Chapter 18
Miley
Christopher didn’t mention the kiss. I didn’t mention it either.
We moved through the house the same way we had before, except now there was a current running through everything, humming underneath every interaction like a live wire someone had forgotten to ground.
When his hand brushed mine reaching for the coffee pot the next morning, we both pulled back like we’d touched something hot. When I left his dessert outside the study that night, I stood at the door a beat longer than I used to, listening for movement on the other side.
Then caught myself doing it when his chair creaked on the other side and I practically sprinted to my room like a woman fleeing a crime scene.
I cooked. I always cooked when my brain was a mess, and right now my brain was a five-alarm disaster. I made a Thai green curry that was so spicy it made my eyes water because I’d dumped in three times the chili paste while thinking about the way his thumb traced my jaw.
Carlos tasted the dish, his entire face turned red, and he stood at the kitchen counter blinking rapidly with tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Mrs. Vale, this is… enthusiastic,” he managed, before draining three glasses of water in succession. I apologized profusely and threw the whole batch out. Carlos said it was fine, really, he just couldn’t feel his tongue anymore and would probably recover by tomorrow.
I made a lemon tart that came out perfect. I brought it to Eleanor, who ate two slices and declared it the best thing she’d had all month.
“What inspired this?” she asked, licking her fork.
“Emotional turmoil,” I said.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow.
“I mean lemons. I was inspired by lemons.”
Eleanor laughed, taking another bite.
I called Vicky that evening. She answered on the second ring like she’d been waiting for this call.
“The court hearing date is set,” she said. “Four weeks.”
“Vic, that’s great. How are you feeling?”
“Terrified. Hopeful. Terrified about being hopeful.” She let out a breath. “The lawyer your money paid for is actually fighting. Like, really fighting. Greg’s team tried to file another motion last week and she shut it down before lunch. I almost cried in her office.”
“You deserve someone fighting for you.”
“I know. I’m getting used to it.” Then her voice dropped. “But that’s not why I’m calling. How’s the marriage?”
I closed my eyes. Vicky knew me as only a sister could. Lying to her was pointless, and attempting it was insulting.
“Are you in love with him?” she asked.
“No.” Too fast, way too fast. The speed of it answered the question better than any words could.
“Okay,” Vicky said. In the tone that meant she heard everything I wasn’t saying and was choosing grace over confrontation. “How’s Sazón?”
We talked about the reconstruction, the menu, the contractor. Normal, safe things that didn’t make my pulse do backflips.
Was I in love? What about Christopher? Had his feelings changed? Had mine?
Then Eloise grabbed the phone.
“AUNTIE MILEY!”
“Hi, baby.”
“Mommy says you married a movie star. Is he handsome? Mommy says he’s very handsome. She showed me a picture. He has blue eyes like a prince.”
“He does have blue eyes.”
“Does he have a horse?”
“Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a horse.”
“Then he’s not a real prince.” She sounded deeply disappointed. “Auntie Miley, does he kiss you? Mommy says married people kiss. Do you kiss him?”
My face went red. “Eloise—”
“Mommy said if he doesn’t treat you like a princess, she’ll come down there and, and—” I could hear Vicky in the background making frantic sounds. “She said she’ll kick his—”
“ELOISE!” Vicky’s voice, muffled, followed by the sound of a hand covering a small mouth, then rustling. Vicky came back on the line, breathless. “Sorry. She has no filter. She gets it from me.”
I laughed. “She gets it from both of us.”
“Put him on the phone,” Eloise demanded in the background. “I want to talk to the prince!”
“She wants to talk to Christopher—absolutely not!” Vicky said.
Christopher was walking past my door toward the kitchen.
“I want to talk to the prince, why can’t I, Mommy?”
Heat crept up my neck. Christopher had stopped. He was staring at me, one brow arched perfectly.
“My niece wants to talk to you. She’s been… insisting on talking to the prince,” I said in a single breath.
His brow climbed higher. I held out the phone. He took it slowly, like a man accepting a suspicious package.
“Hello?”
I could hear Eloise’s voice, tiny and fierce. “Are you the prince?”
“You could say so?”
“Do you have a horse?”
