Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
AMELIE
I pressed my fingers to the window like a child, peering at the passing scenery as if it were my favorite movie.
“You probably mapped out the entire trip in your head during the flight, didn’t you?” Kai asked, watching Beirut move past the window.
“I have suggestions,” I said vaguely.
The corners of his mouth moved. “Whatever you say, Princess.”
I turned to look at him. “A suggestion is something you can decline. If you don’t like my ideas—”
“I’ll love them.” He was watching me with the easy posture of a man with no pressing concerns.
But there was one concern tormenting me. Although I shouldn’t be thinking of him while I was with Kai, thoughts of Stefan plagued me anyway. I hadn’t mastered a way to turn off my feelings, especially since I’d told Stefan we’d visit Lebanon together one day.
Unable to help myself, I texted him when Kai wasn’t looking. He had a fast-paced itinerary, and the last time I heard from him, he was in Dubai.
Amelie: Hi. Where are you now?
Stefan: Istanbul. Just landed. Incredible city.
Istanbul. He was only four hours away. I would ask him to join us in Beirut, but I didn’t want to offend Kai.
Perhaps I could fly to Istanbul and visit Stefan once we were done in Beirut.
I didn’t know the etiquette for visiting your first husband after a vacation with your second. I was between a rock and a hard place.
Amelie: How long are you there?
Stefan: Few days. It’s beautiful here. You’d love it.
Amelie: Sounds amazing.
Stefan: It’d be more amazing if you were here. Miss you, baby.
Amelie: Can you call me later?
He gave my text a thumbs-up emoji without responding.
I preferred to tell him I was in Beirut over the phone rather than via text.
I had to shelve the idea until I was alone, as it might upset Kai if I called Stefan in front of him.
Anyone could see how jealously he guarded me and our time together.
Fuck. This was hard.
How did other people practice polygamy? It was one thing to split your time equally, but how did you divide your emotions fairly? Feelings weren’t tangible. I needed to either see a therapist familiar with our unique situation or go on Reddit to ask perfect strangers for advice.
For now, I decided to focus on Beirut. I still couldn’t believe we were actually here.
By the time we fought rush-hour traffic and rolled to a stop in front of our hotel, I was practically bouncing in my seat.
Kai suggested a catnap, but I was wired.
The seven hours of sleep on the flight were more than enough.
I woke up to Kai handing me an almond chai latte during the plane’s final descent.
The cup was the right temperature, and I knew he’d special-ordered the chai latte and almond syrup, since it wasn’t a drink commonly carried on flights.
I didn’t comment on it, too enthralled by our destination.
Kai left the chauffeur to check into the hotel and take in our luggage while we went on a stroll.
We walked the streets of Mar Mikhael, checking out street art.
I pointed things out without planning to.
The shortcut that had been walled off. A cafe that was identical to one I remembered from my childhood, except the sign above the door was new.
A street bakery that made the best manakish.
Kai listened with interest, which was its own kind of attentiveness.
I caught myself noticing the line of his jaw when he tilted his head toward something I’d pointed out, the unhurried quality of it.
Throughout the day, my mind still drifted to Stefan whenever something reminded me of him.
Like a particular street I wanted to show him.
Or a dish I insisted he try only in Beirut.
The mental blueprint of visiting this city with Stefan had been so deeply etched into my mind that I was genuinely struggling to overwrite it with the experience of seeing it with someone else.
What I’d pictured had become the default, and the imagined expectation felt more real than reality itself.
But the reality was that Kai was the one physically here while Stefan was off on his own adventures.
Kai didn’t object as I dragged him through different streets and neighborhoods. Beirut gave you the sensation of moving through several decades simultaneously. Old stone pressing up against new glass. Bougainvillea reclaiming bullet holes in a wall. The sound of a radio through an open shutter.
After visiting the iconic Gemmayzeh stairs, the stepped streets, and colorful murals, we rested our tired feet at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. The food was so light and airy that I couldn’t bring myself to care about my carb intake for the day.
I watched Kai, relaxed, a man entirely comfortable and in his element.
It was difficult to look away from him. I hadn’t let myself think it plainly before, but in the low light of a restaurant in my favorite city, it was harder to argue with.
