Chapter 3
Three
Absolutely Not
Kelly
I made it exactly four minutes after Xerses walked back inside before I decided I either needed to leave or commit a felony in front of his entire family.
Possibly both.
I stood out on the terrace long enough for the cold Atlantic air to stop feeling refreshing and start feeling personal.
My hands were shaking. My face was hot. My body was still doing the deeply offensive thing where it remembered every second of him standing too close and talking in that low, precise voice like he had any right to make my pulse do that.
He’d publicly claimed me.
He taken the most humiliating pressure point in my life and turned it into a move on a board or something like that.
But the worst part?
Was me.
For one blazing second out there on the terrace, when he’d said he hadn’t liked the way they were looking at me, some rotten, traitorous part of me had melted.
Not all the way.
I still wanted to knee him in a critical region.
But enough.
Enough that I was furious with him and myself.
I went back inside before Roxanne sent out a search party.
The foyer was quieter than the dining room had been, but not by much.
The house was still alive around me. Staff moving smoothly in and out of rooms. Distant laughter.
The clink of glass. Voices carrying from farther down one of the wings.
The place always felt like it had a pulse, too many people, too much affection, too much money, too much life.
Tonight it felt like a trap wrapped in silk rugs.
Hope caught me first.
She came around the corner holding two little desserts on a plate and stopped dead the second she saw my face.
“Oh,” she said.
“Yep.”
She lowered the plate slowly. “I thought you two were working things out?”
I stared at her. “Your idea of working anything out and mine are very different.”
“Oh no. We wanted you to be happy,” she repeated faintly.
I started toward the front door. “I’m leaving.”
“What? No. You can’t leave. That makes it weird.”
“It is weird, Hope.”
“Yes, but if you leave right now it becomes weird-weird.”
I stopped with my hand on the foyer table and looked at her. “He told his entire family I’m with him.”
She winced. “I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
Her mouth opened, closed. “Okay. Tell me.”
I pressed my fingers to my forehead. “I cannot stay here and let your friend group romance addiction with these billionaire men swallow me whole. I’m not doing it.”
Hope set the desserts down and came closer. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
I laughed once. “That sentence has never once been true in the history of romance for any of you so why would I be different.”
“Okay, yes, but-”
“No.”
She reached for my arm. “Kelly-”
“I need to go before Maman gets me alone and starts asking whether I drink my tea with one sugar cube or two, because I know what comes after that. It’s wedding china. Or grandchildren. Or both.”
Hope choked on a laugh she clearly shouldn’t have found funny.
I glared at her.
“Sorry,” she said, not looking sorry enough. “I’m sorry. I get it. The pressure is a lot. I introduced everyone to everyone.”
“That is not comforting.”
“I know, but you do like him. It’s clear.”
The front door opened before I could answer.
Britney stepped into the foyer from outside, Michael right behind her. One look at my face and her whole expression sharpened.
“There you are,” she said.
“Please don’t say it like I’ve escaped from somewhere.”
“You have.”
Michael closed the door behind them and looked between us in silence. Tall, composed and still somehow less intimidating than Britney when she was in one of these moods.
Hope abandoned me instantly. “I’m going back in there before Roxanne notices this entire side of the house is empty.”
“Coward,” I muttered.
“Correct.” She scooped up the desserts and vanished.
Britney crossed her arms. “You’re not driving home angry.”
“I’m not driving home angry. I’m driving home homicidal.”
“Close enough.”
“I’m fine.”
Michael looked at me. “That, in my experience, is usually a lie.”
“See?” Britney pointed at him. “British nobility agrees with me.”
“I don’t think that’s what makes his opinion valid,” I said.
“It should be.”
“I am leaving.”
Britney took a breath like she was deciding whether to fight me here or later. “Not until you calm down.”
“Then we’ll be here until Christmas.”
Michael’s mouth twitched.
I turned to him. “This isn’t funny.”
“No,” he said mildly. “It’s not.”
That took enough of the wind out of me that I stopped reaching for the door.
Britney noticed because she noticed everything.
“Come to the library,” she said.
I looked at Michael.
He spread one hand. “You could, of course, ignore her. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
I hated that they were both right.
Britney shut the door behind us while Michael stayed in the hallway.
I paced.
Britney watched me.
“You want to tell me what happened on the terrace?” she asked.
“He happened on the terrace.”
“Then answer.”
