Chapter 20
For several seconds, all I can do is blink and gawk. This can’t be real, right? My ex-mother-in-law isn’t actually standing in a crowded plaza in Portugal a dozen feet away from me. She lives more than a thousand miles from here, and she’s never, not once, mentioned ever traveling to Portugal in the time that I’ve known her.
Maybe in this timeline she lives in Portugal now?
I shake my head as I look at her. Or maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe that’s someone else who looks like her.
I look away for a few seconds to let my vision reset. When I turn my gaze back on her, there’s no mistake. Those are her blue-gray eyes, reminiscent of storm clouds. That’s the same murderous, unmistakable scowl that she’s trained on me a million times before.
I almost laugh. The universe has got to be fucking with me.
The waiter stops by to clear our empty plates, and I try to refocus on my lunch with Daniela.
The waiter asks her something in Portuguese, and she looks at me. “Should we order dessert?”
I smile and nod, hoping that I don’t look as shocked as I feel. Given how we’re sitting, Daniela’s back is to Portia, so she can’t currently see her. We’ve had such a nice time so far, I don’t want to ruin it by mentioning that my former mother-in-law—who is also Daniela’s sister-in-law and who has treated her cruelly—is somehow standing just a dozen feet away from us, looking like she wants to murder me.
“You choose,” I tell Daniela. “I like anything with sugar.”
She chuckles and skims the small paper menu the waiter hands her. “I won’t let you down.”
I gulp my water and use the lull in conversation to look back over at Portia. It’s too late to ignore her, to pretend that I didn’t see her. We’re both fully aware that the other is right there. Now I just need to figure out what the hell to do. Do we leave this as a silent standoff? Do I go over there and tell her exactly what I think of her, something I’ve been dying to do for the past three years?
“Riley, is something wrong?”
I look at Daniela and shake my head. “Um, no. Sorry, just got distracted for a second by some people that walked by.”
She chuckles. “That’s why I love dining outdoors. People watching is always so fun.”
Her phone buzzes with a text. “Pardon me for a moment,” she says before typing furiously on her screen.
“Of course, take your time.”
“Actually, I should just call them back. It’s work. Sorry, one second.”
I tell her no problem. She gets up to talk on the phone.
When I glance back up at Portia, I notice she watches as Daniela walks off. Portia frowns, like she’s worried Daniela will see her. As soon as Daniela disappears inside the restaurant, the expression on Portia’s face eases. When she turns back to me, she’s frowning once more. A strange sort of calm washes over me. We can definitely leave this nonverbal interaction at that. Or I can be bold and actually walk over to her. And talk to her. I have plenty to say.
Before I have the time to talk myself out of it, I’m standing in front of Portia. To my surprise, her scowl has morphed into shock, like she can’t believe I actually did that.
“Hi, Portia.”
Her eyes widen the slightest bit, like she’s shocked I’m even speaking.
She clears her throat. “Hello, Riley.”
“What are you doing here?”
She leans back slightly, clearly put off by the straightforwardness of my question, how I’ve skipped any and all niceties. It’s so unlike how I used to speak to her when I was with her son. Our conversations were loaded with meaningless comments about the weather and traffic and other things that neither one of us gave a shit about; we just didn’t like each other and couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Portia says curtly. “You’re having lunch with Daniela. My sister-in-law.”
There’s a small pause before she says “sister-in-law.” Like she’s not sure she has the right to say it. It makes sense. Based on everything I know about Portia and what Daniela has told me, they’re not close at all. They don’t even like each other. They’re relatives in name only.
“Things with you and Milo must be going quite well.” Her tone is clipped. It makes me flinch.
Clearly Portia is pissed to see me with Daniela, probably because it means my relationship after splitting up with Tristan is good. It shouldn’t surprise me that she wouldn’t like to see me happy after divorcing her son.
A familiar defensiveness courses through me. The muscles in my neck and shoulders go rigid with the urge to defend myself and Milo. But I stop myself before I can say anything. She’s not part of my life anymore. I don’t owe her anything, not even an explanation.
“What are you doing here, Portia?” I ask again.
Her eyes widen slightly at the bluntness of my tone. And the fact that I so blatantly ignored her dig about my relationship with Milo.
She clears her throat and crosses her arms. “That’s really none of your business, Riley.”
When I chuckle, she frowns once more.
“You’re right. It’s not.” What was I thinking, coming over to talk to Portia? That we’d have a pleasant conversation? There’s no use in me sticking around for more.
I’m about to turn away and walk off when a handsome fortysomething man walks up to us. He turns to Portia and scoops her hand in his. Her gaze turns horrified as she focuses on their joined hands.
“ Meu amor. Who’s your lovely friend?”
