, gripping the stem of her champagne flute so tightly she thought it might snap. Around her, guests meandered through the manicured hedges to the faint notes of a string quartet while the bride and groom posed for two different photographers, signing the license.
All of it set her teeth on edge.
Because it was all so very Paris. This wasn’t a wedding in the sentimental sense. It was a statement, a carefully constructed tableau. An advert for Paris’s perfection. ‘Look what I have, and look where you are,’ the message whispered beneath every perfect detail. Only the groom didn’t seem to be in on the joke.
Ari’s jaw clenched. She wanted to cause a scene, to rip through this fa?ade. Push someone into a pond. Slap a camera out of a photographer’s hand. Pee in a bush. Do anything, anything, to ruin the vision Paris had created.
Her fingers twitched, itching to act. Her pulse throbbed against her temple. It would feel so good, just for a moment.
‘Don’t.’ Nancy’s voice was low, edged with something like amusement but mostly understanding.
Ari startled slightly; she hadn’t realised Nancy was beside her.
‘Don’t what?’ Ari bit back, though she already knew what Nancy meant.
Nancy raised a brow. ‘Don’t burn the place down.’
‘You don’t understand.’
Nancy’s gaze was unwavering. There was no judgment there, no smug pleasure, just quiet, deliberate steadiness. A kind of patience that made Ari feel simultaneously exposed and understood.
‘I think I do,’ she said.
There was something about the quiet certainty in Nancy’s voice that made Ari falter.
Her anger didn’t disappear, but it stopped feeling like it might spill over. The edges dulled, and the heat cooled.
She let out a slow breath.
‘I don’t get how you do that,’ she admitted, voice lower now. ‘You always know how to…’ she trailed off, searching for the words.
Nancy’s eyebrows raised. ‘Tame the beast?’
Ari barked a short laugh despite herself. Then, quieter, ‘No. Just… pull me back from the edge.’
Nancy studied her for a long moment, then said simply, ‘It never feels that hard.’
Ari blinked. ‘But I’m such a mess.’
‘You’re not a mess,’ Nancy said with such casual sincerity that it blew Ari’s mind.
‘Maybe I’m not a mess around you because you balance me,’ Ari said, frightened to death of the words coming out of her mouth but unable to contain them.
Nancy looked like she was struggling for a response. ‘Maybe I do,’ she managed to say, not able to hold Ari’s gaze.
Ari’s stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with anger. A slow, unfamiliar feeling beating in her chest, something that made her feel unsteady in an entirely different way.
She realised that she had never wanted to kiss someone this much in the whole of her life.
‘OK, let’s talk necklace. We have a key, but we need to choose the moment,’ Nancy said suddenly.
Ari realised that whatever she thought might be happening wasn’t. And she needed to snap the fuck out of it.
‘Like you said. We stick to the plan,’ she said, sliding back into something like her usual self.
‘Fifth course?’ Nancy asked.
‘Fifth course,’ Ari agreed.