Chapter 12
It happened at the checkout counter.
“You’re JK Kenzie,” a strident voice called out.
Suzette gasped softly. His head snapped up, the grocery bag slipping from his hand and thudding into the cart. In the next aisle, a far-too-sharp-eyed woman was staring straight at him, scrutiny narrowing her gaze.
Fortunately, he recovered quickly. “I get that all the time,” he replied, faking a Russian accent. It was one role he’d never portrayed.
Suzette, bless her, played along with a light laugh. “My Dimitri. Fresh from Moscow and already causing chaos.”
The woman huffed, looking dubious, but fortunately the person in front moved on and the cashier called impatiently, “Next.”
Pocketing her card, Suzette patted his back. “Come, Dimitri, móy milyy, let’s go before you cause a riot.”
He flashed her a grin, pushed the cart toward the doors — and froze when he saw a phone aimed at them. The man by the cigarette counter wasn’t even pretending to hide his interest in them.
“Let’s hurry,” he muttered, lowering his gaze, slipping the sunglasses back in place. He couldn’t even confront the man and request the footage be deleted. That would only confirm who he was.
The walk back to the Honda was silent, tension threading every step.
They loaded the bags in quick, efficient motions, and she didn’t even protest when he gently took the keys from her.
He didn’t want her behind the wheel and panicking if someone decided to follow them.
This — exactly this — was why he had security.
And today of all days, he’d told them to give him space.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“I guess that happens a lot.”
“Yeah.” And here it was — the point where she’d finally decide he was more hassle than any sane woman would sign up for.
But, yet again, his sweet Suzette surprised him. After a few minutes of silence she asked, “How do you feel about baked cheesecake?” just as he stopped at a traffic light.
He glanced at her. “I like it just fine.”
“Up for a detour? I know a place that makes the best cheesecake.”
He blinked. “You’re willing to risk appearing in public with me again?”
She shrugged, grinning. “Maybe I fancy the Russian accent.”
The car behind them honked, and he eased forward. “I’ll learn Russian tomorrow.”
Her laugh was light and bright. “Take a right at the next intersection. We’re heading up Helshoogte.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He maneuvered around a slow truck, easing into the turn lane. “So, what does moy melee mean, and where did you learn Russian?”
“We had a Russian family visit several years back. The grandpa took a shine to me. Móy milyy means my sweet.”
“How old was this grandpa?” he growled. No one but him was allowed to call Suzette my sweet.
“In his seventies.” She chuckled. “Be glad I didn’t call you staryi perdun.”
“Stah-ree per-doon?” he repeated carefully.
“Hmm. That’s what his wife called him.”
The car struggled up the steep hill, and he geared down, giving it a surge of power. “Dare I ask what that means?”
“Old fart.”
*
“You’re right. This is delicious. And the setting incredible,” Justin murmured before taking another bite.
They sat at a small table on the patio’s edge, the rambling rose hedge low enough that the sweep of Banghoek Valley lay just beyond it, soft and hazy in the midday light.
On the far side, the mountain rose in layered greens and granite — a scene so serene it almost felt like a painting, the kind you could stare at until the calmness washed through your soul.
It wasn’t enough to settle her today.
“But why do I think we’re here for more than the … gastric delights?” he asked, a touch of suspicion in his voice.
He was beside her again, sunglasses and cap restored like a shield, reducing him to anonymity. The earlier encounter in the supermarket still pulsed under her skin — a jolt, a reminder, a reality check.
This thing between them, however breathless and bright, came with a shadow.
His fame wasn’t something she could outrun.
And she didn’t want to live in a world where strangers dissected her life, where every step was captured, twisted, broadcast. She stayed off social media for a reason.
It was a marketplace of outrage — one careless comment away from a landslide of cruelty.
Yes, there were good, productive parts too. But all it took was one spark of negativity to ignite an inferno.
“Suze?” he prompted softly.
She exhaled, gentle, controlled. “This is one of my favorite places.” Tapping her fork to the slice of berry-topped decadence they were sharing, she added, “This delight is just a bonus.”
He set his fork aside and turned toward her fully, wrought-iron chair scraping slightly as he shifted his weight. He took her hand, his thumb brushing her knuckles in a quiet, grounding stroke. “The … ‘more’ has something to do with what happened earlier. Not so?”
“Partially.”
He didn’t press her, merely waited, his hand warm around hers while she gathered her thoughts.
“I met Braam the year I turned twelve,” she began quietly.
“His parents had died in a car crash, leaving him completely alone. At the children’s home, it was the long-term kids who helped the new ones settle, so I was paired with him.
Then he ended up in my class at school, and somehow we just …
clicked. Music bound us. Friendship steadied us.
He became …” Her throat tightened. “He became my everything.”
She paused, eyes drifting over the mountains. “He was diagnosed with Crohn’s at sixteen. It was a devastating blow. But Braam … he was a fighter. He handled that brutal disease with a kind of quiet determination that put adults to shame.”
She drew in a slow breath. “We got married right after school and moved to Stellenbosch. His parents had left him a decent inheritance, so Braam studied music, adding in a few theology electives. My marks weren’t good enough for a degree, so I took odd courses, eventually landed a bookkeeping job.
We had a small music gig, too. Weddings, church band. It was a good life. We were happy.”
A sigh pushed from her chest, soft but weighted, her fingers tracing invisible patterns on the table. “After Braam graduated, he was offered a position as the worship leader at our church. And that’s when things started to change.”