My eyes go wide as I take in the sight of them. Holy shit. Is this Portia’s boyfriend? Is she ... cheating on Tristan’s dad?
The man presses a kiss to her lips, which earns him a wide-eyed stare from Portia. She quickly pulls away, breaking their kiss.
He chuckles. “What’s the problem, meu amor ? You don’t want to hold my hand or kiss me? You did a minute ago.” He slinks his tan arm around her waist and nuzzles the side of her neck. “You’re sick of me already?”
Portia closes her eyes and inhales, like she’s digging into her inner well of patience. “Alejandro, can you, um, give us a moment? There’s something I need to speak to my friend about.”
“Of course, meu amor .”
He leaves her with a kiss before extending his hand to me. It takes me a second before I register what he’s doing. I’m too shocked at the scene of this PDA-obsessed charmer all over frigid Portia Chase.
“I’m Riley,” I say as I go to shake his hand, but he pulls my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to my knuckles.
“Delighted to meet you, lovely Riley.”
My cheeks burn, and I can’t tell if it’s from the shock of such a romantic gesture from a stranger, or if it’s because I can feel Portia’s death glare on me for capturing her lover’s interest for a fleeting second.
When he walks off, I check out her ring finger. Her diamond wedding band is still there.
I look at her. “Are you cheating? Or did you and Tristan’s dad split up and you just haven’t removed the hardware yet?”
Portia Chase does something she’s never done in the years that I’ve known her. She hesitates. When she opens her mouth, she makes a stammering noise. Her eyebrows crash together, creating a pained look on her face. I’ve never seen her make that expression before.
“I’m cheating,” she finally says. I can tell it takes a lot out of her to say those two words. She looks like she’s in actual physical pain.
I don’t say anything at first. I just nod and say “okay” as casually as if someone has just told me that it’s going to be chilly this evening, so I should wear a jacket.
Her jaw goes tight as she crosses her arms over her chest. She glances down at her shiny black kitten heels. A transformation is occurring. Her shoulders slump forward. So does her head. Her posture sinks from its usual “straight as an arrow” stance. It’s like she’s trying to hide inside herself. Like she’s ashamed and embarrassed at what she just admitted to me.
“Weston cheats on me all the time. He always has,” she finally says. She looks up at me, and I take in the misty look in her eyes. She’s sad. She’s heartbroken. She’s ashamed.
For the first time ever, I feel something other than annoyance and anger at Portia. I feel pity.
“I didn’t know that,” I say softly. “I’m sorry.”
She blinks like she can’t believe what I’ve just said. She glances off in the distance, where Alejandro is standing, smoking a cigarette in front of some building that boasts ornate stone carvings and an exterior that looks like swirled marble. He catches eyes with Portia and grins, then hooks his thumb at the nearby entrance. Two cherubs flank either side of the carved-wood double doors. He laughs, then makes a kissing face at her, and she chuckles softly. I almost stumble back. That’s the most genuine, joyful noise I’ve ever heard her make.
“I suppose years of watching my husband go behind my back finally took its toll. So I decided some months ago, why not let myself have something on the side,” she says quietly when she turns back to me. “I was away on holiday in Majorca, and a handsome man chatted me up in a bar one night. I figured it would be okay if I flirted back a bit. But we really got on. More than I thought we would.”
A million questions swirl in my head. How long has Portia known that her husband has been cheating on her? Why don’t they get divorced? Will she leave her husband for Alejandro? Is this why Tristan cheated on me, because he saw his dad do it to her?
That last one stings, even just to think about. But I swallow back those questions. Because like Portia said, it’s none of my business.
“I bet you find this quite satisfying,” she says. The comment catches me off guard.
“Excuse me?”
She purses her lips and crosses her arms, as if to prepare a defense against me. “Having this to hold against me,” she says. “Especially after how I treated you. This must feel rather good, to know that you could use this against me if you wanted to.”
She glances at Alejandro. I catch a glimpse of worry in her stare. When she looks back at me, it’s gone. “It would be so easy for you to ruin me, Riley, now that you’ve seen me—seen us . You could tell Daniela. It wouldn’t take long for the news to work its way through the family.”
I wait for satisfaction to hit, but it doesn’t. The thought of ruining Portia or telling Daniela or anyone about her affair doesn’t thrill me. I feel uncomfortable at even entertaining the thought. It feels petty. And vengeful. And I don’t want to be like that, even to Portia.
I look at her. “Yeah. I guess I could. But I’m not going to.”
Her pink-shellacked lips part, like she’s waiting for the catch.
“I’m glad you found someone who makes you happy,” I say instead of whatever cruel thing she expects me to say.
Portia scoffs and shakes her head.