“I don’t.”
“Do you have a castle?”
“I have a house.”
“Is it big?”
“It’s big.”
“Do you love my Auntie Miley? Because if you don’t love her, my mommy says she’ll kick your butt and my Auntie Miley is the best person in the whole world and she makes the best empanadas and if you’re mean to her I will come down there and I will—” Eloise said in one breath.
“ELOISE!” Vicky again. More rustling. The sound of a phone being wrestled from small hands.
Christopher handed the phone back to me. His expression was unreadable, but there was something at the corners of his eyes—a warmth he was working to contain.
“Do you gossip about me to your family?” he asked. “Even the five-year-old has an opinion.”
“I don’t gossip.” I denied, completely embarrassed.
“She threatened me, Miley. A kindergartener just told me she’d come for me.”
“She’s protective.”
“She’s terrifying.”
“She’s five.”
“She’s five and she has better negotiation skills than most of my board.” He paused, glancing back toward the kitchen. “Tell her I don’t have a horse. But I’m working on it.”
He walked to the kitchen. I watched him go and pressed the phone back to my ear where Vicky was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
The gala happened on Saturday. A charity event for a children’s hospital, black tie, two hundred guests.
Trisha coordinated outfits. I wore a deep green gown that Trisha and I had selected during a shopping trip that involved four stores, two arguments about necklines, and one emergency coffee break.
The gown once again made me feel like I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t, except when I came down the stairs, Christopher was in the foyer talking to Trisha, and he stopped mid-sentence.
He looked at me the way he’d looked at me on the very first staircase, at the first gala, except this time he didn’t cover it. He let it sit on his face for two full seconds, open and unguarded, and Trisha looked between us.
“I’m going to wait in the car,” she said, and left before either of us responded.
Before we walked out, he handed me a small bouquet of white peonies wrapped in brown paper.
“Trisha told me this is what husbands do,” he said.
I took them and brought them to my nose. They smelled like spring.
“Trisha’s right. Thank you.” I looked at him. “They smell wonderful.”
The gala was a performance, but a better one than before. We had a rhythm now. A shorthand. His hand on my back didn’t make me stiffen. An investor’s wife, blonde, diamonds the size of grapes, leaned toward me during cocktail hour.
“How did you two meet?” she asked, eyes bright with curiosity.
“I cooked for him,” I said. “He had a very strong reaction.”
Christopher caught my eye from across our small circle. The corner of his mouth twitched and I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing in front of a woman whose earrings could fund Sazón’s reconstruction.
He was different tonight. His words were more specific. Not the broad, camera-ready charm from the first events.
“The gown kinda matches your eyes,” he said, his hand settling at the small of my back as we moved through the crowd.
“Didn’t think you’d notice,” I murmured.
His gaze flicked to mine, steady. “I notice everything,” he said quietly, his thumb brushing once—light, almost absent-minded—against my side. “Especially you.”
Later, near the auction table, he introduced me to a group of investors.
“This is my wife, Miley. The most talented chef I’ve ever met.”
The pride in his voice didn’t sound rehearsed. One of the investors, a woman with silver hair and sharp eyes, leaned forward.
“What’s your specialty?” she asked.
I started talking about Latin fusion and Christopher watched me the way he’d always watched me when I talked about food. Full attention. Like the rest of the room had been muted and I was the only channel still broadcasting.
“What's happening? It seems you're listening to me with a lot of interest,” I asked when the investors moved on.
“Because your voice is the only thing in this room worth hearing,” he whispered against my ear.
I looked at him, blushing red. “You’re laying it on thick tonight.”
“Is it working?”
“No comment.”
“That’s a yes.”
“That’s a no comment.”
He smiled. When the quartet played a slow song, Christopher held out his hand. An invitation.
I took it because refusing would have looked strange and because, if I was being honest, I wanted to. We moved to the dance floor. His hand settled on my waist. Mine found his shoulder. He pulled me closer than I expected, and I let him. I was tired of fighting it.
“You’re a good dancer,” I said.
“You sound surprised.”
“I mean, you’re an actor. It’s expected.”
