Chapter 16
KATE
The day after I’d handed Nate my terms, I skipped work. It wasn’t like me at all, but after everything that had happened, I decided I deserved one free pass to process the absolute disaster my life had turned into.
At six thirty that morning, I was still curled under my comforter when I shot off an email to Nate.
Me: Taking a personal day. No, I will not be elaborating. Do not ask.
I hit send, then rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling until the weight pressing against my ribs eased just enough to make breathing feel possible.
Yesterday’s conversation with Nate had gone better than I’d thought it might, but we were far from reaching an understanding.
I also didn’t know if we would ever get closer.
Everything I’d thought I knew was different now. This week, normal was suddenly in my rearview and I somehow had to find a way to be okay with that.
The ceiling offered no answers, and by eight, I grabbed my laptop and did the only thing that made sense. I searched for a salon nearby with impeccable reviews, looking for the kind of place that promised to perform the miracle of emotional triage via professional hair care.
I found one fifteen minutes away that claimed to service high-profile clients and had photos of glossy, flawless blow-outs that looked like therapy in the form of keratin. In other words, it seemed perfect. I booked immediately.
When I arrived, soft music hummed through the space, the gleaming chrome and marble surfaces instantly soothing me. Between that and the scent of quality conditioner wafting through the air, I finally felt like I could breathe again.
Nothing messy or painful could possibly exist inside these walls. Being here might not change the fact that I had to marry a man I barely knew, who couldn’t stand me, and was very possibly in love with someone else, but shit.
At least I could relax for a while and emerge looking prettier than I felt. It’s definitely a just-feed-me-and-tell-me-I’m-pretty kind of day.
An hour later, I sat under a dryer with my hair pinned into neat rollers, staring at my reflection in the mirror. I barely registered the stylist lowering the hood over my head before another chair slid beside mine.
“Kate?”
I turned as much as I could, startled that someone in here other than my stylist knew my name. Jane sat down next to me, a cape already draped around her and her sleek hair pinned back while her stylist sectioned it with efficient precision.
For a second, I just blinked at her, unable to believe that she was really here. Of all the things I hated about my impending marriage, gaining Jane Westwood as a sister-in-law was the one thing I wasn’t sad about.
She was formidable, smart, and friendly, a very successful businesswoman in her own right, and by all accounts, one as driven as I was. These last few days, I’d often found myself wondering how someone like her had ended up married to Alex.
Right now, I believed that guy deserved to be dragged behind a moving vehicle for recreational purposes. Preferably over rocks and through muddy puddles. But I digress.
“Jane,” I said slowly once I’d decided the hallucination had lasted long enough that she was probably real and I was just being rude right now, staring at her like she was a mirage. “Hi.”
She smiled. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Yeah, I needed a little pick-me-up and found the place online.”
Her gaze met mine in the mirror, her expression soft but concerned. “I heard what’s happening and I meant to reach out anyway, so I’m glad I ran into you.”
I stiffened, instinctively bracing for her to either judge me for agreeing to it or to start talking wedding like we were suddenly besties, but she did neither of those things.
For a quick second, she looked around, but her stylist had gone off somewhere and there was no one else within easy earshot.
Still, she leaned closer and lowered her voice before bringing her gaze back to mine. “Look, I realize we don’t know each other very well, but I understand how you’re feeling right now.”
Oh, I doubt that, I thought, but it hadn’t even fully formed yet when she gave me a knowing smile. “I married Alex to save my company too, Kate, so I really do get what you’re going through.”
My brain stalled. “You, what?”
“Yep. Your situation isn’t as unique as you probably think. In this family, it’s not unique at all, actually, but it’s not that weird in many others either. Mine being one of those.”
I shifted in my chair, trying to process what she’d said while the dryer hummed overhead. Finally, I just sighed. “Well, at least it makes sense now. I didn’t understand how anyone would marry Alex voluntarily.”
Jane snorted softly, which startled me almost as much as her confession. “I didn’t like him much at the beginning either. Actually, that’s an understatement. I thought he was arrogant, infuriating, and much too comfortable throwing his weight around in negotiations.”
“That sounds about right,” I said. “So how did you end up married to him and looking happy about it?”
“My uncle is a freaking beach bum who nearly sold my company out from under me for a quick payout. All he wanted was to keep funding his life’s goal of consuming as many cocktails with little umbrellas in them as possible.”
I winced and Jane nodded emphatically. “Unfortunately, he was the CEO of Thayer at the time. You know, because I was a woman, so I couldn’t possibly be trusted with so much responsibility. I would’ve lost everything if Alex hadn’t stepped in.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, he stepped in? He forced you to marry him.”
“God, no.” Her eyes widened. “In our case, we needed the votes on the Thayer board so Westwood and Sons could acquire the company instead of it being butchered and sold off in pieces. I didn’t necessarily like the guy, but I worked way too hard to take control of that company to just let my uncle tear it apart. ”
“I know what you mean,” I said thoughtfully, then focused on her again. “I just find it hard to believe that Alex Westwood is somehow the good guy in all this.”
Jane snorted softly, but she managed to do even that elegantly. “Trust me, I found it pretty hard to believe myself, but he refused to let the other sale happen. He pretty much bet the farm just so I wouldn’t lose everything.”
I frowned. “That sounds uncharacteristically noble.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she said dryly. “Our marriage came with plenty of benefits to his company too. I mean, Thayer Steelworks? I’m making him a killing.”
“I can imagine, but you also look really happy with him now. That’s what’s puzzling me.”