I stopped pacing and looked at her. “He said he didn’t like the way they were looking at me.”
Britney was still.
And God, I was tired enough and lonely enough and angry enough tonight that that sentence of his felt like an answer to a prayer.
“And what did you say?”
I closed my eyes. “A good start.” But then I shook my head. I’d wanted to kiss him, but I wasn’t about to throw myself at him for one nice thing. Then I told her, “I also told him to go to hell.”
“Better.”
I dragged both hands through my hair. “He is so calm. It’s infuriating. He says insane things in this voice like he’s discussing weather patterns. Like he didn’t, ” I broke off and made an angry, useless gesture. “I don’t even know what he did.”
“You know exactly what he did.”
I looked at her.
“He saw an opening,” she said bluntly. “He took control of the room.”
“It wasn’t about the room.”
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”
I sat down because my legs were unreliable. “It’s about controlling me.”
Britney’s expression changed the slightest bit.
“Yes.” She put her hand on her hip. “Because it sounded to me like you think he’s already getting exactly what he wants.”
Except he never wanted me. He’d not been interested in all this time.
Britney came over and sat in the chair opposite mine, leaning forward, forearms on her knees. “Kelly, listen to me. Men like Xerses are dangerous specifically because they’re not sloppy.”
Heat crawled up my neck again.
“Men like Xerses,” I repeated.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s a man who’s used to being obeyed.”
My laugh came out ugly. “I’m not exactly an obedience kink in a sundress.”
Britney’s mouth flattened. “Don’t joke through this.”
I shut up.
She held my gaze until I actually let myself feel the seriousness under her words.
“When Michael told me about him,” she said, quieter now, “he didn’t describe some cartoon villain. He described a man who likes control because it keeps things simple. Women who want what he can buy. Women who know the terms. Women who won’t ask for anything deeper.”
The room felt warmer all of a sudden. I looked down at my hands.
“He’d know I’m not that type of girl. He’s known for years,” I said after a second, because apparently I was committed to skidding around my own feelings with humor until I died. “Or maybe he needs therapy.”
Britney huffed out a tiny laugh despite herself. “That’s not wrong.”
“Maybe I should move to another state or sell real estate upstate.”
“Also not wrong.”
I looked back up at her. “Except the prospects in Manhattan and Virgin Cove are much more lucrative.”
That made something twist low in my chest as she stared at me.
“Wait. You think he’d hurt me?” I asked.
Britney’s face went still. “I think men can hurt women without meaning to if they’re too used to thinking their wants are the center of the room.”
That landed harder than everything else.
A man who did what he wanted because he was built that way. A man who didn’t even notice the damage until someone else had to carry it.
God.
I hated how much that sounded like every small disappointment I’d ever breathed and joked away.
I stood up too fast. “I need to go.”
Britney rose too. “I’ll walk you out.”
“I know how doors work.”
“Humor me.”
Michael straightened from the hallway wall when we opened the library door.
He looked at Britney first. Then me.
Michael’s gaze moved back to my face and sharpened a fraction. “Do you want someone to follow you home?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re upset. It’s late.”
I stared at him for one stupid second before I realized he was serious.
And because I was already running on humiliation, anger, and a wildly inconvenient amount of adrenaline, I laughed.
“Your husband just offered me a security escort because he thinks suddenly there is something to worry about?”
Britney gave me a look. Michael said dryly, “I’m very flattered to be recognized, but no I don’t think driving without a groomsman-”
I rubbed my forehead. “No. Thank you. I can drive myself fifteen minutes on a straight rode without collapsing into the sea.”
“Eighteen,” Michael said.
I stared at him.
He shrugged. “Traffic through town.”
“Good night, Michael.”
“Good night, Kelly.”
Britney walked me all the way to my car anyway. The night had gone cooler but the long quiet drive lined with lanterns and expensive landscaping and the sort of confidence only old money or violently new money ever managed.
At my car, she touched my arm. “Don’t answer him tonight.”
I stilled. “You think he’ll text me?”
“I think men like Xerses always think the conversation isn’t over when they still want control of the ending.”
That was such a Britney sentence I almost smiled but I looked back.
“You are not behind,” she said. “And you are not some sad woman waiting for a man to notice you. Do you understand me?”
My throat tightened so fast it hurt. I swallowed then nodded.
She didn’t look convinced. “Say it back.”
I almost told her to leave, but instead I said, “I’m not behind.”
“And?”