I wondered how many other women had sat across from him exactly like this.
After all, he was older than me, and women threw themselves at him.
He was much more experienced, whereas I’d only ever been with one man before.
“Have you traveled internationally with a woman before? Romantically,” I asked over a glass of Lebanese wine I had made him try.
“What do you think?” he replied dryly.
The answer was no. I knew instinctively.
Between bites of kafta and mezze, I interrogated him on a plethora of other personal questions. He rarely opened up, and seeing that he was in a generous mood, I decided to pry.
I asked about his close friendships.
He gave me three names like items off a short list. A board member. Someone else who ran one of his companies. A man he called an old friend, though the two of them hadn’t spoken outside a boardroom in over a year.
“Those are business relationships,” I pointed out. “Not friendships.”
“Everything’s a business relationship if you dissect it enough.” A pause. “Some of them I simply enjoy more.”
“What about friends from school?”
He considered the question before admitting, “I suppose Caden Maxwell.”
“Dr. Maxwell?” I asked, surprised that he was naming my best friend’s husband. Though I met Kai while he was vacationing on a boat owned by Caden Maxwell, I assumed their friendship was surface level. They barely interacted on the cruise. “It didn’t seem like much of a friendship to me.”
He shrugged.
“Old girlfriends then,” I pressed. “You must’ve had a few of those.”
“There hasn’t been anyone serious,” he said. “Unless you count Sarah Whitfield. First grade. We broke up over irreconcilable differences after I informed her that Santa wasn’t real. She called me a liar and ran away. Nap time was very awkward afterward.”
Laughter bubbled at the base of my throat, but I managed to squash it. Frustrated, I asked, “Is there anyone at all in your life who can confirm you aren’t a psychopath?”
The only answer was his lips curving upward.
Just when I thought he wouldn’t elaborate, Kai revealed, “I work. A lot. Most of the hours I’m awake, and several more. Friendship takes time that I do not have the luxury of investing in. Girlfriends take more maintenance than that.”
I almost laughed. We were sitting thousands of miles from the office he claimed owned every hour of his life, on a weekday no less. For a man who cited work as the reason he didn’t hone meaningful relationships, he sure abandoned his business a lot for my sake.
It dawned on me then that Kai’s parents had passed away, he was an only child, and all his relationships were superficial.
Legally, Stefan and I had joint custody of the children.
For all intents and purposes, I was Kai’s only family.
By every measure, I was closer to him than anyone else in the world.
That couldn’t be right, could it? There had to be someone he cared about. What about the woman he had met years ago, the one who had caught his eye? He spoke so fondly of her when we first met.
A heaviness settled over my chest at the thought.
Ruby was Stefan’s fantasy woman, and he had come to prefer her company over mine.
I wasn’t Kai’s dream girl, either. They both married me, yet Stefan drooled over Ruby, and Kai only wanted me because he couldn’t be with the girl he truly wanted, the one that got away.
I stopped asking questions. My insecurities would ruin the day if I went down this rabbit hole, and I refused to let that happen. I hadn’t returned to Lebanon since Baba passed away, and I planned on soaking up every minute of it.
As promised, Kai took me shopping to supplement the items he had packed for me.
The boutique was off a lane in Gemmayzeh, the kind of place you found only if you already knew it was there.
The saleslady materialized from behind the counter and took in Kai with the expression of a woman who understood what his credit card looked like before he produced it.
I picked up a plain white blouse. Kai looked at it the way a professor looked at a wrong answer. Not unkind. Just certain.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face said it all,” I muttered sulkily.
He shrugged. “Get it if that’s what you want.”
I looked from him to the shirt and hastily put it back. Infuriatingly, his disapproval gnawed at me, and if I were being honest, white wasn’t my color.
After vetoing two more of my choices—simply by the sheer force of his disapproving glances—Kai decided I was incapable of shopping and moved through the rails himself with unhurried confidence.
“What about this?” he asked, holding up a dress.
The color was burnt orange, deep, warm. The cut was simple.
The fabric felt like silk that moved rather than hung.
It was understatedly gorgeous. I suddenly realized why he had disapproved of my selections thus far—I had been sticking to the sale section.
I took one look at the price tag, and my heart sank.