Even after all these years, those old feelings of not being good enough tightened her throat. She took several small sips of tea, willing it to settle the ache.
Justin didn’t move, just held her hand, his fingers woven through hers in a steady, anchoring pressure that should have comforted her. Instead, it only underscored the problem.
Another reminder that she was leaning on him far too easily.
She gently eased her hand from his and rubbed at the sudden chill prickling along her arms, gathering the courage to voice something she had never told a soul — not even Miem.
“The band, the church … it became his focus,” she said quietly.
“Oh, I know Braam loved me.” A nervous laugh slipped out.
“Truly. He did. He just loved the rest … more. And where we’d agreed to wait on having kids until he graduated, suddenly there were reasons.
Excuses. Crohn’s is hereditary. We needed to focus on our calling.
The music. Leading people to God. Everything else took priority. ”
Her gaze dropped to her folded napkin. “And silly me … I pushed aside my own needs and desires and just followed his lead like a good little Christian wife. I even put up with the blame when his Crohn’s flared up — watch his diet, Suzette; pray harder for his healing, Suzette.”
Justin made a strangled sound in his throat. “Insensitive morons,” he ground out.
She lifted one shoulder in a small, resigned shrug. “Life.”
Justin’s jaw flexed. “And Esther?”
A faint smile tugged at her lips, softer than before.
“Our church joined a new movement — a US-based one — and we were sent to the States to absorb their ethos. And that’s when Esther came into our lives,” she said softly.
“Her real name was Mara, but Braam always called her his Esther. His shining star.”
“And you slipped even further down his priority list,” Justin said, a quiet edge threading through his voice.
She didn’t bother confirming. She didn’t need to.
“It wasn’t hard to love Essie,” she said instead.
“She was so timid, scared of her own shadow, and watching her bloom under his love was … a privilege. And I felt guilty, sometimes, for resenting her. I understood why she clung to him. How his attention helped her find her voice.”
She drew a slow breath, fingertips brushing the rim of her glass.
“But there was this one night …” Her voice softened, thinned.
“We were rehearsing for Sunday, and I was sitting at the back, sorting sheet music. I could hear them laughing on stage — proper, effortless laughter I hadn’t heard from him in months.
She played a wrong chord, and he teased her, and she blushed so fiercely she practically glowed. ”
Suzette swallowed. “I remember looking at them and realizing he hadn’t looked at me with that light, delighted manner in a very long time.
And in that moment … it clicked. What I felt for him, what I thought he was to me, wasn’t the kind of love a marriage is built on.
He was safety. Validation. A lifeline for a girl who’d been judged unworthy of love. ”
*
Mixed emotions swirled through Justin: sadness, anger, a hollow sense of powerlessness.
And fear. Because he wasn’t up against the memory of a long-lost husband, or even the strain of his own celebrity status.
This went far deeper, down to the very core of Suzette, right into wounds carved by abandonment.
And no matter how many times he professed his love — and yes, he could finally admit it, for the first time in his life he had fallen in love — none of it would matter if she didn’t believe she was worthy of that love.
He reached for her hand again, enclosing it gently between both of his. “What happened after that?”
She let out a brittle laugh, thin and sharp around the edges. “Nothing. Everything. Braam died less than six months later. What we thought was a savage Crohn’s flare, mere weeks after my moment of clarity, turned out to be cancer.” Her voice wavered. “It was sudden. Brutal. Devastating.”
Her pain landed with the force of a blow. A clean tear through the center of his chest. “I’m so sorry, Suzette,” he murmured, the words rough with sincerity.
“Thank you.”
Nearing footsteps drew his attention. The server approached, concern tightening her expression. “Is anything wrong with the food? You’ve hardly touched it.”
There was no way he could stomach the cheesecake now. He managed a polite smile. “Something’s come up. Would you bring the bill.”
“Of course, sir.” She gathered the plates and stepped away, leaving them alone again.
“I’ve spoiled the outing,” Suzette murmured.
“Not at all.” He wished he could do more than offer words. “I want to know everything there is to know about you, Suzette Bosch. I wish I could wave a wand and erase every hurt you’ve ever had to endure.”
She gave him a long, considering look. “You know … talking about it, admitting out loud what I’ve hidden for years, has helped. I feel less … burdened.”
Warmth unfurled in his chest. “I will always listen, sweet Suze. Nothing you say or feel is inconsequential to me.”
“That” — her swallow was audible, the sound tearing a fresh wound in him — “means a lot.”
“It’s the truth.” He lifted a hand to her face, cradling her jaw, his thumb tracing slow, soothing strokes along her cheek. “And I’m not an idiot. I hear the message beneath all of this. You don’t want to be second to my career.”
She held his gaze, soft and steady. “No,” she said quietly. “I don’t.”
There was no accusation in it, no heat. Simply the bare, unvarnished truth of a woman who had once lost herself in someone else’s calling and refused to make the same mistake twice.
“And the thing is, Justin … what I feel for you …” She drew a slow breath.
“It’s vastly different from what I felt for Braam. ”
Something in him tightened — hope, fear, awe — he wasn’t sure. But before he could speak, her gaze flicked over his shoulder and her expression shuttered.
The server was back.
He swallowed a curse — of all the rotten timing — and forced his features into polite neutrality. He handled the bill, added a generous tip he barely registered, and rose to follow Suzette as she walked ahead in silence toward the car.
The moment hung unfinished between them, suspended like a held breath, all the way back to Paternoster.