Chapter Ten #2
"Aria Taylor," I say. Then, because the ring is right there catching the chandelier light, "Everett’s fiancée."
Pierre’s eyebrows rise. He glances at Everett.
Everett is looking at me. Not at Pierre. Not at the table. At me. His expression opens—just for a beat—surprise giving way to something warm before the composure slides back into place.
"You speak French?" he says.
"Fluently," Margaux answers for me, beaming. "She rescued me from a waiter who thought I wanted Chardonnay. We have been talking for an hour. She is wonderful."
Pierre turns to Everett with a look that falls somewhere between amusement and judgment. "You didn’t know your fiancée speaks French?"
Then Everett’s mouth curves—just barely, just enough —and he pulls out the chair beside me.
"It turns out my beautiful fiancée has many talents," he says, sitting down, "and I have a lifetime to learn them all."
His hand finds my knee under the table.
Everett doesn’t need to close anything—Pierre stopped being a target somewhere around the second glass of wine and became a person.
He tells stories about his vineyard in Provence.
Margaux corrects him in French and he pretends to be offended.
Everett contributes more than I’ve ever seen him contribute to a conversation that doesn’t involve contracts or quarterly projections.
At one point, Pierre leans back in his chair and says to Everett, "I’ve had fifteen meetings about this deal.
Sienna is excellent—sharp, thorough. But tonight is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed myself.
This deal means I will have to travel back here more.
It would be nice for my wife to have a friend when she is here. "
He looks at me when he says it.
"I have to go back to France tomorrow. Let's talk when I get back."
"We'll be in Cannes next week. Maybe we could come by your office." I tell him.
Everett shoots a look over at me and his smile pulls at his lips when he realizes that I'm helping. "That's right... we will be, won't we?"
"For our honeymoon," I tell Margaux
"You'll be in Cannes next week?" Margaux asks.
"Oh I love it there, and there is a great little bakery you must visit.
Better than the stuffy office, let's do dinner.
We can leave the men to talk business and you can tell me all about the wedding and the honeymoon," she winks. “Oh to be young and in love.”
I glance over at Everett who’s staring at Margaux. He hears it too. Young and in love. If only that’s what this is. It would make things a lot easier.
We agree to get in touch once we're there and I can see Everett's shoulders are lighter now.
The waiter turns to our table to get our coffee order to go with dessert. Sienna, who has rejoined the group and positioned herself in the chair on Everett’s other side, orders first.
"I’ll have a cappuccino." She turns to Everett with familiar ease. "And he’ll have a black coffee. No sugar."
She says it with the certainty of a woman who has ordered for this man a hundred times.
I watch Everett’s face.
Nothing moves.
Margaux is watching, and maybe the fact that I spent six months learning this man's preferences helps. My job depended on it. "He takes it with a splash of cream. Not much. Just enough to soften the color. And one and a half sugars."
The table goes quiet.
Sienna’s smile tightens. "No offense, but I’ve known him for over four years. I think I know his coffee order."
I open my mouth—then close it. Because she’s right about the four years. She’s right about knowing him. She’s just wrong about the coffee.
But before I can decide whether to push it, Everett speaks.
"No," he says. His voice is even. Unhurried. "My fiancée knows how I like it."
He doesn’t look at Sienna when he says it. He looks at me. As if to tell me that he has my back. And the confirmation that I know his coffee order could literally make me cry happy tears.
The waiter nods and disappears. Sienna takes a sip of water and says nothing. Pierre and Margaux exchange a glance that I pretend not to see.
I excuse myself to the restroom before my face can betray anything else.
The bathroom is all marble and soft lighting and silence that lets me hear my own pulse.
I grip the edge of the sink and stare at myself in the mirror.
His fiancée knows how he likes it.
He chose me. In front of Sienna. In front of the client. In front of everyone.
The door opens behind me and then it opens again as Sienna steps inside. She comes up to the mirror next to me checking her reflection, and adjusts a strand of hair that was already perfect.
"You handled that well," she says, not looking at me.
I straighten. "Handled what?"
"Tonight. The Matisse’s." She turns to face me, and her expression isn’t hostile.
"I want you to know," she says, "that I’m grateful you stepped in. Really… What you’re doing for Everett… for the trust… it’s generous. Not many women would agree to something like this."
Something like this.