“I am happy. It’s ridiculous for a person to be as happy as I am with Alex. Seriously, it should be criminal, but at first?” She exhaled slowly. “I was furious. Miserable. Suspicious. I kept waiting for him to prove every terrible assumption I had about him.”
“But?”
She met my gaze in the mirror. “It didn’t take long to figure out he wasn’t who I thought he was.”
Something in her tone shifted, becoming softer and so much dreamier than it was, almost like just talking about him had given her a personality transplant right before my very eyes. I groaned, my head shaking as I tried to imagine ending up like this when I talked about Nate.
Yeah, that’s never going to happen.
“Do you ever regret saying yes?” I asked after a brief pause. “What I mean is, it’s pretty obvious that you’re totally in love with him, but I can’t get past how you started.”
“I’ve regretted the lack of choice,” she said. “I’ve never regretted the outcome, because here’s the thing. Maybe it starts a little unconventionally.”
I gave her a look and she cracked a smile.
“Okay, a lot unconventionally, but as I got to know him, I realized that somehow, I ended up accidentally arranging to marry my soulmate. Truly. I’m not just saying it to make myself feel better about what we did.
Alex is, in every way, the partner I was meant to go through life with. ”
My chest tightened to a squeeze. “I don’t even know where to start with this. It feels like I’m signing away my life as if it’s just another transaction.”
“I know,” she said gently. “What you probably haven’t considered is that you may just be walking into something you don’t understand yet, but is going to turn out to be the very best decision you’ve ever made.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” she agreed easily. “But I know the family. And I know Nate. And I know that you’re very lucky it’s him.”
“I am?” I sure as hell didn’t feel it.
The dryer clicked as the heat cycle shifted, warm air brushing against my scalp. I swallowed, unsure whether her words comforted me or made everything more complicated.
She studied me for another moment in the mirror before she nodded. “You might not know him very well yet, but he’s a great guy. He always has been.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “You say that like you’ve known him since childhood.”
“Pretty much,” she said with a small shrug.
“To be honest, I didn’t know them personally before all this.
Before my father’s arrest, my family snubbed theirs, and after, obviously, we’d fallen so far from grace that they probably forgot we existed, but I grew up in Chicago and even though it feels like I spent most of my life away at college, you don’t live around here without knowing at least a little bit about them. ”
“And?”
“And trust me, if we’re ranking the Westwood boys as potential husbands, Nate is objectively the best, safest bet.”
I snorted before I could stop myself, not sounding nearly as elegant as she had. “They should put that as a tagline on the brochure.”
She laughed softly. “I’m serious. While Alex is absolutely the love of my life, I probably would’ve been happy settling with Nate, too.”
My gut kicked and rebelled, and it didn’t take me more than a second to recognize what I was feeling right now as jealousy, which was absurd, so I just kept quiet. God forbid she or anyone else found out how weirdly protective and possessive I’d occasionally started feeling about my future husband.
“He’s the kindest of the bunch,” she said, happily oblivious to the jealous rage simmering deep within me. “He’s steady and thoughtful. He’s probably the only one of them who actually listens instead of just waiting for his turn to talk. He’s the best. Really.”
I shifted under the dryer, heat brushing against my scalp as discomfort prickled along my spine. “Are you just trying to sell me on this?”
Jane shrugged, entirely unapologetic. “Maybe, but I’m not lying. I know that it’s terrifying. It feels like you’re being shoved off a cliff without checking for rocks first. I get that, but it’s going to be okay. The Westwood men make shockingly good husbands. I promise.”
I stared at her, unsure whether I wanted to laugh, cry, or crawl out of the chair and sprint into traffic. But a question fell out of me before I’d even thought about asking it, let alone thought about stopping it from coming out.
“Do you know Nate’s girlfriend?”
Her eyebrows tugged together instantly. “His what?”
“His girlfriend,” I repeated. “I’m honestly worried about it.”
“Kate,” she said slowly, like she was trying to translate a complicated phrase in a forgotten language. “What are you talking about?”
I swallowed, my fingers tightening in the fabric of the salon cape. “I’m worried for him. If he is as loyal, kind, and thoughtful as you think he is, then he’s going to give her up for this. For me. Because he’ll feel like he has to.”
Jane’s confusion deepened into something bordering on astonishment. “Okay, yeah. If he had a girlfriend, I’m sure he would’ve broken up with her now that he’s getting married, but Nate is chronically single.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I’m serious. No one has even seen him talk to a woman in years. Not regularly anyway.”
The dryer hummed, suddenly seeming louder as it filled the startled silence between us. When I eventually managed to speak again, my voice came out thin. “That can’t be right.”
Jane turned fully toward me now. “Nate’s entire existence has basically been about pressure to get married. If he had a girlfriend, it would be headline news at every dinner.”
I stared at my reflection, my brain scrambling to rearrange my recent memories. “He told me…”
Jane waited as I trailed off, but I finally just shook my head. “I must have misheard him. Or misunderstood what he was saying or something.”
But even as I said it, the memory of that conversation flickered clearly through my mind, his admission that he was seeing someone. Why would he keep it a secret that he has a girlfriend?
Clearly, however, his family didn’t know. I assumed that if he’d told anyone, it would’ve been Alex. Those two seemed to speak privately several times a day, and from what I’d both heard and witnessed, they kept each other updated constantly.
If Nate had told Alex, I was sure Alex would’ve told Jane, but her stylist had reappeared and she looked completely satisfied with the explanation that I must’ve misunderstood. Like there was absolutely no way Nate could be seeing someone.
This is so weird. If Nate does have a woman in his life, why don’t they know, and more importantly, why the heck isn’t he just marrying her?