Chapter Nine
EVERETT
Stepping into my office this morning after the gym, I wasn't prepared for what Everly had in store for me.
I slept here again last night. Snuck out after Aria went to sleep because I know I'd never get rest with her down the hall, and I happen to know that none of this was here before I left my office bright and early to work out with Colston and Zayne.
It looks like a wedding magazine threw up all over my office.
There are flowers everywhere.
Boxes. Fabrics. Cake samples. A linen specialist holding beige swatches. A caterer. A florist. Two event coordinators. One poor man wheeling in something involving crystal vases and a step stool that looks like he could have used backup to push that cart up here.
And in the center of it all, perched on my office sofa with a tablet in one hand and far too much satisfaction in her expression, is Everly.
She looks up and grins.
"There he is."
I stop dead.
"What the hell is this?"
"Your wedding at a glance," Everly says. "Try to keep up."
I take in the chaos again.
My desk has vanished behind pastry boxes and binders. My conference table is covered in sample centerpieces. Someone has pinned floral sketches to a presentation easel in the corner like we're launching a hostile takeover of peonies.
I told her to keep it to a minimum, but telling Everly not to go all out for an event is like telling me not to work eighty hours a week. We'd both tell that person to fuck right off. It's a family trait.
Then I see Aria.
She's standing beside the florist in a navy dress, hair half up, listening intently to someone describe cascading arrangements. She looks composed—mildly interested at best, though the florist would never guess it. I know that smile.
What gets me is how easily Aria fits in my space.
My office has never felt smaller.
"This is unnecessary," I say.
Everly stands. "No, actually, it's incredibly necessary.
The board is watching, and like it or not, we're part of Seattle's favorite spectacle.
People care what we do, what we wear, where we vacation, and especially who we marry.
" She waves one hand absently toward the linen vendor, selecting an ivory swatch that looks identical to the other ivory swatch.
"This wedding needs planning, photos, vendor contracts, exclusive media coverage, and most importantly, momentum.
We need this to look like something the two of you have been quietly moving toward for months, not something you stumbled into on a staircase. "
"That is, unfortunately, exactly what happened."
She flicks her fingers. "Details," she says, sounding almost bored by my attempts to drag this back into reality.
"You'll thank me later. This kind of media storm is good for business—for all of Kauffman Enterprises.
The board will be pleased, the public will get all the juicy details about Aria's dress designer and what flavor of cake she shoved in your mouth at the reception, and by Monday morning, you'll probably have a fresh stack of mergers to look into. "
An event coordinator appears in front of me with a clipboard. "Mr. Kauffman, we've organized the morning into stations to maximize efficiency."
I stare over at Everly to my side.
"This is your version of efficient?"
"Yes," Everly says brightly.
Right. I should have guessed.
Everly loops her arm through mine and drags me farther into the room. "Come on. You have to at least pretend to care."
"No, I don't have to care at all. I have work to do."
She blinks.
I sigh. "Fine, let's get this over with."
"Not helpful."
The linen specialist steps up immediately and holds out three squares of fabric.
"Champagne, warm ivory, and soft sand."
I look at them.
They are all beige.
"They all look the same to me," I say.
The woman looks personally wounded.
Across the room, Aria coughs to cover what is very obviously a laugh.
I glance over my shoulder, and she has the nerve to look innocent.
This should be Aria being dragged around the room by the arm, not me. Everly would have a far more captive audience with her. Mostly because I'm half convinced my sister kidnapped Aria and is keeping her here against her will.
Better her than me.
The next hour tests my patience in ways I did not agree to.
The second I finally manage to extract myself from my sister's death grip—thanks only to someone distracting her with table cards—I head straight for the only place in the office that still feels like mine.
My desk.
I sit behind it like it's a shield, open my laptop, and try to work while people cycle toward me demanding preferences on flowers, cake, lighting, seating, and whether I have any emotional attachment to place cards.
I do not.
In fact, I don't have an emotional attachment to any of this beyond seeing it through so none of us loses our inheritance.
I make calls, respond back to emails, and check over quarter-end figures from finance. Anything to keep my attention where it belongs.
Wedding decisions continue to get made at the edges of my office with little to no input from me, and I'm now fully convinced Everly never needed my approval on any of this. She just wanted me here to suffer through it.
Then, a fork appears in front of my face.
I look up.
Aria is holding out a bite of cake.
Lemon.
"You have to pick something," she says. "It doesn't have to be your favorite. It just has to be something people can eat without filing complaints." Her mouth twitches. "If we're going through with this, we might as well serve food we actually like."
I take the bite she offers me.
It's sweet. The lemon gives a bright, clean flavor.
It's not terrible.