She says it the way you’d describe volunteer work. Noble, temporary, and ultimately someone else’s problem, but what gets me is that he told me that no friends or family can know that he and I are fake... but he told her.
"We were good together," she continues, smoothing the front of her gown. "Everett and me. Four years. We understood each other. No drama, no mess. It worked."
She pauses, and something flickers across her face—not cruelty. Nostalgia.
"I made a mistake," she says. "With Daniel... I thought if Everett saw me with someone else, it might—I don’t know. Shake something loose. Make him realize what we had." She shakes her head. "It backfired. Obviously. And then the trust deadline, and now here we are."
She steps closer. Not threatening. Just close enough that I can smell her perfume—the kind of perfume that even smells expensive.
"I’m not angry," she says. "I understand the arrangement. And once the year is up and the trust is satisfied…" She glances down at the ring on my finger—holds the look for one beat too long. "I’m sure we’ll find our way back to each other."
She looks up again. Her eyes are clear and steady and absolutely certain.
"If I hadn’t tried to make him jealous," she says softly, "that would be on my finger instead."
She doesn’t wait for a response. She checks her reflection one final time, smooths her hair, and walks out.
The door clicks shut.
I stand there with my hands gripping the marble and Sienna’s words still ringing in my ears.
And the worst part, the part that makes my throat tight and my eyes burn, is that technically, she’s right. Twelve months. That’s what I signed. That’s all this is.
I splash water on my wrists. Breathe. Fix my face.
Then I walk out.
Sienna is already back at the table, smiling like she just freshened up her lipstick and nothing more. She catches my eye and gives me a look that’s almost warm. Almost as if she believes that she and I have an understanding. She gets my husband in a year when he files for divorce.
That’s somehow worse than if she’d been cruel.
The gala is winding down. Waiters are clearing tables. The harpist has packed up and someone has switched to ambient music that signals the end of the night.
"We should get drinks," Sienna says brightly, addressing the table. "There’s a wine bar on the next block that stays open until two."
Pierre tilts his head, considering. "That could be—"
But Margaux is looking at me. Reading my face the way only another woman can.
"I think," I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel, "that I’m actually wiped out. It’s been a long night." I touch Everett’s arm. "You should go, though. Really."
Everett looks at me. Studies me the way he studies everything—thoroughly, too closely, seeing things I wish he wouldn’t.
"No," he says. "I’ll take you home."
It’s not a negotiation. It’s not a question.
Margaux stands and takes Pierre’s arm. "I think we will also call it a night." She gives me a look that says everything—that she wouldn’t have stayed either, that she came tonight for her husband but stayed for me, that the evening ended the moment I said I was leaving.
She kisses both my cheeks. "You must come to Lyon," she says. "I insist."
Pierre shakes Everett’s hand. "We’ll talk Monday." Then he turns to me and says something that makes Sienna’s smile falter for the first time all evening: "Your fiancée is the reason this deal will close. I hope you know that."
Sienna says nothing.
Everett’s hand finds the small of my back—low, warm, deliberate. He guides me through the thinning crowd toward the exit. Past the champagne tables, past the lingering conversations, past Sienna standing near the bar with her phone in her hand and her certainty still intact.
Outside, the night air hits my bare shoulders like cold water.
The town car is waiting at the curb. The driver moves to open the door.
Everett waves him off.
He walks me to the passenger side, opens the door himself, and holds it while I slide in.
He shuts the door. Walks around. Gets in beside me.
The car pulls away from the curb, and Seattle blurs past through tinted glass.
Neither of us speaks.
Sienna’s voice loops through my head on a track I can’t shut off.
If I hadn’t tried to make him jealous, that would be on my finger instead.
I stare at the ring. Ten million dollars of certainty that means nothing—because the woman in the burgundy dress thinks she’s the endgame, and the contract in Christian’s office says she might be right.
"Aria."
I turn.
Everett is watching me in the dark of the car. The city lights slide across his face—gold, then shadow, then gold again.
"You were extraordinary tonight," he says quietly.
The words land somewhere deep, in a place Sienna’s certainty hasn’t reached yet.
I don’t answer. I just turn back to the window and press my fingertips against the cold glass and try to remember that this is temporary.
All of this.
Every touch. Every look. Every coffee order he lets me claim.
Twelve months.
That’s the deal.
The problem is, my chest didn’t get the memo.