When she opens her mouth, I brace myself for a thinly veiled insult or a dismissive remark.
“I never liked you, Riley. That’s no secret.”
I almost laugh at how perfectly I predicted that.
“I know you didn’t like me either,” she says.
“You’re right. I didn’t. It was hard to like you when you made underhanded comments about my ethnicity and my job and how I was never good enough for your son or your family.”
Her brow raises the slightest bit, like she wasn’t expecting me to lay it all out like that.
“Right.” She clears her throat. “That’s why it’s quite surprising that you’d choose to be so kind to me in this moment. Especially after that disastrous dinner at Tristan’s pub.”
It takes a second before I register what she’s talking about. She means that dinner —the incident that Nesta mentioned.
The fire.
I want to ask her what happened, to tell me everything. But I don’t. I’ll find out soon enough.
I refocus. “It’s easy to choose kindness when you’re happy.” I sound like a fortune cookie. “It’s easier now that I don’t have to see you or deal with you anymore.”
If I had run into Portia right after seeing Tristan with Carly for the first time, I would have definitely yelled at her and told her to fuck off. And if I had seen her with her paramour, I’d have been tempted to snap photos of them and forward them to everyone in my contacts list out of sheer vengeance.
But I don’t have the urge or the energy to do any of that. The truth is I don’t care about Portia enough to do anything to her, good or bad.
She nods at what I’ve said. “That makes sense.”
A quiet moment passes where we stand there and say nothing. Around us people walk and eat and chatter and laugh and take photos.
“You can keep the flat.”
It takes me a second to understand what she means. But then it registers: she means the flat I currently live in, the flat that used to be Tristan’s—the flat that she and her husband gave him all those years ago. The flat that’s now devoid of any of Tristan’s remnants and possessions. The flat that I now share with Milo, that’s filled with a mix of cute and tacky knickknacks that I’ve grown to love in reverse.
The flat that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I ended up with since it was never mine to begin with.
“I won’t go after it—go after you —anymore.” She speaks quietly, like she doesn’t want anyone around us hearing that she’s conceding a piece of her family’s prized property to her harlot ex-daughter-in-law.
The missing puzzle pieces in my mind slowly come together. Portia was likely pissed that I kept the flat when Tristan and I broke up, and probably urged him to fight like hell to get it back. But now that I’ve discovered her dirty little secret—her affair—she’s giving up on fighting me for it.
I stare at her, taking in how different she looks. She’s no longer the unflappable ice queen I knew when I was with her son. I see the pain and shame in her eyes. I see the worry in her frown, in the lines that flank her pursed lips.
For the first time ever, she’s not looking down on me, despising me, loathing me.
For the first time ever, she’s the one seeking approval from me.
“I can’t say this feels like a win, Portia. Or that it even feels good.”
She frowns. “What do you mean? You’re getting a very nice home out of this ... situation.”
“All I ever wanted was for you to like me.”
I’m surprised that the words come out of my mouth. And the lump that suddenly forms in my throat. Portia looks shocked. But it can’t be all that surprising, can it? That’s all anyone wants when they’re in a relationship—to be liked by their partner’s family.
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She gazes off to the side and shakes her head—like she’s giving up, like she can’t think of another word to say. And that’s when I know: I’ll never get an apology from Portia Chase. I’ll never get any of the things I needed from her. Acceptance, warmth, respect. She doesn’t even have those for herself. Why would I expect her to have them for me?
A flat in Marylebone is the best I’ll ever get out of my former mother-in-law. I should take it.
“Thanks for the flat.” My tone is borderline sarcastic; I don’t owe her thanks for anything.
She nods anyway.
“Bye, Portia.”
She looks the slightest bit jolted when I say it. But I don’t have to stand here any longer—I don’t have to be around Portia anymore.
“Bye, Riley.”
She walks off, and I head back to the table. There’s a small bowl of what looks like rice pudding and a trio of flaky pastries with what looks like burned custard in the centers.
I dig my spoon into the rice pudding right as Daniela returns.
“I’m so sorry about that. Work call.” She makes an annoyed sound.
“Everything okay?”
“No, but it’s not my problem. I took the day off. How’s the arroz doce ?” she asks.
“So yummy. Like a cinnamony rice pudding.”
We dig in together. She tells me the trio of flaky pastries with custard centers are called pastéis de nata .
“It’s probably too much, isn’t it? Four desserts?”
I see Portia and Alejandro walk off in the distance hand in hand. None of those old feelings—annoyance, anger, hurt—are anywhere to be found. It’s like I’m watching a stranger. I feel nothing.
I look back at Daniela, at her warm expression, at how she smiles when she looks at me. Inside I feel a surge of emotion. I’m happy. And grateful.
“Not at all. This is perfect.”