Chapter 9 #2
“Yeah... well... screw you!” Diana stomped her foot once before rushing out the gate. Enzo let out a low whistle as Alex silently turned back to the table and began gathering plates. Only then did I notice her hands were shaking and her eyes had grown glassy.
“Alex.” A heavy weight settled in my stomach.
“It’s fine,” she sniffed, working furiously to scrape leftovers onto one plate. “It’s not the first time he’s said such things and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
“But...”
“I said it’s fine,” she looked up at me, her lips set in a hard line. It wasn’t fine, but I knew she knew that.
“Let us clean this up,” I took the plates from her and set them on the table as Jason went to make sure Diana and Graham were gone. “We’ll come get you in a bit.”
“Okay,” she released a sudden breath. She wasn’t meeting my eyes and that bothered me.
“Hey,” I ducked down even with her face, and she finally looked up at me, giving a weak half-smile.
“Nothing he says matters. I meant what I said. You are an incredible woman and I’m damn lucky I met you.
” I leaned in and kissed her cheek gently.
“Now go lie down or cry or whatever it is you need to do. I’ve got this. ”
“Thank you,” she squeezed my arm and moved past me to the house. When I was sure she was gone, I rounded on Enzo and Jason.
“What the fuck was that!” I exploded, finally allowing everything to bubble to the surface. My head was beginning to throb. “Is it always like this?”
“Tonight was bad,” Jason glanced at Enzo and then me. “Diana lets him get away with it.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, tension building behind my eyes.
“How long has Diana been letting him get away with this shit? You know what? I don’t care.
Alex shouldn’t have to deal with that in her own home.
” I looked toward the door where she’d disappeared.
“No wonder she didn’t want me to know who she really was. ”
The urge to go check on her was stronger than any tactical protocol I’d ever learned. I took the plates into the kitchen, set them in the sink, and moved down the dark hall to Alex’s room.
The door stood slightly ajar, warm light from the lamp on the nightstand spilling into the hallway. I knocked softly against the frame.
“Come in.”
She was lying on the far side of the bed, a tissue box next to her and her phone face-down on the dark violet duvet. The room felt like her—controlled and comfortable—where everything had its place except for the small pile of crumpled tissues.
“You okay?” I stepped inside, leaving the door open.
She gestured to the space beside her, sniffing. “Just needed a minute.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, finding the wastebasket on the floor by my feet and picking it up to sweep the used tissues into it.
“Thanks,” she murmured. I set the basket down and turned more fully toward her.
“Graham’s an asshole.”
“Yeah,” she picked at the edge of a pillow. “He is.”
The silence stretched between us. I could hear Enzo and Jason in the kitchen as they cleaned up, their voices carrying down the hall. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it.
“Alex. I know.”
Her name sat heavy in the air. She went perfectly still, her fingers freezing against the fabric. When she looked up, her eyes held that same carefully neutral expression I’d seen before—professional, distant, protected.
“I saw the diploma in your office,” I continued my confession. “Enzo told me not to say anything.”
Her voice was flat. “And now?”
“I can’t stand having it between us,” I rubbed my palms against my jeans. “Especially after tonight.”
She sat up, crossing her legs on the bed and studying me. “You said you didn’t like Alex.”
“I said Alex was a tight ass who flew in to boss everyone around.” Heat crept up my neck.
“I was an idiot. I was jealous of some guy I’d never met because Dom talked about him all the time, and you were always defending him, and I thought—” I stopped, shaking my head.
“I was wrong about everything. I’m sorry. ”
Her detached expression slipped, revealing exhaustion and relief.
“I panicked,” she admitted quietly. “When you said that, I’d just taken care of you.
I liked that you were so direct, and then it seemed like you hated the person I really am.
The controlling, calculating person who gets things done and is a bit bossy at times.
” She laughed, but it came out hollow. “So I asked them to call me Sasha. It felt safer.”
“I don’t hate you.” The words were inadequate. “I think you’re amazing. The studio, what you’ve built, how you handled tonight—all of it. You’re a force to be reckoned with.”
She was quiet for a long moment, her phone buzzing against the duvet. She glanced at it, then at me.
“My mom texted earlier this week. Wants to set me up with her divorced neighbor and now she won’t leave me alone about it,” she picked up the phone, scrolled through messages, set it down again. “Two adorable little boys,” she parroted in a flat tone. “Such a nice man.”