Damn it.
"Well?" Everly demands from across the room, approving the string quartet with a signature.
"It's fine."
The caterer beams and writes it down like I just issued a royal decree.
A second fork appears. Salted caramel espresso.
"No."
Aria tilts her head. "You didn't even taste it."
"I don't need coffee in cake."
"You literally drink coffee like it's medicinal."
"That doesn't mean I want it in dessert."
Everly groans. "How are you this difficult before noon? Are you sure you don't want to back out, Aria? No one who knows him would blame you."
What the hell. "Do you want this wedding or not, Everly? Let's not try to scare away the bride," I say to my sister who's offering my fiancée a way out.
I return to my laptop.
What I'm not saying aloud: none of this would bother me nearly as much if Aria weren't in the middle of it.
She should be overwhelmed. She should look misplaced.
Instead, she looks like she's trying.
Listening. Offering opinions when asked. And not once does she demand the center of it.
It gets under my skin.
Finally the vendors start filtering out, the office smells faintly of buttercream and florals and money I might as well have just set in the middle of the room and burned. In one year's time, Aria and I will be filing for divorce. None of this matters.
Aria is by the conference table now, gathering printouts into neat piles—still acting as my assistant, though that word stopped fitting weeks ago.
Then her gaze catches on something in the corner.
I know what she sees before I turn.
Blanket.
Pillow.
Fuck.
The ones I use when I sleep here instead of going upstairs. I forgot to put them away.
She looks back at me.
"Do you usually sleep in here," she asks quietly, "or was that because of me?"
I don't answer right away. It would be easy to give too much away.
Then I shrug. "Sometimes, when I have deadlines."
Her eyes flick to the blanket again.
"Do you have one now?"
I should lie. Tell her I'll be drowning in deadlines for the next year and not to expect me upstairs much. It would be the smarter play.
But I can't bring myself to do it.
Maybe because lying to her for a full year sounds more exhausting than the truth. Lying catches up. It always does.
"No."
She nods once, absorbing that without pressing.
Then, very carefully, she says, "If having me in your space is a problem, I'm sure my landlord can find me another apartment to lease."
"You have to stay for the optics," I say. "You need to be seen here. Coming and going. Using the private entrance. If you stay somewhere else, it weakens the narrative. If the trust finds out that you have a separate apartment away from me, it won't look good."
Even I hear how that sounds.
She hears it too but she accepts them anyway.
"Right," she says. "Of course."
Before I can make any of that worse, Everly reappears in the doorway with the coordinator behind her.
"Tux fitting," Everly says. "Do not even think about escaping."
"I wasn't." I reach for my jacket. "You've tortured me with enough cake for one day. Tux fitting, I can do."
"Good," she says cheerfully. "Then you'll be in a compliant mood for tailoring."
I leave before any of them can say another word.
The tailor pins and measures and says words like timeless and elegant while I stand there thinking about vendor binders and peonies and Aria asking if I slept in my office because of her.
By the time I leave, I am exhausted in a way spreadsheets have never managed.
I drive back to the Kauffman building, park in the private garage—the one only my siblings and I use—and take the elevator.
I hit PH1. Then, as it starts moving, I think better of it and press the button for my office floor. Eight floors lower.
I'm not avoiding home, I tell myself. I just have a lot of work to do.
My office is quiet when I return.
No flowers. No linen samples. And most importantly... no Aria.
Just my desk, my couch, a blanket still in the corner, and a pillow.
I open a sponsorship proposal, read the same line seven times, and get exactly nowhere.
At eleven-thirty, I'm still in the same chair, tie loosened, jacket off, cursor blinking on an unanswered email while my mind replays the same handful of things on a loop.
Aria barefoot in my kitchen.
Aria feeding me lemon cake in my office.
Aria looking at the blanket in the corner.
Aria offering to get a new apartment to give me space away from her.
I shut the laptop, stand, and walk to the couch, picking up the blanket and pillow on my way to it. I should go home.
I should take the elevator up and walk into the penthouse like a man who can handle sleeping under the same roof as his own fiancée.
Instead, I lie down on the couch, the leather creaking beneath me. My neck is going to hate me in the morning but I do it anyway. Because home is upstairs. And upstairs means her.
Her laugh in the kitchen. Her hair still damp from the shower. Her dress draped over the guest chair. Her making eight damn floors feel like nothing.
Distance must be maintained, wife or not. One year. That's what we agreed to.
I close my eyes, and the last thing I hear before I go under is her voice, quiet and careful:
If having me in your space is a problem…
The problem is that every day that goes on, she feels less and less like a problem.
Not in the way I keep trying to pretend.
And I have no damn idea what to do with that.