“Your rhythm is perfect too.” He turned me, slow, his hand firm on my waist, and when I came back to face him, we were closer than before.
We looked at each other. The music played. His hand was on my waist and mine was on his shoulder. Our faces were inches apart and I could see every shade of blue in his eyes. A certain shade that reminded me of distant sea horizons fading into the sky.
He was extremely handsome. A man who stayed in your thoughts longer than necessary.
The song ended. We stepped apart.
I reminded myself. Fake. All of it. The flowers, the compliments, the way he was looking at me. He was an actor. This was what he did.
Fake. Fake. Fake.
The mantra was getting harder to believe.
Halfway through the evening, I was alone near the bar while Christopher spoke with a few board members across the room. A man appeared beside me. Thirties, well-dressed, with a face that blended into a room full of wealthy people without leaving an impression.
“Mrs. Vale?” He extended his hand. “I’m James. I work with Dominic, his personal assistant.”
I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Dominic asked me to pass along a message. He’s been wanting to see you again. He really enjoyed your visit. Said your cooking was the best thing that’s happened to him in that hospital.” James smiled, pleasant and professional. “He’d love it if you could come by when you have time.”
Christopher’s face in the hospital doorway flashed through my mind—the last time I’d been near Dominic.
“That’s very kind,” I said. “Please tell Dominic I appreciate the invitation, but I’ll have to decline.”
I smiled politely and walked back toward the main room. I made it approximately twelve steps before a hand caught my elbow. Firm in a way that wasn’t aggressive but wasn’t optional either.
Christopher.
“Who was that?” His voice was casual. His eyes were not.
“Just someone saying hello.”
“About what?”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“It matters if it involves my brother.”
I looked at him. The gala carried on around us, champagne glasses clinking, the quartet playing something smooth and elegant.
“He works with Dominic,” I said. “He passed along a message. I declined. That’s it.”
“What message?”
“Christopher.”
“What message, Miley?”
“Dominic wanted to see me again. I said no. End of story.” I pulled my elbow free. “I’m an adult. I don’t have to report every conversation I have to you like you’re my handler.”
His expression didn’t change but something behind his eyes went cold. “I asked you to stay away from him.”
“And I did. I declined. I said no. What more do you want from me?”
“I want you to not be in a position where you have to decline in the first place.”
“That’s not something I can control. People talk to me, Christopher. Your brother’s assistant walked up to me. I didn’t seek him out. I didn’t arrange a meeting. I was standing there with a glass of champagne and a man said hello. That’s called existing in public.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean. And I’m telling you that you don’t get to decide who speaks to me. Not here. Not anywhere.”
We stood there. The gala continued around us like nothing was happening, which was the particular magic of expensive events. Drama could unfold three feet from someone and they’d keep sipping their champagne and discussing the auction because acknowledging it would be gauche.
“We should go. I'm done here,” Christopher said.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” he repeated.
The car ride home was silent. Christopher sat on his side. I sat on mine. The three feet of back seat between us felt like a continent.
I stared out the window. The streetlights blurred past, the city indifferent to the argument happening in the back of a town car.
The whiplash was exhausting. The warm Christopher and the cold Christopher. The man who brought me peonies and the man who treated me like a flight risk. I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t figure out which one was real, and I was starting to wonder if both of them were, and if that was better or worse.
The car pulled through the gate. Christopher opened his door before Carlos could come around. I opened mine. We walked to the front door in silence, side by side, not touching. He unlocked it and held it open. I walked past him without looking at his face.
“Miley.”
“Goodnight, Christopher.”
“Can we talk about—”
“Goodnight.”
I walked to my room and closed the door.
I didn’t slam it, because slamming would have meant I cared, and I was trying very hard to pretend I didn’t.
My chest ached, my eyes were burning, and the evening had gone from the best night of the contract to the worst in the space of twelve steps and one elbow grab.
I changed into pajamas. Washed my face. Brushed my teeth. Did all the normal nighttime things that normal people do when they’re not in love with their contract husband and fighting with him about his brother’s assistant at a charity gala.
I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up. Then closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
I was halfway there when my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
My eyes snapped open. Unknown number. A text message.
The message was two lines long.