“You don’t sound too excited.”
“She’s gotten worse since Enzo got engaged. I’m the eldest and I’m forty-two and single. To my family that means I’m either too broken or too picky,” she moved the phone to the nightstand. “Graham used to say I was both.”
My jaw tightened. “Graham’s a fu—he’s an idiot who never deserved you.”
“Maybe. But he wasn’t wrong about some things,” she pulled the tissue box closer.
“I am difficult. I need things a certain way. I’m afraid of letting others fail or seeing me fail.
I work too much because my mind never rests.
I overthink nearly everything or don’t think at all and I can’t stand when people chew loudly or wear certain colognes or—”
“Stop.”
She looked up, startled.
“Those aren’t flaws, darlin’. That’s just how your brain works,” I shifted closer, our knees touching now.
“You’ve built a successful business, a successful life.
You take care of everyone—I assume with no thought for yourself.
You clearly like making the world around you better than you found it.
You installed your own chandelier, for crying out loud. ”
Her mouth twitched. “It wasn’t that complicated.”
“My point is you deserve someone who appreciates what you bring to the table,” I swallowed, my heart hammering. “And if your family doesn’t realize that then they’re idiots too.”
My phone buzzed again. Then again. I pulled it out, intending to silence it, but the name on the screen made me pause.
Lou: Hope you’re having fun in Utah! Penny asked about you. When are you coming home?
Lou: Miss having you around. Maybe we could drive down while you’re in Salt Lake?
Alex noticed my hesitation. “Everything okay?”
I stared at the messages, guilt settling uncomfortably in my chest. Just like Alex, people had expectations of me and what I should be doing, especially now that my life had literally gone down in flames.
Lou represented everything I was supposed to want—familiarity, comfort, safety.
But I was never one to eschew risk and sitting here with Alex, knowing what I now knew about her, my old life—before the last thirteen years—felt like putting on clothes that no longer fit.
“Yeah,” I set the phone aside without responding. “Just someone from back home.”
She nodded, not pushing. The voices had faded from the kitchen—the house silent other than Enzo moving around in his room.
“So,” she said at length, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and avoiding looking at me. “What happens now? Do we pretend tonight didn’t happen? Go back to me being Sasha?”
“Actually, I was thinking we could make tonight official.”
Her eyebrows rose along with her gaze. “Official?”
“What would you say to officially being my fake girlfriend? Enzo already put it out there. Might as well run with it,” I reached for my tags, scratched at my chest instead.
“Helps us both, right? Gets your family off your back about being alone, gives me an excuse to avoid certain conversations about my future.”
She considered this, absently pleating the edge of her sweater. “You’d be okay with that?” She peered up at me. “Pretending to date someone difficult and high-maintenance?”
“First of all, stop calling yourself that. Second, yeah. I’d be okay with it.”
More than okay, but I kept that part to myself.
“It would mean spending more time together,” she settled back down on her bed. “Family events, probably some photos for social media. Making it look convincing.”
“I can handle convincing, sweetheart.” The memory of our kiss flooded back—the way she’d tasted, the soft sound she’d made against my mouth. “Can you?”
Pink spread across her cheeks as she turned her gaze to the ceiling. “I think so.”
“Good.”
Internally, I screamed at myself to stand up, suddenly aware of how intimate this felt—sitting on her bed, working out the logistics of a fake relationship while real feelings threatened to choke me.
Instead, I toed off my sneakers and lay down next to her on my back, slipping one hand behind my head, too exhausted in my bones to go anywhere else.
Stars were projected onto her ceiling—orbiting for her like a small planetarium show.
Only then did I catch the faintest notes of Rush—“Closer to the Heart” specifically. I smiled to myself.
“Finn?” she whispered after a while.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For telling me. For not letting me keep hiding.”
“Thank you for not throwin’ me out when I did,” I flashed her a lopsided grin.
Her smile was small but genuine. “I considered it for about three seconds.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You called me incredible. Twice. Nobody’s ever called me that before.”
The words hit me square in the chest. I wanted to tell her that anyone with half a brain could see what she was. Instead, I just nodded, reaching over with my free hand to squeeze her arm before we both settled down to watch the stars.